Made it!

I've just arrived in DFW, and I think it's safe to say I've never been happier to see this airport.

So long, and thanks for reading!

-Rachel

Traveling fun

4 pm EST

Charlotte, NC

Over 5 hours after we landed in Charlotte, I am now sitting on the tarmac on my new, re-routed itinerary.  The rest of the family left on time for Phoenix and should be home in the next couple of hours.  I, however, have not been as fortunate due to severe weather in Dallas and a cancelled flight. 

If I make it home to DFW tonight, it will have been via:

- 6 different flights belonging to 3 different airlines

- security screening in Cape Town, Joberg (twice!), Dulles, and Charlotte

- pulling my bag off the conveyor belt no less than 3 times

- 1 hour on hold with US airways and 3 different customer service representatives

- 2 different confirmation numbers (that I know of!)

- and 37 hours of travel

Other fun with numbers: when I re-checked my bag in Charlotte the ticket agent and I discovered that it weighs 57 lbs.  She was well into her questioning of how I got it on in the first place, and gearing up for a lecture on weight limits and airline policy.  But something either in the tears in my eyes or the fact that I was making it rain boarding passes showing where I has been in the last 30 hours made her relent, and  she concluded abruptly with "good luck and get some sleep" and an orange "heavy" tag slapped on without an extra charge.   Good thing too, because I had two contingency plans to make weight: a) Move a bunch of heavy books to my already overloaded backpack or b) Drink that bottle of wine!

I would probably be in a corner somewhere in the fetal position if it weren't for Thomas being my travel agent and encourager from Dallas and Drew and Elizabeth being on call to rescue me from Houston Intercontinental should the need arise.  So regardless of the outcome I get to see 1 or more of my favorite people tonight, and I will not spend a lonely evening with my overweight bag and wine on the floor in Charlotte!

And a thanks to Bob Funk from CCL-Phoenix, who made the original reservation and had apparently been getting hammer called with my flight updates from the airline.  He called to check on me and offered to help in any way he can, which was very kind.  I'm hoping I won't need any further help, but I'll be saving that number just in case!

It has been a wonderful trip, but over the last day and a half I've transitioned from somewhat ready to extremely ready for it to come to an end. 

Third and final day in Cape Town

Yesterday (yes, I again was too tired to do this last night before bed) was our last full day in Cape Town.  We actually spent most of the day outside of the city proper, on a tour of the Cape.  It was beautiful and we had another day of great weather.  We started on the Atlantic side of the cape, driving past idyllic little towns.  The highway along the coast is a tollway, and looks like it took great feats of engineering to keep it clinging to the side of the mountain and not covered in landslides.

This is the view from a scenic viewpoint over Hautbay.

We stopped for a coffee in a little town called Nordhoek, and then continued on down the cape.  Kim explained that the cape floral kingdome is also a UNESCO World Heritage site, and contains more species of plant per square metre than almost any anywhere else on earth.

It's quite impressive actually.  The plants also depend on periodic fires to clear the land and complete some of the seed germination cycles.  If no fires happen naturally in 10-15 years the park rangers set controlled burns.

We continued on to Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope.  The picture below shows the old lighthouse, built over 200 meters above sea level.  A new lighthouse closer to the sea had to be built as this one was too often hidden in the clouds.  The view from the lighthouse and the trail was stunning.

Above, view of the Cape of Good Hope from Cape point.

We also had several wildlife encounteres along the way.  An ostrich along the road came right up to the car and tapped the window.  We assume he was looking at his own reflection, but it's also possible he just really liked Matt.  Either way we were glad the window was closed.

We also stopped at the African Penguin colony in Simon's Town, which was really cool.  Apparently years ago 2 breeding pairs of penguins landed on the penninsula, and now there is a sizeable population.  In recent years the colony has dwindled because the babies aren't surviving to reproductive age (4 years old).  They were pretty cute, although it seemed weird to see penguins on sand and with so many green plants around.

On the way back into town we stopped at Kirstenbosch, beautiful botanical gardens next to Table Mountain.  The variety of plants was quite impressive, and the view is hard to beat.

Above, a King Protea.  The South African national flower.

We had a lovely dinner at the waterfront and then called it a night.  We have had a wonderful trip but are also excited to get home.

Cape Town Day 2

Yesterday was a truly beautiful day in Cape Town.  We were blessed with perfect sunny weather, so the views from Robben Island and Table Mountain were stunning.

Kim came by in the morning to collect us for our 9 am ferrry ride to Robben Island.  We walked through the harbor to the Robben Island museum.  Apparently the official ferry to the island is out for annual maintenance, so they have chartered other boats and catamarans in the area to bring people to the island and back.  We rode out on Sea Princess and back on the Tiger 2.  Tiger 2 was my favorite because it was smaller, faster, and we had great seats on the front of the boat.

Robben Island has a long history.  It was originally a leper colony, although the last of the leper population was relocated in the 1930s.  Starting in the 1960s it was used as a prison, and at one point had separate prisons for "regular" convicts and political prisoners.  Nelson Mandela was imprisoned here for several years and was probably the most famous prisoner, although many current South African leaders and subsequent presidents were also held here.  Our guide was himself a former prisoner, and able to give a first-hand account of life in the prison.  All political prisoners were freed by 1991 as part of the establishment of the new government and the end of the apartheid era. While that has been more than 2 decades, it's very sobering to realize that this all happened during my lifetime!

