Amazing Heigths

I'll try to keep this as compact as possible, but I probably will do a lousy job as too much happened; be warned!
Apart from arriving home from Russia, doing laundry and packing for diverse climates I tried to help my brother prepare for his first week of Art School. Lets us make an outfit out of foodwrappings. Good fun.. a work in process!

Then I left the country hoping I got it all, had a lousy sleep on the red-eye, arrived in SA and spent the afternoon hanging out with Iris, waiting for her sister (who owned the car) to be done with work so we could go home. First thing the next morning we drove back with her into Joburg (Johannesburg) to rent a car to drive to the Drakensbergen. We stayed in a timeshare owned by some friends of Iris their own wern't coming. We did some amazing hikes around the area. The area was really dry but every aspect of brown, yellow and red was captured in the landscape. Most interesting was that at parents in the time they lived there and who needed to adopt a pair of "kids" as every sunset eveything took a different colour. The first night everything turned red, the second night everything turned yellow. Didn´t think of taking pictures the first time round though. Beautifull!!!

I must admit it was also very nice to do something different then move through water, it was quite the opposite! And I don´t think it was a big surprise that we kept coming back to the song "I´m on the top of the world" every time we made it up another peak.


Bloemfontein, went for a cup a tea with Louise, oneAfter 3 days there and another 50 pictures down the line (I´ll make a photo album in case you wanna actually see it all!) we drove down to of Iris highschool friends, dropped of our rental car and jumped on the plane to Kaapstad-Capetown. There I was to meet the locals )another friend of Iris who lived in something like a community house, where we were very much welcomed and crashed on the couch.

We went up Table Mountain and during our hike to a supposedly amazing view were overtaken by a huge cloud which severely cut our view short. However in the valley between table mountain and the oes behind it we could see. Cape Town was a lot colder and more like europe in climate. So it was good we packed up well, and thank god I brought mu hiking boots. We did a good 5 hour walk that day.

Most notable on our hike over table mountain was that it was covered in fynbos, in other words fine forest, consisting of low vegetation in beautifull colours. It was like you were a Giant walking through a normal forest. Among all this forestry was the Protea, South Africa´s national flower, which you can spot in the very misty picture.

One night was spent bonding with "the Locals" or maybe we should call it "shrek´s cousins" instead? Which ever way it was good fun. I love meeting randomly interesting artsy people on my way!

On our way to Cape Point we went by an Ostrich Farm, and were guided by a most interesting Tall african man who had the most beautiful hands I have ever seen! The Ostriches were very entertaining and I have a feeling might appear in some art sooner or later. Ostrich leather is used according to it´s texture, caused by the feathers sticking through their skin, and is dangerously expensive. I guess it is a good thing I´m not so fond of handbags. Cape point was beautifull and the wetaher cleared up the closer we got to the tip.

The next day we kidnapped Roxanne (Iris´ friend), drove to Stellenbosch, famous for it´s wines (of course I bought some) , onto Hermanus to do some whale watching which kept us a little past the time we should have stayed there and then home while the sun set along the beachy trail. Breathtaking.

The next morning we did a coffee at the waterfront and cruized through a shop which was more like museum with a collection of masks, chairs, and statues from mostly West Africa and I was absolutely stoked that I actually new where to locate stuff and which kings to assign things to. Plus it was really nice to be able to see things for real instead of photographed in an art history book or on slides. At the end of the day we again said goodbye to our car and hopped on the plane back to Joburg. The next morning we were getting up early(4am) to go to Kruger with Odile, Iris` sister, but before that we went to visit my fathers aunt who told us some intereting tid bits about how my dad was when he was young. Always good to know. °evil grin°

Kruger was another long ride, but by now I was getting quite used to driving on the left hand side (I was initially fazed by not being able to find my back mirror which someone had put to the left of me instead of in the corner of my car I kept staring at the car´s frame for way longer them was neccessary. It really wasn´t that exceptional a car frame!

Kruger brought us in no particular order: elephants (a whole herd of them), rhino´s, wildebees, empala, fighting hippos (at lake panic, how befitting), lots of pretty birds, zebra, giraffe, very little giraffe, water buck, beautifull stars at night, heat, dust, animals coming for water at another lake, elephants spraying mud, crocodiles etc etc etc.... look at the pictures! I´m sure Iris saved my hand from getting bitten of!

The last two days were reserved for hanging around, finding a recently published book written by my uncle, bying myself an african singing mask, (obviously for a very special price and very old and very hard to get lately (my ass)), going to a cricket game (SA won) and for the final night we had booked for the Lion King.
I don´t know exactly how to describe that... I will just advise you that, the day you do make it over to SA (or anywhere else they are still performing it) you have to go and see because their voices, the masks, the story, the setting is absolutely worth it.

Okay, so I probably left out more than half of what happened (penguins!) but this is the really short version so you won´t get fed up. Hope you enjoyed.. I will be back woth more soon as life just crashed in on me and I can still feel it!

Quote: `The things that one most wants to do are the things that are probably most worth doing.´ -Winifred Holtby
Music: Ngotsostsi, Dorothy Masuka