adventures 101.

In honor of our first classes tomorrow, here's a little update on South Africa's favorite subject--adventures.

The Devil's Peak Hike

For future reference, when a tour guide tells you it's going to be a 7 hour hike and the first 3 are uphill, he probably isn't kidding. In fact, he probably meant to say the first 4 are uphill. At least that's my experience.

First, I should explain about Mike and Trevor.
Mike and Trevor are our new best friends. South African born and bred, these fellas love outdoorsy stuff, and Mike started a little company called 2 Way Travel. (If you ever come to Cape Town, you want to tour with them. Seriously.) They were the first real non-student South Africans we met, and they showed us around the city and basically taught us how not to be fools. So we're a little attached.
And these two goofy guys offer to take us up this treacherous mountain hike for the day, and we say yes. #dumb. Just kidding; it was actually really, really awesome.

We left at 10:30 am and reached the summit at around 2:30. At first it was just uphill hiking, which was basically like being at Camp Lake Stephens but without Joel Fox's wonderfully cleared trails. And then came the boulders. And that Africa sunshine. And the drop offs. And the walking along ledges while clinging to the rock with your clenched fingers, praying to sweet baby Jesus that the wind doesn't blow too hard or that the rocks under your feet aren't feeling loose that day. But, my God, it was gorgeous. The trees beneath were beautiful and tall, stretching up towards our little mountain path. The bushes that blanketed the mountain, though prickly and scratchy, calmly clung to the rock just as we were. The Atlantic Ocean rolled onto white shores miles below us, bringing water that could've easily touched Mississippi and Massachusetts and all of that East Coast that I love so much. But the sky. Yall, I can't even tell you about the sky. The sky was constantly like God's way of saying, "Look what I've made for you. Look how close you are to Me right now. Yeah, you're welcome." It was a million shades of beautiful all the time. 
We sat at the top and had lunch with the wind and the rock and the clouds that tried to eat us alive. And then came the hike down. I have a whole new respect for people with knee issues now. 2 and a half hours mostly downhill, with a few uphill hikes here and there. It was so treacherous, a girl hurt her ankle and was airlifted out by a helicopter (she's okay, but it was kinda cool.) It brought on a whole new kind of exhaustion, and I'm pretty sure my feet, ankles, and knees are really mad at me right now. Not as mad at me as the helicopter girls', but still.
And that was Devil's Peak.

View from the top

Roomie Love
Colleen, me, and Siri

Old Biscuit Mill 

Saturday mornings around here are made for one thing: the market at Old Biscuit Mill.

Of course, we didn't know that, so we went Saturday afternoon instead. #lessonlearned.

The Old Biscuit Mill is Woodstock, a community down the street. There were 5 or so of us that piled into a minibus (which, trust me, is an experience in itself) and fought literal gale force winds down to this market. There are shops there that are open all the time, and walking through them, it felt like we were in Europe, or what I like to pretend Europe feels like. The shops were so eclectic, full of soaps and pestos and little antique trinkets. They had a shop of meats and cheeses, and a huge wine cellar. As we quickly realized that this half of the Mill was out of our budget, we made our way to the other end, the Saturday-only end. And that's where the adventure was.

It was like nothing I'd really ever seen before. Inside these huge circus-like tents were booths all around, kind of like a flea market but better. They had organic juice and fresh breads and strange meats and everything in between. In the middle were antique doors, lying flat on wooden pedestals to make long rows of tables. People were buying local beers and fresh lunches and crowding in along these tables, laughing and eating and carrying on. We found another set of tables, low on crates with plastic wrapped hay bales for chairs. A sweet little South African lady and her son made me a fresh steak sandwich with sauces I can't pronounce, much less spell, but I ate with my knees up under my chin and sandwich leftovers running down my fingers and loved it.

The wind picked up and the sellers packed up so we headed home, but we're already excited about next Saturday and the delicious foods in store for us at breakfast.

Mzoli's

This is probably the most local thing done, and it's already a favorite.
Mzoli's is a meat restaurant in a township here. We drove through the shacks and suddenly stumbled upon a huge building covered in people. Trevor and Mike were our inside men again, and they took us across the street to the Chill House where you buy something to drink before going into Mzoli's, which only sells meat and bread and white gooey stuff that was like rice or potatoes or something. They sold us Cokes and Black Labels, and we headed in.
The place was a tin roof with thick plastic walls to keep the cold out. A DJ was set up near the kitchen area, or at least where we assumed the kitchen was--you couldn't really see much. We sat at a very long table, which was actually 10 smaller plastic white tables pushed together. They threw a garbage bag full of bread on our table, and we all scrambled for it, though there was more than enough to go around our 40+ person table.

Trevor dishing out bread

We waited, they teased us with a bucket of meats but took it back because the weight wasn't right, and finally brought out 2 huge platters and tossed them on the center of the table. Now, I'm not exactly sure what they all were, Trevor is supposed to be writing them down for me, but they were delicious. We ate and relaxed and watched the local children hassle people for money and meat. The music got louder and the food ran out, so people started dancing and meeting local South Africans. It was a huge hodgepodge of an afternoon, and we got home hours after we planned to, but our bellies were full and our spirits were high, so nothing could've been more worth it.

Again, Siri's pics

Leftovers on our makeshift plate

BC Love