Robben Island prison

Nelson Mandela's cell.  4th window form the left on the picture from the courtyard.

Today, Robben Island is a national museum.  It has been left mostly as it was when it closed in the 1990s.  It still offers a beautiful view of Cape Town and Table Mountain:

After a lunch at a lovely cafe in the harbor, we continued on to the Table Mountain cable car station.  The engineering of the cable cars is quite impressive.  A car holds 65 people, and the floor spins to allow all passengers a view in every direction.  The cars are also used to transport water to the top of the mountain, and on a windy day the water doubles as ballast for stability.  

Cable car station, from the car midway down to the lower station.

The view from the top is stunning.  If you're willing to walk a few steps around the top you are offered views in all directions.  You can see Robben Island, Table Bay, and then the rest of the cape and the other cities along the way.

Cape Town in the background.

The rest of the cape and Table Mountain national park in the background.

The trails along the top.

We were very fortunate to have such a beautiful clear day for our trip.  We returned home along the coast, passing the World Cup stadium along the way.

Today (yes I fell asleep before writing the day 2 entry...) we are headed to the Cape of Good Hope.  We're expecting another day of great weather and beautiful scenery.

Thanks for reading!

-Rachel

Cape Town Day 1

I'll try to keep this short!  We are having a wonderful time and seeing some really beautiful things but it doesn't come together as a story quite like the week of house-building did.  By the way, this is a late post because yesterday we were quite tired!

We said goodbye to the team and the city of Durban early in the morning on Sunday, and caught a ride to the airport with Karl, our African Exposure guide.  He was also headed to Cape Town also, but for business and not for sightseeing.  Habitat for Humanity is part of a nationwide celebration of Nelson Mandela's birthday.  They have over 600 people coming from all over the world to build 67 houses in 1 week.  Karl and Gavin will be working with some of that group.  The number 67, according to one of our tour guides today, symbolizes the number of years of his life Mandela dedicated to activism.  The goal is for everyone to spend 67 minutes doing something to benefit their community or nation on July 18th, which would be Mandela's birthday.

The 2 hour flight to Cape Town seemed short by comparison to our last day-long adventure.  We arrived around lunch time and were greeted by Kim, our guide for the next few days.  She is lovely and very knowledgeable about the area and South Africa in general.  And she is an excellent driver, which means none of us have to navigate these streets and this "backwards" way of driving.

We had lunch at a lovely historic farm called Vergelegen in Sommerset West.  It was part of one of the first settlements of the cape by the Dutch, and is now a vineyard as well.  The grounds and gardens were beautiful and lunch was delicious.

We then continued on to Stellenbosch, one of the multiple areas of winelands near Cape Town.  We drove through the historic university town with it's very unique Cape Dutch architecture. Kim explained that this is a very conservative Afrikaner town and the lectures are taught in Afrikaans instead of English. Although there is the option of buying textbooks and writing papers in English. We then had a wine tasting at Stark-Conde vineyards.  It was delicious, and you couldn't ask for a more beautiful setting. 

We drove back through beautiful winelands to Cape Town.  Our hotel is only a few blocks from the Victoria and Alfred waterfront district and the harbor, which is quite convenient. After a lovely harborside dinner we called it am early night.  We all separately attempted to watch the World Cup finals, but none of us succeeded in watching through the overtime, which went until 12:30 am or so here in our time zone. 

Last day in Durban

This will just be a quick update because I have a lot of packing to do to be ready for our early departure tomorrow.  We spent the day in the Durban area.  Our first stop was the Hillcrest AIDS Centre, a really cool organization that has an AIDS clinic, offers testing, provides respite inpatient care, and has a store to raise money for these efforts.  We didn't have time to see much of their facility other than the store, but it was nice to buy some souveneirs knowing it would benefit such a good cause.  On the main road in front of the center is this tree, decorated with knitted pieces to raise awareness about AIDS.  

We then went into Durban to the Victoria Market for some more shopping.  We stopped by the World Cup stadium which is a really neat structure that was built for the 2010 event.  Apparently it was quite controversial and expensive at the time, but it has some cool features like a roof that collects dew and rainwater to be used in the stadium.

We then continued on to the beach, where there is a big shopping center and several restaurants.  After a long lunch we had time to put our feet in the Indian Ocean.  Apparently the tide was coming in, as we got a bit more than our feet wet by the waves.

We enjoyed our last dinner as a group before the rest of the team heads back to the states and the Gehring/Kostrivas contingent continues on to Cape Town.  Pastor Twala joined us and told us more about the church, the creche (preschool) and other ministries like the sewing classes and soccer team.  It's been a great group to travel with, we'll miss them the next few days in Cape Town.  Especially Gary, our fearless leader, and our African Exposure crew who made all of this possible.

Thanks for reading!  Take care!

Rachel

By the way, it's beautiful here

Just thought I'd include a few more pictures of the beautiful scenery and flowers we've seen along the way.  Joel will probably delete all of these pictures because they are "too artsy" so you won't find them in the slideshows, but it is truly beautiful here.

Cool plants at the safari lodge

Sugar cane fields glowing in the morning sun

Blossoms on the tree at the work site

Cool plants on the grounds of our cottage

What we are calling a giant poinsettia tree, along the road to our guest house

Poinsettia tree up close

Also grows in the garden on the cottage grounds

As does this

See what I mean?  And this is their winter!