Day 30
Kelly and I had made plans to go paragliding this morning. We got up early and waited off the boat at 9:30 for our guide, Manu. He arrived a little late–late enough to make us nervous–because he couldn't find the pier. Nevertheless, we were out on the road by 1000.
Manu made all kinds of jokes about safety on our way to meet our other guide, Pete. We had to change plans because the winds off of Table Mountain were no good, so we drove to some other ridge about an hour away. The winds weren't ideal there either; they could have been stronger. But other paragliders were out. We pulled off the highway into a parking lot, which boasted a sign prohibiting the feeding of baboons. Manu said they will get ya and pull your hair if you have food.
We decided to use a different launch pad than the one right off the parking lot. Getting to the launch pad required crossing the highway and a bit of a hike up a ridge. It was welcome exercise for me.
My stomach grew more and more full of butterflies as I put on my harness and Pete spread out the chute. Our instructions were very vague: run when I say to and don't stop until I say you can. Pete explained that he would have to hold all my weight if I stopped running too soon. Then he said that it wouldn't be too hard with me because I was in shape. “You don't want to be like all the big Americans. That gets harder as you get older, like me.”
We had to get the parachute into the air before we started running. I was nervous we would run out of space to run. It was pretty rocky where we were, and the rocks looked sharp and jagged.
Kelly and Manu got in the air first, but I was a little nervous they weren't going to make it. They dipped back down right after taking off. I guess they were fine though. We watched them soar around for a few minutes before the perfect wind came to lift us up.
I felt a strong pull upward, and then Pete told me to run. I tried to run fast without biting it on a rock. And, next thing I knew, we were in the air. Pete told me to sit down in my harness and relax.
It was so gorgeous up there. On one side, there were mountains and the rocky ridge we had just launched off of, on the other you could see the vineyards in Stellenbosch, the coast and Cape Town way off in the distance. Below us was the highway and a huge field. Unlike Kelly and Manu, we had caught a thermal, which kept us up high. Kelly was soaring around down over the field, level with the highway.
After about 20 minutes, Pete said we were going to sail over to and land in the parking lot. I was wondering where Kelly was going to end up. Were they going to land at the bottom of the hill and have to walk back up? As we approached the ground, Pete told me to start walking. I did...until my feet touched the ground where they were somehow prevented. I ended up on my butt.
There were tons of people in the parking lot by now. All of them were watching and taking pictures of me. Who knew I was a celeb in South Africa?
The next few minutes were somewhat confusing for me. Pete helped me take off my harness and gave me the car keys. Apparently, he was taking other people up, too, and I was supposed to wait until they were all done before we could go back. At the same time, I had no idea where Kelly was, so obviously I was relieved when she showed up a few minutes later. They had hitched a ride from another paraglider.
Pete was getting ready for his next flight, but the winds had died down. Kelly and I were anxious to get back. They didn't tell us we would have to wait for other people. But we had a rugby game to get to. So I asked Manu if he thought we would make it back in time. Luckily, they had decided to move to a different location (with better conditions), and Manu would be able to take us back.
Back on the ship, we searched for other people trying to go to the rugby game. We wanted to hitch a ride with them. A tourism man at the desk said he would arrange for us to be dropped off at the game with several other people by a shuttle that was taking people to wine tasting. He charged a third of what a taxi would have cost us.
We had heard that the game was in Stellenbosh. But, apparently, the one we were thinking of wasn't. We ended up at a college game instead. Stellenbosh Maties versus the Cape Town, um, team. The game also began two hours later than what we had heard. No biggie. We just went out to eat.
Kelly and I were starving because we hadn't had time to eat between paragliding and leaving for the game. We walked with the other people a few blocks to the center of town, searching for a delicious meal. We wanted tailgate food, not something dainty. Finally, we found a cute place that served pancakes and burgers. The workers?/owners? were all sitting outside looking fashionable, and they quickly coaxed us inside.
Obviously, we didn't want pancakes; although they had some interesting flavors. We couldn't decide between the steak burger with unusual toppings or the ostrich burger with sauteed mushrooms and wine sauce. Our compromise was that I ordered the ostrich and she ordered the beef, and we split them in half.
Dear god. These burgers were the most delectable burgers I've ever tasted. Why is food in Africa so much more delicious and cheap than in America? I guess our stuff is all so processed and gross that it can't taste good. Plus, it's expensive to put all those genetic enhancements in.
Before we found our restaurant and had dinner, we had passed the cutest boutique. It had all kinds of colorful dresses, shirts, scarves and other stuff that you can't live without. We wanted to go back after eating because we were so hungry. Our hopes and mood were dashed, though, because the place was closed by the time we finished eating. What kind of place closes at 5 pm on a Saturday? Why would a place as cute as this one ever close? It was so unfair.
