Here is my recount of my trip to South Africa. I hope you
all enjoy. If you need to get in contact with me, please e-mail me at mattsphillips@cox.net
Before we start, I need to give a special S/O to the 289 pageviews
that mattinindonesia.blogspot.com has had from Ukraine. To all my peeps in
Ukraine, I see you.
My trip to Cape Town started on Friday 3 October. That was
the last day of Term 1 and it was our class’ excursion day (field trip). We
went to a place in South Jakarta where they had different outdoor activities
set up. Students could do flying fox, tubing, teamwork activities, and walking
along a tightrope. The students enjoyed themselves and got a little dirty.
When the students sat down for lunch, I got in a taxi and
headed for the airport. My flight left Jakarta at 4pm so I had to duck out on
the excursion a little early.
My flight to Bangkok was the first time I flew Garuda
Indonesia. It was really solid. Recently, I saw an article on cnn.com that
ranked the Top 10 airlines for 2014 and Garuda was on there (9th if
I remember correctly). I watched “Chef” with John Favreau on that flight. I
thought it was incredible. Highly recommend it if you haven’t seen it.
My layover in Bangkok was about 4 hours. Next up was a 7ish
hour flight to Nairobi, Kenya on Kenya Airlines. I got very lucky on this
flight. I was the only person in the middle row of a 3-3-3 lineup and got to
lie down and sleep for a solid 5 hours during the flight. It was glorious. I
started “Million Dollar Arm” towards the end of the flight. Don’t recommend.
There was a very light crowd (to put it nicely) on the
flight from Nairobi to Johannesburg. The coolest part of that flight was the
with the in-flight map system we could see that we were right next to Mt.
Kilimanjaro. I walked to the other side of the plane (that’s how empty it was)
and, sure enough, there it was. Pretty cool that I’ve been able to see Mt.
Everest and Mt. Kilimanjaro now on back-to-back trips.
I had a few hours in the Joburg airport to just walk around.
I was roughly 24 hours deep into travel at this point and was just ready to get
to Cape Town.
After a one hour, 45 minute flight, I was in Cape Town.
David lives in Stellenbosch which is about a 30-45 minute drive outside of Cape
Town. I got to his place around 8:30pm. It was so great to see him again. It
had been over 2 years and, as great as South Africa was shaping up to be, I was
just looking forward to hanging with my buddy.
That night we had dinner at his place, a great pasta and
olive dish, compliments of one of his friends.
(a couple of the many good people I met on the trip)
At his place* that night, we
hung out for a while before going out.
*David is living with a great guy named Ian. Ian will be
mentioned a lot in this post. I have randomly met a lot of good people while
traveling, but Ian is easily the best. I have so much respect for that man.
One comment that David said that night that stood out to me
was, “I’m no small boy.” During my week in South Africa I got a glimpse into
their culture and one thing that stood out was the macho mentality of the
males. If you call someone out or claim that they are not “champion”… oh man,
it’s on.
We went to a pool hall that night and enjoyed some good
conversation.
(#backlikeweneverleft)
****
The next day was Sunday and David and Ian had a special day
planned for me. I still had not really seen much of Cape Town or the
surrounding area.
The first place that they took me was one of the townships,
Gugulethu. This place was like nothing I had ever seen before. It was a very
poor area that was strictly black.
David told me that I have no idea how lucky I am that I was
able to do this. He said 0% of tourists, not 1%, 0% of tourists get to
experience* what I did on this Sunday afternoon. This was the type of place
where they told me to stick $20 for food and beverage in my pocket and leave
everything else at home. I did as they said.
*The only reason we were able to do this is because of Ian.
Ian is a fascinating man. He grew the son of wealthy business people bouncing
between Cape Town and the New York City area. When he was a teenager he decided
to rent a flat in the townships and learn the local language, Xhosa. English and
Afrikaans (very similar to Dutch) are the two most common languages associated
with South Africa, but the local language that the natives speak is Xhosa.
Xhosa is a language that incorporates three of the clicking sounds that are
stereotyped with African languages. It was fascinating to hear his story and
the fact that he is fluent. Apparently, that just doesn’t happen there.
Anyway, we went to a couple different places for beverages
throughout the day but the biggest party we went to was this giant tent party
that had maybe 400-500 people inside all drinking, eating, and listening to
music. Once we had a couple beverages ourselves, we hit the dance floor. It was
so much fun. It was just a massive block party where everyone was enjoying
themselves.
