18.01.2017
Ooops.... time is going past so fast or - time is running out of control to say it in Bobbys words xD
Since my last update quite a few things happened. I arrived safely at Bambelela after picking up my rental car without any problems. Or almost without any problems since there was that police officer at the airport that insisted, that I didn't stop at the stop sign and who wanted me to pay like 600.- ZAR... ^^ after negotiating and argueing for quite a while he finally gave me my license back and let me drive on without a fine....... ^^ the rest of the journey was surprisingly smooth.... even though my car probably had the cleanest frontscreen upon arrival at Bambelela (they got the indicator on the other side of the wheel than we do.... since they also drive on the other side... so there's that) - now not so much anymore, thanks to monkey's and boonies....
I arrived at Bambelela just before 18:00h and quickly brought all my stuff to my room, said "hi" to everyone, had a quick dinner (Bobotie, yummie...!) and then went straight to the pinkfaces since I was supposed to get back in monkey-motherhood straight away.... I was going to take over Connies kids, Sophia, Jazz and Ross. Unfortunately Ross didn't wanna settle with me that first night and so he went back to Silke (in the meantime we made friends and I'm sure if I had some more time to get to know him he would have been happy to stay with me... :))
Sophia and Jazz are really cute and fairly easy babies, they are usually asleep by 20:00h which is just one hour after Nappy-Hour starts.... They usually wake up about twice during the night and then early in the morning again to have some milk. But most of the time I'm still awake in any case since I'm either reading or watching movies - plus I love watching them sleep :)
The next morning I went to see my first baba Tamira with her firstborn Tamiro - I'm officially a granny now ;)
I also went to say "hi" to all my other kids even though I didn't recognise all of them anymore since some of them changed quite a lot...
Other than that I'm cleaning Handicap-Camp again in the mornings, I got quite a few baby-shifts and do whatever needs to be done arround the farm, which is mostly food-sorting and offloading xD
We also went to see the release-site for my first (and so far only) rehab-troop I was taking care of and I'm really excited to know they'll be living free there one day. It was also really great because there is a lot of wildlife arround there - zebras, blue wildebeest, buffalos, giraffes, sable antilopes, greater kudus, blessboks, eland, nyala, impala, warthogs, ostriches and so on...
Today I even made it to the pool, even though I didn't get to swim since I had not even half an hour xD But I had my feet in and there's still 3 more days to go before I leave to go and see Minette xD
04.01.2017
My last day in CPT already :'(( tomorrow at lunch I'll have to board my plane to JNB - and then I'm off to monkey-paradise :D
Today I had a visit to Table Mountain on my schedule.... but... as with all my other plans, it didn't work out quite the way I was expecting it...
The Cablecar at Table Mounten was still closed because of heavy winds this morning and no one could tell, if and when it would be running again...
I could obviously just have hiked up the mountain but since you're not supposed to do so on your own, esp. if your not familiar with the terrain.... I decided to sklip Table Mountain and go on
the Blue Tour again to do all the things I didn't get to do yesterday :D
So, the first thing I did was going on the wineland tour. I went to visit Groot Constantia, the oldest wine estate in CPT where I first went for a walk through the wineyard and then, just before
eleven, I went to taste some wine..... :) since I'm so knowledgable when it comes to wine.... I'm not gonna comment about any of the wines.... but let me tell you this much: there was two white
wines and three red wines that I tastet (you could only taste 5 out of 8...) and I liked the first one the most (cause it was kinda sweet) and I did not dislike any of them - which for me is
already something. ;)
After that I went for a guided Tour through Imizamo Yethu Township. It's a township that got a lot of help from the outside, so there is quite a few Kindergardens, Pre-Schools, Schools and even a
Community College as well as day- and after-school-care - but still not enough to really accomodate all the kids from the Township.
Also quite a few houses where built with the help of some Irish and some German people, so all in all, the Township isn't as bad as I expected. But also, it isn't what most of the townships are
like.