So we stomped our way back to the college stadium. We stopped to take a picture of their theology building, which was huge and pretty and so much closer to the boutique and good restaurant than the boat. (We were really disappointed that we couldn't shop at the boutique.)
The rugby game was a whole new experience for me. The parking lot was full when we walked back, and there were students hanging out all over the practice fields outside the stadium. All of them were trashed. There were empty beer and liquor bottles splayed out in the grass everywhere you looked.
Girls were for the most part wearing short skirts and sleeve-less shirts. Kelly and I had on pants, a tank top, a long-sleeve shirt, a sweatshirt and a jacket. Some people were wearing what looked like one-piece maintenance uniforms. Kinda what painters wear, I guess. But they had painted them in their school colors and tied the arms around their waist instead of wearing them. The end result was basically that they couldn't keep their pants on.
Inside the stadium was better. Kelly and I hit up the bathroom. While waiting in line, in a completely normal situation, a black girl behind us started yelling at some white girls in front of us.
“Hurry up, white girl! Prove that you can pee fast!” I could not believe she had said that. Apartheid ended fewer than 20 years ago! The white girl just turned around with a smile on her face and retaliated with some other comment. They went back and forth like it was a joke until a stall opened up.
Wow. Um, it's too soon for that. All the young people we'd talked to didn't seem to feel any sort of racial discrimination, but their parents were all still experiencing it. Maybe the different generations saw things from different perspectives, but how could they be so drastically different? Whatever, I was uncomfortable.
So we went to find some seats. Drunk students were everywhere, even though alcohol was not allowed inside the stadium. I couldn't believe how drunk every single person was. It was still pretty early in the evening, and they would all go out to party after the game for sure.
We got seats by some other SASers. There were a surprising amount of us there. I think everyone wanted to go to a rugby game while we were there.
Rugby games are much different than any other games I have been to. Maybe it was just the university game, but there were no announcers. That really threw me off. I couldn't pay attention to the game because, for one, I didn't know what was going on and, for two, no one was telling me stuff was happening.
During a time-out, a guy in his underwear jumped onto and ran across the field. Security guards looked to lazy to chase him. Finally, as he climbed the chain-link fence barefoot on the visitor side of the field, a security guard on the bleachers went after him. The guard did not succeed. He failed again at the end of the game when two people streaked across the field.
After the game, we all got a ride back with the same guy who drove us. We were all exhausted.
Kelly and I had made plans to go paragliding this morning. We got up early and waited off the boat at 9:30 for our guide, Manu. He arrived a little late–late enough to make us nervous–because he couldn't find the pier. Nevertheless, we were out on the road by 1000.
Manu made all kinds of jokes about safety on our way to meet our other guide, Pete. We had to change plans because the winds off of Table Mountain were no good, so we drove to some other ridge about an hour away. The winds weren't ideal there either; they could have been stronger. But other paragliders were out. We pulled off the highway into a parking lot, which boasted a sign prohibiting the feeding of baboons. Manu said they will get ya and pull your hair if you have food.
We decided to use a different launch pad than the one right off the parking lot. Getting to the launch pad required crossing the highway and a bit of a hike up a ridge. It was welcome exercise for me.
My stomach grew more and more full of butterflies as I put on my harness and Pete spread out the chute. Our instructions were very vague: run when I say to and don't stop until I say you can. Pete explained that he would have to hold all my weight if I stopped running too soon. Then he said that it wouldn't be too hard with me because I was in shape. “You don't want to be like all the big Americans. That gets harder as you get older, like me.”
We had to get the parachute into the air before we started running. I was nervous we would run out of space to run. It was pretty rocky where we were, and the rocks looked sharp and jagged.
Kelly and Manu got in the air first, but I was a little nervous they weren't going to make it. They dipped back down right after taking off. I guess they were fine though. We watched them soar around for a few minutes before the perfect wind came to lift us up.I felt a strong pull upward, and then Pete told me to run. I tried to run fast without biting it on a rock. And, next thing I knew, we were in the air. Pete told me to sit down in my harness and relax.
It was so gorgeous up there. On one side, there were mountains and the rocky ridge we had just launched off of, on the other you could see the vineyards in Stellenbosch, the coast and Cape Town way off in the distance. Below us was the highway and a huge field. Unlike Kelly and Manu, we had caught a thermal, which kept us up high. Kelly was soaring around down over the field, level with the highway.
After about 20 minutes, Pete said we were going to sail over to and land in the parking lot. I was wondering where Kelly was going to end up. Were they going to land at the bottom of the hill and have to walk back up? As we approached the ground, Pete told me to start walking. I did...until my feet touched the ground where they were somehow prevented. I ended up on my butt.
There were tons of people in the parking lot by now. All of them were watching and taking pictures of me. Who knew I was a celeb in South Africa?
