connections, and no internet at times has kept me away from computers.
We had a fantastic time in South Africa, eating great food, relaxing
in some wonderful places, and enjoying the World Cup thoroughly.
Cape Town was such a great city and thebest place for us to start in SA, I think. We had four days there, seeing penguins and a pretty good botanical garden, though sadly the weather stopped us from climbing Table Mountain. World Cup fever was in full force, and the 36-hours before kick-off of the first game was a never-ending stream of vuvzelas. Lots of old grannies started hating football, I'm sure. We also got to meet my friend Amanda, which was wonderful. She took us to a great restuarant and we had some good catching up. Huzzah.
After Cape Town, we decided to take four days to relax in a small little town called Knysna. OUr hostel was so great. It had a fireplaces, a good kitchen we could use, great owners, and dogs. We made it our home for four days. We also bungee jumped off the World's Highest single-spna bridge, which was such a rush. I can not reccommend it enough. The memory of the second when my feet left the bridge is burned in my mind for the rest of my life. Bungee jump. Do it.
Our place in Johannesburg was pretty good as a place, but it was so
far out of the way, we should have just spent the extra $10 per person
per night and not done the taxi. The public transportation was
horrible in Joburg and the only way we could get around safely was by
taxi. We did get incredible seats for Brazil vs. Ivory Coast,
however. Six rows back from the pitch on the center line. Awesome.
Luckily we only stayed for two nights and on the third day we were
lucky enough to have seats next to our good friend Dewey and Betsy,
plus his brother and brother's wife.
We all arrived in Durban, where the weather was absolutely fantastic
for our four day stay. Our first full day saw us on the beach to
watch a game at the public viewing which was situated directly next to
the beach. It was s sunny day and we sat on the beach with thousands
of South African drinking beer and watching France lose. It was
perfect. We even ran into someone we met in Cape Town oddly enough
and caught up a bit.
After that we worked out way to the stadium to watch a superb game
between Korea and Nigeria. We had seats together and the stadiums are
very well laid out, so we had a great view even from our nosebleed
seats.
The beach drew us in too much, so we had to spend the next day at
the public viewing watching USA just edge their way into the round of
16 (though with hundreds, not thousands of people. It was still
great). 90% of the people there supported the USA, so if you saw the
game you can imagine the yell we roared when they scored and got into
of 16, over England to make it all the sweeter.
The next two days we relaxed, worked our way down to the beach, saw
the aquarium, and just hung out. It was good fun and so nice to see
Dewey and Betsy again.
But we had a plane to catch, so we got on a night bus to go to
Joburg, then straight to the airport the next morning for out flight
to Dart es Salaam, where we waited for eight hours overnight in that
shitty airport for our morning flight to Addis Ababa. We arrived this
morning and slept for a couple of hours, but missed our alarm and woke
up around 4PM. We're a bit off our schedule but have since gotten
okay-er and oriented ourselves to our neighborhood.
We have spent the last four days in Addis Ababa, walking around, eating good food,a nd watching the odd World Cup match (including USA losing sadly, but it was at least to an excellent Ghana side). It is a pretty good city, but like all big ones it is loud, busy, and crowded. It is a pretty good city, but we're about ready to leave. Everything is so much cheaper than we thought it would be, which means that we get cup after cup of wonderful 20-50 cent coffee. It's excellent. There is little in the way of sights outside of striking poverty. Walking down the street passing beggar after beggar is still as hard as it has always been, especially with the rain. Ethiopia labels itself as a country with "13 months of sunshine", though I'm asusming they have a 14 month calendar. The mornings are pretty good, but about 3:30 everyday there is torrential rainfall all night. We were caught out a couple of time at the beginning and suffered some really wet shoes. Sadly we are tavelling for the next three weeks or so, so laundry is something thaqt might just have to wait until North America. It could be worse, but when you only own three t-shirts and one pair of pants, it could be better as well.
Speaking of traveling, today we picked up our last visa for this trip, which was kind of sad. It is wierd to think that we won't be getting anymore and that this trip will be done in four weeks or so. Better nine months than nothing, though, eh?
After the visa we went to the market in Merkato and were rather disappointed by it. You would think that the largest market in East Africa (and possibly Africa) would have more than clothes and shoes, but it had little else. I was hoping for lots of crazy stuff all over the palce, but in a city with little tourism, daily good was about what we should have expected. Too bad we set four hours aside for what only took one. Or perhaps it is so big that we missed the really nice stuff. It's possible.
Tomorrow we leave for the rock churches of Lalibela. Our bus, like all Ethiopian buses, leaves at 6AM sharp and seats are first come first serve, so we have to arrive by 5 to get a decent seat. Once we do, it is an easy two day trip out there.
I'm not sure if I will be able to update until we get to North America, so there will be little in the way of pictures of updates until then. Not that there has been much recently, but there will be less.
I hope that everything is wonderful with you and wish us luck!