South African Honeymoon

(0ctober 26 - November 7, 2006)

Thanks once again to all of you who contributed funds for our wonderful honeymoon. Without you we would have gone crazy or something. The experience reaffirmed the reason why we hate to leave this country that refuses to stand still. South Africa feels like the wild wild west where the situation is volatile, but also full of dizzying potential. The Black middle class is exploding and the construction industry is feverish. The people are warm and forthcoming and the landscape is more like a dreamscape. Here begins a brief recap of events.

The reason that we chose South Africa was because it was the place that we first met during our spring semesters abroad at the stunning University of Cape Town in 1999. This offered us the opportunity to revisit our old haunts and check in on our friends while exploring the country that we both fell in love with.


This is the University of Cape Town campus with Table Mountain overlooking the main hall.


This is the place where I took my politics class and everytime upon exiting, I would notice Gudrun waiting for her housemates who also took the class. Yeah I thought she was cute.


Where Gudrun first kissed me in public after our first rendezvous. Admittedly, I was quite shocked. At the time, I didn't quite know what to make of her/us being that we would both leave the country in a matter of weeks. Would it fade or bubble outward?


This is Table Mountain viewed from Signal Hill.


View of the city center from the cable car up Table Mountain.


Kiss at the top.


On the left is the peak named Lion's Head and in the center is Robben Island - the site where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years.


Camps Bay


Llandudno - our favorite city beach during our semester in Cape Town. Unfortunately, the water numbs whatever it comes into contact with after 5 seconds, therefore unless you have a wet suit, the scenery is best taken in from the sand.


Muizenberg beach - home to colorful changing rooms.


Kids behind a giant jellyfish.


I mean GIANT jellyfish!


Actually this beach was full of the largest, juiciest jellyfish I've ever seen. Looks like a gummy bear, tastes like extreme pain.



Still there were benches to warm and trees to realign.




Cape of Good Hope



Where the wind is ferocious.



Baboons in Cape Town.







A lizard does an impression of a grizzly bear.




Cute and tasty. We spent some time at an ostrich farm.


Camps Bay and the Twelve Apostles.




Sunset at Camps Bay


This family I grew very close to while I was in Cape Town. They basically provided me with a local perspective that was informative, invaluable and deeply entertaining. Everyone has become so grown up. There are now a couple more kids as the family expands and continues to prosper. Big up to the January Family (my Cape Town family) who treated us with hospitality, a night on the town and a couple tasty meals. We would also like to extend a special thank you again for their honeymoon contribution. Cheers!



This is Lulu Bam - writer, real estate hawk, prospective talk show host, VIP, jack of all trades. We met her in 1999 and she continues to inspire both of us to this day - she is a ball of energy with legs. Oh, and she is ALWAYS happy. She flew in from Johannesburg to link up with us and took us to a Mandoza kwaito street party where we chilled in the VIP, it was hilarious. Excellent party. Do your thing Lulu.

Mandoza, the big star himself, surrounded by groupies...

Nkalalatha, the hit song!





DURBAN, KWAZULU-NATAL:
We spent 2 days in this rather disorienting city of 2.5 million. Humid with very little in the way of city planning, it wasn't as popping as we thought, but we managed to enjoy ourselves regardless. Once again, the people proved inviting. I swear, no one is ever a stranger for very long in this country.



Sunset along the city beach.







A public pool at the beach bustling with school children on a daily basis.


A vendor at a huge, labyrinthine market knows how to pile his potatoes


Soft-served ice cream cone at Chicken Licken Soul Food (fast food chain) that comes with a kit-kat placed in the center. That ain't soul food! Anyway, I found it funny.

At the monstrous, but oddly vacant beach front aquarium u Shaka, we discovered some fish we couldn't eat.



Though she tried, Gudrun was turned down for the part in the next Jaws film.

Our drive along the Wild Coast:





It's bad enough that in South Africa one is forced to drive on the left side of the road (steering column being on the right), but in addition, everybody walks along the highway, which presented a steady challenge to our driving skills. Often a cow or goat or old lady would also be right in the driving lane, and no one seems to be intimidated by a piece of shaped steel travelling in the opposite direction at 120 kph. Go figure. Sure enough we saw at least one dead dog or goat along the edge of the highway about every 10 kilometers.



Full of traditional area architecture.



School children chilling by the roadside in one of the dozens of small highway towns we went through in 3-5 minutes.



Port Saint Johns: where we spent a couple of days enamored with the scenery, as this town represents the point where the muddy Umzimvubu River meets the Indian Ocean.



School kids from Umtata on a trip to the beach that would turn into a late, late night street party. The third one from the left looks like Kool Moe Dee.

Gudrun attends to one of her many vibrating mosquito bites. Though in general there weren't so many mosquitos, she managed to summon them all.


No comment.

Our hotel room equipped with what matters most.


Local grocery store stacked with staple grains.

A trickle of a tributary clogged with automobile refuse strikes me as oddly organic.

CINTSA: After departing from Port Saint Johns, we then went on to spend an afternoon in another small town on the coast that had a stunning beach.








We then capped off our last evening in Cape Town with a delicious meal of shrimp, ostrich, crocodile, kudu (a South African antelope), mussels and beef with our old friends Lulu and Meike who kept us fully entertained by just being themselves. Thanks guys.