The next few minutes were somewhat confusing for me. Pete helped me take off my harness and gave me the car keys. Apparently, he was taking other people up, too, and I was supposed to wait until they were all done before we could go back. At the same time, I had no idea where Kelly was, so obviously I was relieved when she showed up a few minutes later. They had hitched a ride from another paraglider.
Pete was getting ready for his next flight, but the winds had died down. Kelly and I were anxious to get back. They didn't tell us we would have to wait for other people. But we had a rugby game to get to. So I asked Manu if he thought we would make it back in time. Luckily, they had decided to move to a different location (with better conditions), and Manu would be able to take us back.
Back on the ship, we searched for other people trying to go to the rugby game. We wanted to hitch a ride with them. A tourism man at the desk said he would arrange for us to be dropped off at the game with several other people by a shuttle that was taking people to wine tasting. He charged a third of what a taxi would have cost us.
We had heard that the game was in Stellenbosh. But, apparently, the one we were thinking of wasn't. We ended up at a college game instead. Stellenbosh Maties versus the Cape Town, um, team. The game also began two hours later than what we had heard. No biggie. We just went out to eat.
Kelly and I were starving because we hadn't had time to eat between paragliding and leaving for the game. We walked with the other people a few blocks to the center of town, searching for a delicious meal. We wanted tailgate food, not something dainty. Finally, we found a cute place that served pancakes and burgers. The workers?/owners? were all sitting outside looking fashionable, and they quickly coaxed us inside.
Obviously, we didn't want pancakes; although they had some interesting flavors. We couldn't decide between the steak burger with unusual toppings or the ostrich burger with sauteed mushrooms and wine sauce. Our compromise was that I ordered the ostrich and she ordered the beef, and we split them in half.
Dear god. These burgers were the most delectable burgers I've ever tasted. Why is food in Africa so much more delicious and cheap than in America? I guess our stuff is all so processed and gross that it can't taste good. Plus, it's expensive to put all those genetic enhancements in.
Before we found our restaurant and had dinner, we had passed the cutest boutique. It had all kinds of colorful dresses, shirts, scarves and other stuff that you can't live without. We wanted to go back after eating because we were so hungry. Our hopes and mood were dashed, though, because the place was closed by the time we finished eating. What kind of place closes at 5 pm on a Saturday? Why would a place as cute as this one ever close? It was so unfair.
So we stomped our way back to the college stadium. We stopped to take a picture of their theology building, which was huge and pretty and so much closer to the boutique and good restaurant than the boat. (We were really disappointed that we couldn't shop at the boutique.)
The rugby game was a whole new experience for me. The parking lot was full when we walked back, and there were students hanging out all over the practice fields outside the stadium. All of them were trashed. There were empty beer and liquor bottles splayed out in the grass everywhere you looked.
Girls were for the most part wearing short skirts and sleeve-less shirts. Kelly and I had on pants, a tank top, a long-sleeve shirt, a sweatshirt and a jacket. Some people were wearing what looked like one-piece maintenance uniforms. Kinda what painters wear, I guess. But they had painted them in their school colors and tied the arms around their waist instead of wearing them. The end result was basically that they couldn't keep their pants on.
Inside the stadium was better. Kelly and I hit up the bathroom. While waiting in line, in a completely normal situation, a black girl behind us started yelling at some white girls in front of us.
“Hurry up, white girl! Prove that you can pee fast!” I could not believe she had said that. Apartheid ended fewer than 20 years ago! The white girl just turned around with a smile on her face and retaliated with some other comment. They went back and forth like it was a joke until a stall opened up.
Wow. Um, it's too soon for that. All the young people we'd talked to didn't seem to feel any sort of racial discrimination, but their parents were all still experiencing it. Maybe the different generations saw things from different perspectives, but how could they be so drastically different? Whatever, I was uncomfortable.
So we went to find some seats. Drunk students were everywhere, even though alcohol was not allowed inside the stadium. I couldn't believe how drunk every single person was. It was still pretty early in the evening, and they would all go out to party after the game for sure.
We got seats by some other SASers. There were a surprising amount of us there. I think everyone wanted to go to a rugby game while we were there.
Rugby games are much different than any other games I have been to. Maybe it was just the university game, but there were no announcers. That really threw me off. I couldn't pay attention to the game because, for one, I didn't know what was going on and, for two, no one was telling me stuff was happening.
During a time-out, a guy in his underwear jumped onto and ran across the field. Security guards looked to lazy to chase him. Finally, as he climbed the chain-link fence barefoot on the visitor side of the field, a security guard on the bleachers went after him. The guard did not succeed. He failed again at the end of the game when two people streaked across the field.
After the game, we all got a ride back with the same guy who drove us. We were all exhausted.
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