South Africa update 2

Another South Africa update

Last monday I walked onto the mountains near Gordon's Bay. Not typically South Africa, but always fun to be at the top of a mountain top. After that I finally managed to get prepaid internet on my PDA. Man, I love it! I want to have that too in The Netherlands! Hyves is a bit hard to do with my PDA, but with e-mail I react that fast that I probalby give the impression that I'm not on vacation at all :)

Anyways: after that has been sorted out, I went with my mother to the childrens club. Black children from the not-so-rich-but-better-than-township neighbourhood can come there to do some activities. My mother had a painting activity. The children had to paint a foam star. They were content with that and they worked concentrated for an hour or so.

Tuesday we went to Cape Town. First to the Dutch library to return some books. After that we went to the Waterfront, a renovated harbor. It's very much aimed at tourists, so it's mainly shopping. Not really my cup of tea. After that we would have gone to the Table Mountain, but that was most of the time in the clouds. We don't want to risk that we don't have a view, don't we? So we picked a casino instead. We came in a hall with hundreds upon hundreds of gambling machines. No happy faces there. So I did some video gaming in the childrens corner :)

Wednesday we went to the country for a few days. We had a lodge near Bonnievale. I was lucky: the weather wasn't that good. Otherwise you would melt away :) Through the days we visited a few villages there. That was fun, especially on Saturdays. That's the day the workers on the farms go to the villages to do shopping for the whole week, so it's very crowded then. Most of them are brought there by their bosses because they don't have a car of their own. So everywhere you see pickup trucks with bags full of groceries and other stuff. Some people are waiting in the back of the pickup trucks until they are brought back to the farm.

Photogallery of South Africa on hyves.

South Africa update

For those who are interested a short South Africa update:

I'm here for almost a week now in Gordon's Bay. That's in the vicinity of Cape Town. Before I had one foot on the ground, I already have seen the townships. Those shacks are that close to the airport that you can take a good look just a minute before the airplane hits the ground.

The most important thing I have done until now is standing on a surf board. I took 3 wave surfing lessons and it's fun! Most of the lessons were given by a guy who is not only a wave surfing coach but also a priest who preaches in a baptist church!

Of course I already visited Cape Town, but I still have to go to the Table Mountain, an important plateau that's visible from any place in the city. I also visited Stellenbosch, a small city with a university that's safer compared to other cities, like Cape Town. My father bought a bike there. Together with the bike he lent from someone, we can now tour around with bicycles. The only problem is that Piet from the shop did not tighten all the screws, so we had some problems in the first tour :-(

Yesterday I visited a kindertehuis and a church. Both were in a township. Ans yes: those black churches really swing. :-) After that back to the shopping mall and then back to Stellenbosch again to fly with Mike Taylor in his plane. In an hour we visited Cape Town, Robben Island, the bay area, Strand and of course StellenBosch again. After that I was tired and had an headache. So I have to slow it down a bit.

By the way: the local radio station here sounds sometimes like the music on weirdomusic.com :-)