But. You could feel it in the air. I don’t know what “it”
is, but it was there. Gugs (the nickname it was constantly referred to as) is
one of the most dangerous places on the earth that isn’t a war zone. That’s how
it was described to me and from the stories I heard, I believe it.
While dancing, the most epic song at the most epic time came
on.
I don’t know if I’ve ever been so turnt.
After enjoying a cultural experience in the townships, we
got in the car and headed to Camps Bay to see the super wealthy part of Cape
Town.
We walked along the beach and saw a beautiful sunset.
(Lion's Head from Camps Bay)
It was
a gorgeous area – completely different than what I had seen that afternoon*.
*Not that what I had seen that afternoon wasn’t beautiful,
it was just a complete 180.
We had a lovely dinner that night (I ate real good in South Africa) and wrapped
up a crazy first day in the Rainbow Nation.
****
Monday morning meant that David had to work for a couple
hours.
(the outside of David and Ian's place)
(Stellenbosch University is gorgeous; David is lucky to be able to call Lawrence and Stellenbosch home)
(view when you take 5 steps outside David's place)
Early (about 7) in the morning we headed to a local coffee
shop in Stellenbosch and got our morning caffeine*.
*I am not a coffee drinker by any means. I never do it. I
will occasionally get a latte (95% of which in my life have come with David) so
I ordered one and then sat and enjoyed the complimentary wifi for a while to
check in with some people that mean a lot to me.
David went off to work and I met up with him around 10 in
his office.
David is a fly individual. Just check the shoe game.
After spending some time with him and him finishing his
duties for the day, we headed to the wineries to taste the local flavor.
Stellenbosch is in the middle of wine country and it is
absolutely beautiful. One of the highlights of the trip was just driving in the
car, rolling the window down, feeling the wind on my face, and staring at
beautiful mountains. It was amazing.
(plottin on his next move)
The wineries we went to were a lot of fun. I don’t
particularly like wine but I really enjoyed doing the tours, just like outside
of Melbourne.
(Ian said he was going to take a pic of David and I and instead took this gem; he "pulled a Nate")
After the tours, we headed to Roots. It was this shack in
the township that sold chicken wings*.
*All day Sunday we saw people drinking, dancing, and…eating
meat. At the place where we were dancing, each table had a phat tray of meat.
David hyped up these wings as “KC-barbeque-worthy.” That’s a
heavy statement. Now, David went to college with me, so he knows KC barbeque.
But to say the least, I was skeptical.
He wasn’t kidding. The best chicken wings I’ve ever had. Did
the fact that I was buzzed in a township in South Africa on a Sunday afternoon
staring at mountains while hanging out with my bro I hadn’t seen in over 2
years factor into the equation? Of course. I’d be naïve to say otherwise. But I
think in a completely neutral environment, these wings would stand on their
own.
This part is a little random, but David and I both share an extreme passion for Kansas basketball. I take a lot of pride in knowing that I am the one who converted David and showed him the light. When we were in college, we loved following the players on the various social media outlets (with the highlight being Tyshawn acknowledging that I was showin mad love). While we were together in South Africa, we saw this gem on Instagram:
And this one:
(I can't believe Sherron never made it in the League...)
That night we went out for some pizza with me being the 5th
wheel. Ian and his girlfriend, Taneil, joined David and his now girlfriend,
Ntina to form the two power couples. It was still a good time. All 4 are just
lovely people.
****
Tuesday morning I got to sit in on David’s class. I refused
to discuss my opinion of him as an educator while I was there. He is anxiously
awaiting the following few paragraphs:
(Professor Reiersgord - class is in session)
David’s class has an enrollment of 19 students but the
attendance for this particular class was only 9. Apparently there was a huge
music festival that weekend and a lot of the students weren’t moving too
quickly…even on Tuesday.
He started off the class by handing back papers to a few
students and you could tell that the students weren’t afraid to talk or engage
in conversation with him. That to me is the most important thing at the college
level. I remember when I was in college I just tried to get class over with. A
couple of his students even went out of their way to start conversations with
him that had nothing to do with class.
He “lectured” for about 15 minutes before opening up the
class to Q&A. His lecture was as good as I could have expected for being
with young college students. He gave a rough outline of viewing narratives and
then went into more specific detail (without losing them by going too into detail like he easily could
have). The Q&A was lighthearted and it was clear by 8:36 that the class had
more-or-less ended*.
*The easiest sign of this in a college classroom is when the
items from class start moving back into students’ backpacks.