They also got a centre where they offer different workshops for young people to work against the unemployment and where they also sell art (jebbo, I bought quite a few things there.... and even
though I did negotiate I probably paied more than they really wanted for it.... xD but hey, after all they can use the money and I didn't have to pay extra for the tour since it was included in
the ticket I got xD)
If you wanna read more about it, here you go: https://www.citysightseeing.co.za/stops/entry/imizamo-yethu-township
Next stop was Hout Bay again, where this time I actually went to see seal-island on a boat tour.
Last but not least I went for a Sunset Tour up Signal Hill to see the sunset over CPT. It was really beautifull and a great way to end my (waaay too short) stay in this amazing Town!
Tomorrow arround lunch I'll be boarding a plane that takes me back to JNB from where I'll get my car and then it's back home to monkey-paradise...
03.01.2017
Yesss...!! Back in sunny South Africa!
Right now, I'm sitting in my hostel room up dating my blog since I'm literally too tired to take one more step right now. Howcome? you might ask yourselfe... well, it's been a hectic few days.
Since this journey so far isn't going according to my plans all that much. But let me start in the beginning.
I was supposed to meet my friend Sarah who is working for SANCCOB in CPT upon my arrival in South Africa and I was also supposed to stay with her and spend a few days here in CPT.
Unfortuately she got sent away to work somewhere in PE and I had to find accomodation on short notice and make some plans on my own...
I was lucky enough to get myselfe a bed in a dorm of a backpacker in the middle of CPT City, just a few blocks away from the Tourist InfoCentre where all the Hop-on-Hop-off-Buses stop. I would
have prefered a room on my own instead of sharing with up to 8 other people but I guess on such short notice you can't be picky... Plus it's fairly cheap and not that bad after all.
:)
My journey to CPT also wasn't really what you'd call a smooth one. My flight to JNB was over 1hr delayed and at the time I was supposed to be boarding my connecting flight to CPT I hadn't even
picked up my lugguage so I already saw myselfe staying at JNB over night or not getting to CPT at all... (If you fly on to an other City within South Africa you have to pick up your lugguage
and drop it off again - domestic re-check is what it's called). Nevertheless, after finally getting through immigration and getting my lugguage - it was about 9:40 by the time and the
flight was supposed to leave at 10:10 - I went to the lugguage drop-off counter and -surprise, surprise - the lady just asked if there was anymore lugguage for flight 323 to CPT as she needed it
ASAP.
So I was lucky - once again - and after I dropped my bag she just said: go to E1, and RUN! So I run through carry-on bag-control up and down to the gate and was then one of the last ones boarding
the plane (before that I already ran (almost) all the way from the airplane to immigration and on...). So I basicly had filled my soll of sports for the day (nevertheless I went on a 90min guided
walking tour later that day...).
So I was then actually on my way to CPT, finally! Upon arrival I took the bus to city centre and from there asked one of the security guys for directions - one of them actually guided me right to
the door of my backpackers which wasn't far away. I could finally check in, get rid of my lugguage and just a little later I was ready to set foot upon CPT and to explore this
beautiful Town for the very first time.
I did so using a so called free walking tour where all the guides work for tips only.
They offer a total of 4 different Tours and the first one I went on was the so called Historic Tour where our Guide Willem told us a lot about Cape Towns history and showed us many different and
intressting places arround green market square. He also made many suggestions about where to get the best food and stuff.
In the evening (new years eve...) I went out with two other people from the hostel. They where going to meet up with some of their friends in a hostel with an outdoor bar kinda thing and they
where happy to have me join them.
It was a really nice evening but shortly after midnight I decided to go back to the hostel since I was quite tired from all the travelling, running and walking arround of the past about 36 hrs...
The next day, new years day, I went down to the V&A Waterfront to just have a look arround and also to join the free walking tour that was offered arround the area.