Immediately after IST, myself and 3 other girls went on our holiday. Most of the rest of our training class was going to Durban a week later, so we got to be some of the first with awesome Facebook statuses about our adventures.
We had the Peace Corps taxi driver (a very grumpy man) drop us off at the car rental place and we laughed at our tiny clown car. Out of Pretoria, we drove for Bloemfontein to spend the first night. Arriving at almost dark, we quickly got a pizza and relaxed with cards and big dreams for the coming days. Day 2 of driving was almost 10 hours thanks to some road work. It definitely gave us practice with stopping and going in a manual transmission. That night we celebrated with steak dinners. We ate the cast of the Lion King, I had eland (antelope), and tried the warthog (Pumbaa's cousin), zebra and ostrich. The warthog and ostrich were my favorite.
In one place we stayed in a converted train right on the beach. I love the beach, having been there a total of 3 other times in my life. Here at the Indian Ocean, I had a blast swimming and buried my friend in sand up to her neck. I was in a modest swimsuit, and was surprised to see a lot of men and boys in speedos, and lots of women and girls in just their panties and bra. Culture shock.
We found a neat little tourist trap at a dock one day and a flea market and bought lots of presents for our families back home. Another day, we started at an ostrich farm, where a guide led us around to stand on eggs, hold the baby ostriches, pet and hug the adults, and some people even got to ride an ostrich. That was maybe the funniest thing I'd seen in Africa. We went from there to a set of caves for a walking tour. The 2 girls in my group who'd rode the ostrich also did the “wild cave tour” and came out a little dirty. It was nowhere near as wild or dirty as the caving I'd do in Kentucky, and I really missed my friends that day. We visited the first Post Office in Africa, a tree. In 1500, someone put a message in a shoe under the tree and it was later found and delivered. Nowadays, that tree has a big brass letterbox shaped like a shoe.
At The Elephant Sanctuary we got to hold out our hands and lead the elephants by their trunks through a small wooded area. The trainers gave us a demonstration about what an elephant is capable of and let us pet and play with them. I learned that elephants have really thick hairs all over their bodies and later found and bought an elephant hair bracelet that I'm quite attached to already. Elephants are really amazing animals, between their trunks and their feet they know when rain or an earthquake is coming. After lunch at Monkeyland, myself and another Volunteer nearly had our ice cream stolen by a very bold monkey. He actually managed to grab a handful of her ice cream before she pulled away. Then he tried to swipe her souvenirs bag and we decided to go back inside. Without even going on the tour, we saw 4 or 5 species of monkeys that day.
We spent the afternoon in a giant wooden maze. Since I'd missed October and corn mazes at home this year, I was thrilled. At Puzzleland we had to navigate to all four corners of the maze in a specific order. One Volunteer quickly made it out of the worst corner of the maze and helped lead myself and an older Volunteer around from her vantage point on top of some stairs. The rocks hurt my feet through my flip flops (everyone here calls them “thongs”) and the sun was hot, but I really did enjoy myself. Again, I missed home and the huge corn maze in Lexington.
On our “Adventure Day” we went bungee jumping and zip-lining. The Bloukrans Bridge in South Africa is the highest bungee jump in the world; you fall for about 180 meters (570 feet). Only 3 of us jumped and it was crazy. The workers there are so amazing, so full of energy and enthusiasm. Everyone shakes your hand and jokes with you about the jump. I more fell than jumped and in that first moment I only remember complete silence. I didn't even hear the wind rushing by my ears or my heartbeat or anything. It was bizarre, I was in shock, I guess. Then I bounced around upside down for a while, felt all the blood rush to my head and my eyes watered. A man lowers himself down and shakes your hand again and asked “the million dollar question: would you do it again?” Still hanging upside down and being pulled upwards toward the bridge, I didn't even realize that I said “not today, but I'll bring more friends later” until he started laughing. Back up on the bridge, I danced and jumped around to burn off the excess adrenaline and watched a few other random people jump.
That afternoon we all 4 went for a zip-lining tour over a gorge. This place had 8 or 9 zip-lines over 3 waterfalls. It was so much fun to be suspended like that and in control of your speed. We took lots of pictures and videos, and laughed until we were breathless at a girl who literally got a bug stuck in her teeth during a zip-line. Our guides were amazing and we took our time through the course. I like to judge adventures based on how many bruises I get, so this “Adventure Day” was amazing.
The last days along the coast included some disappointing farmers markets and at least 3 troops of baboons crossing the road right in front of our car. We ate at an American-1960's-style diner, complete with an Elvis jukebox and Marilyn Monroe pictures everywhere. We let the staff know that their American flag was hanging upside down and the manager came to apologize and thank us for the correction.
The drive back to Bloemfontein started out with almost 2 hours on maybe 30 miles of terrible dirt roads in the mountains. It was hairpin turns every few feet on narrow roads trying to avoid the oncoming traffic barreling down on us. The scenery was gorgeous up that high in the mountains, looking down the valleys that you could imagine were unspoiled, untouched by human hands. Except for the other cars, it felt like we were alone in the wilderness. The other 3 girls were terrified, it reminded me of home. I gasped a few times too at the close calls, but mostly I thought about the summer drives with friends from home where we tried to get lost and see where this road took us. Really homesick right then.
Another pizza, another night in Bloemfontein. The drive to Pretoria on Christmas Eve was quick and uneventful, we made it much earlier in the day than we expected, despite getting lost a few times in the city. A quick trip to the backpackers and the supermarket, then we dropped the car off and called a cab. One of our group went back to her village that day, and 3 of us stayed a couple nights in a wonderful backpackers in Pretoria to round out the holidays. Christmas day I spent hanging out by the pool. It was my first Christmas in the Southern Hemisphere and the first time I'd ever gotten sunburned on Christmas.
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