VACATION TIME

So

Pics:

1) Fooling around at Cape Point

2) With Kathryn on a rock ledge

3) the sunrise from "my" farm

4) Mighty waves at Cape Point

My "work" time in South Africa ended with a bang and a curse. The bang was my head bouncing off the wrestling mat to the cheers of the crowd, and the cursing came from having a 2nd straight trip to prison mysteriously cancelled, without the perpetrator having his friggin' phone on to explain why....

Anyway, I did not medal at the SA greco championships... due to the complex draw system used in SA, I wrestled both the finalists. I was horribly thrashed by the champion (who placed 12th in the world last year) by a score of 0-6,0-8 and literally feared for my life. I was beating the silver medalist 3-1 when he turned and pinned me with 20 seconds left in the 1st period. It was quite frustrating, and I ended up 4th.

So anyway, now I am drowning my frustrations not in the traditional, alcohol-based way, but by sightseeing. Kathryn and I went out onto a ledge at Cape Point where heavy waves smashed into the rocks directly below, spashing us with frothy spray. It was absolutely amazing.

We leave for Hermanus later this week, followed by visits to Knysa, Port Elizabeth, the Addo Elephant Park, Vryheid to see my grandparents, Pretoria and the Kruger National Park. I will try and keep the interested updated.

And Kathryn Lochhead offers her opinion, copy-and-pasted from email, on the first few days on her visit ( she claims "excessive laziness to actually post something original).

So I just about finished my first full week in South Africa and it has been amazing. We have done so much stuff, here is the short list;

-ocean swimming
-flew to jo-burg so jens could wrestle in the south african national greco championships (he was fourth and pissed)
-slept on many planes
-slept in cars
-went to the waterfront
-celebrated jens' 24th bday (Jens note- actually on may 12)
Visit Jens's cousin in Pretoria (who so mercifully and graciously let me use her shower and wonderful comfortable bed)
-hung out with crazy afrikaaners
-walked in Mitchells Plain (google it, which i have been told no other tourist has ever done as it is a really poor gang infested community, trust me i was freaked right out walking the 5 blocks to the 'store' {run down house with bars on it}) (Jens edit.. like 1 minute walk)
-went to the south-western most point on the african continent, cape point, where we saw baboons and elands, and definitely climbed where we should not have next to the raging ocean (i have very cool pictures)
-we saw penguins (jack-ass or 'african' penguins as they have been name changed too)
-climbed part way on table mountain to see Rhodes Memorial and drove up signal hill (saw the whole city of cape town in lights at night)
-tried to go visit Pollsmore Prison (google it), but the massively incompetent guy who runs the program jens volunteers for "shockingly" did not show up, if you would like mad angry near assault like ranting ask him about ___ (Jens edit... removed name but would be happy to rant in person.)

-watched really cool wheel chair basketball in pretoria.
-learnt really racist afrkaans terms and almost strangled little coloured (trust me that is what they are called it is not racist) wrestling boys on a very very long bus ride.

Much more but I only have so much time on this computer. The big thing was the trip to Pietersberg to go watch the wrestling. More cool then watching the wrestling and seeing really really strong men throw each other in the air was seeing actual every day normal afrikaans culture. Trust me you have never seen disorganization and incompetence until you have been to Africa (and this i am told is the most organised organization jens has been affiliated with). Perhaps it was the combination of lack of sleep and being told "we'll make a plan" repeatedly, when clearly no plan is being made at all, but I have now seen the frustration that is Africa (for those of you who have seen blood diamonds "TIA" this is africa). We literally wasted an hour doing nothing before we left to go on a three hour bus ride in the dark. Was anyone doing anything relevant? no. Why? don't ask me. Did we need to go right away? yes!. It is so hard to convey, but trust me you don't know until you have been here.
(Jens Edit: Now she understands... she was quite upset)

But despite the mad mad frustration of the complete inefficiency of everything, this country is soooo beautiful. Today we just got here from cape point, the tip of africa, and it was breathtaking. The ocean was just roaring, crashing and frothing. So we climbed down the rocks to the bottom of it (where we should not have gone, blame jens for all the cool things we do on the trip) and stood right beside where all the waves were breaking on the rocks.