You could tell David was prepared for class and that he had
control of the classroom when needed – this is much easier said than done in a
college setting. He was very solid and I’m glad that he let me sit in on a
class. I wish I would have been able to visit a class period with full
attendance that was a little more intense, but I’ll take what I got.
One of the nice things about spending time in Stellenbosch
was that I got to meet the awesome people that David has become friends with.
One such person was Bernerd. What a cool dude. After class we met up with him
for a coffee and then we ended up meeting up with him later on in the afternoon
to have a beverage and split a pie.
That night Ian made dinner and he did a fantastic job.
The night ended with an epic game of 30 Seconds. The closest
thing that I can compare 30 Seconds to is Catchphrase. I love Catchphrase. And
now I love 30 Seconds. A team draws a card and is given 30 seconds to get their
teammates to guess as many of the 5 items listed on the card as they can. One funny moment
was when I was trying to get David (sorry if this embarrasses you, bruh) to get
the letter “X" to help solve the answer. I said, “The 24th letter of the alphabet.” He looked
at me like I was speaking Bahasa. I more or less told him to get his stuff
together saying that all you had to do was go backwards two letters from Z. He
didn’t know that there were 26 letters in the alphabet. I openly mocked him for
this. Everyone else in the room agreed with David that 26 letters in the
alphabet is not common knowledge. They’re all idiots, right??
The moment of the night was when Ian and I were on the same
team and I had successfully answered the first 4 on the card. With the clock
set to expire any second, Ian said, “Big…black…sassy.” I knew exactly where he
was going with it. I was this close to completing the first perfect card of the
night. “Prince Latifah!!” I blurted out. Hahaha. Unfortunately, we were looking
for Queen Latifah. So close yet so
far away.
****
The next morning I woke up at 4am to start the journey to
Gansbaai where I would be doing shark cage diving. I fully realized that I may
not end up in South Africa again and that I better do everything I wanted to
while I was there.
I went at the very end of the “season” although it sounds
like you can more or less see the great white sharks any time of year.
I’m pretty certain that I went on a really bad day. The
waves were very large and the boat was rocking back and forth at a pretty good
clip the whole time that we were anchored down. I decided to leave my phone
(which I use for all of my pictures) back at the shop. Being by myself, knowing
that the boat would be crowded, soaking, etc. it just made sense to leave it
behind. I’m very glad I did. The boat was rocking so fiercely that it was a
big-time challenge just getting the wetsuit on. Those of you that know me
really well know that balance has never been my forte.
I was in the last group in the cage. There were about 20
people on the boat – 15 of which were diving. We were put into groups of 5.
While the other two groups were in the cage, I went to the viewing deck at the
top of the boat. It is actually really cool to watch the sharks approach
because great whites do all their hunting at the surface. I got to see 4 sharks
swim past us while I was on the observation deck.
When it was my time to get into the tank, they take out the
fish heads that are being used as “bait” for the great whites so that there
aren’t any sharks around while you are getting in/out. Once you are in the
cage, you are basically above water from the neck up. There is a bar that is
strictly for hands so that there is no chance of you losing a hand/finger as
long as you are holding on to the bar. When the people the people running the
boat say, “Down!” that when you more-or-less force your body under the water
and are at eye-level with the gap in the cage meant for viewing. While I was in
the cage, I got to see 4 sharks. Two of them were when the shark just swam by
and was just checking us out. It was cool to see the shark swimming about a
meter away. But the real fun was the two times when the shark bit onto the
bait, whipped its body into the cage and we could just feel the impact those
creatures could have. I don’t think words can really be used to explain it. It
was a massive creature that is at the top of the food chain and it was only a
few inches away from me in full-on attack mode. It was pretty sick.
Once we got back to the shop, I had a brief conversation
with the guy who was in charge of our boat. He sounded American and I couldn’t
help but thinking he wasn’t South African. He saw my Kansas jacket and said,
“Oh yeah, we used to play you guys in basketball all the time.” I was
pleasantly surprised and went on to learn that he grew up in the DC area, went
to Colorado for college, and then decided to come out to South Africa to work
on a boat for 2 months. He’s been there 10 years now. Nice guy.
The fact that I went on a pretty bad day and still had an epic time makes me wonder
how great it is during the peak season. It was an awesome experience.
The company took me into Cape Town after the dive where I
met up at David at a predetermined café on Long St. He was working in the
morning and I had no idea what time I was going to finish or end up in Cape
Town so we both just decided to go to this place and whoever got there first
would just wait.
I got there around 1:30pm and decided to order a drink and
snipe their wifi. Literally 2 minutes after I arrive, David walks through the
door. As he said, “Excellent timing, Matthew.”
(you already kno the team)
We enjoyed a lovely lunch and then headed to the Bo-Kaap
area to drop our things at the hotel. Both nights were spent at the same hotel.
It was a very good choice by David.
That night we headed back to Long St. to check out the
nightlife. We ended up at one of the bars there just trying a few different
brews. One guy overheard David and I talking and he mentioned that he had gone
to Stellenbosch University back in the day. He seemed like a nice enough fellow
at the beginning and even bought us a round of drinks. After a while, it became
very apparent that he was a massive racist and there was clearly something
wrong with him. You win some, you lose some.
****
The next day was spent exploring Cape Town. We woke up and
had a lovely breakfast at a café David knew.
After that we went shopping at a few different shops and a
market so that I could pick up some knick-knacks from the trip. I was really
happy I got some Springboks gear. Probably the coolest jersey I’ve gotten in
all of my travels so far.
David also took me to the V&A Waterfront.
I felt like I
was in Asia, yet South Africa. The best part of the mall was actually getting
there. We were in a cab with this homie from Mozambique who was playing this
motivational CD that was hilarious. It was this guy speaking in a really relax
tone. I kid you not, it was dialogue like this over and over, “If someone you
used to call a friend is now hurting you…let it go. If you are in a job that
does not challenge you…let it go. If you are holding a grudge that is holding
you back…let it go.”
It was a really nice mall where a lot of people just go to
hang out. He described it as touristy, but to me is more Asia-y. It’s not that
it was bad, it just wasn’t really an authentic Cape Town experience.
While we were at the mall, David got himself a new pair of
pants for when he is teaching. I decided to try on a traditional African suit.
I think I pull it off:
That night he took me to the Eastern Food Bazaar. There was
a ton of good-looking food there. I went with Indian. It was the right choice.
At the bar we settled at that night, the bartender saw my
Kansas jacket and thought he was Mr. Wise Guy:
That night I really reflected on how truly lucky I was. Just
what an incredible life I have. I get to travel to South Africa and hang out
with one of my best friends from college. I have no idea what I did to deserve
this life. I truly believe I’m one of the luckiest men in the world.
****
Our last day in Cape Town meant that we had to do the last
thing I absolutely had to do while there: hike and see some dope views.
We woke up pretty early in the morning and hiked Lion's Head.
It wasn’t the world’s easiest hike but it wasn’t too bad either. The views were
incredible:
After seeing Cape Town in all its glory, we headed back to
Stellenbosch to spend my last night at David’s place. I made him take me back
to a burger place that we had visited earlier in the week. I kid you not, the
best french fries I’ve ever had:
We had one too many beers that night and enjoyed chatting
with this homeless guy, who Ian and David both claim is a regular, in the area.
He was doing some little jig on the road where he would wobble his legs really
quickly back and forth like wet noodles. It was actually quite impressive for a
65ish year old.
The last night was just filled with good conversation with
good people. I was very blessed to make this trip.
****
David arranged for a cab to pick me up at 4:15am from his
house to take me to the airport for my 6:00am flight. Unfortunately, the guy
didn’t show up. Thankfully, Ian was home and, being the tremendous dude he is,
took me to the airport.
My flight pattern home was Cape Town – Joburg – Hong Kong –
Jakarta.
The last two flights were operated by Cathay Pacific. I was really
impressed with them. Not quite Qatar Airways, but very solid. The movie
selection was top-notch. I watched: 22 Jump Street, How to Train Your Dragon 2,
Runner Runner, The Curious Life of Walter Mitty, and American Hustle. The only
movie I had seen of those was American Hustle. It made the flight go a little
faster (as fast as a 24-hour travel schedule can go).
I was really excited to get home and get back to work. Like
I mentioned in the Nepal/Tibet post, I’m very fortunate to be in the situation
I am this year. I’ve got great students. Great people in my life. I get to
travel. And my parents are coming out for 2 weeks over Winter Break !!
As always, thank you so much for checking in. I cannot
express how humbled I am by the following this blog has (over 10,000 pageviews !!). I am truly blessed.
If you want to get a hold of me or just say what up, send me
an e-mail at mattsphillips@cox.net
God bless !!
#takethecrown
