Defying death while making new friends!
To what lengths will we go to endear ourselves to locals? Well, apparently we'll slowly lower our bottoms off of 15 meter-high cliffs, entrusting our lives to a rope calling itself a 'brake line'...at least that's how we hope you spell brake(/break) in this context. Sounds sketchy, I know, but thanks to our trusty new South African friend Steve, and Laura's previous expertise, our rock climbing trip turned out to be one of our best adventures yet! See the new set in our photo album for a play-by-play, as well as our best efforts to bring you a glimpse of the gorgeous scenery.
In other news, we've become regulars at the Friday 'coffee joll' (joll=party, spelling unsure) mentioned in our last post (at which we met Steve), and of course have already started trying to siphon venue control away from the joll's original origanizer (another very sweet fellow by the name of Roger). We also checked out Tsotsi, of Academy Award fame (Best Foreign Film). You would have thought that the local audience would have been the best crowd to see that kind of super-intense film with, but between the snoring guy (Allison got to live out her fantasy of chucking a wad of paper at some dude snoozing in the back) and the highly inappropriate gigglers, it seemed we were the only people in the room that found that movie to be really hard-hitting and well-done. We highly recommend it.
Hmm, what else...Master's classes are ticking along. The South African constitutional class is really great, as they're starting at square one and going into great detail, and our professor was one of the negotiators at the provincial level for KwaZulu-Natal, which we're coming to understand is kind of like South Africa's version of Quebec. Still trying to hunt down volunteer opportunities, and we must say it's pretty surprising how much of a challenge that is proving to be. But we're hot on the heels of a few leads now (Amnesty International, the Gender and Human Rights Commission, the Legal Aid clinic's HIV/AIDS awareness program, and a children's hostel to be specific). Hopefully something will pan out for us soon.
But in the meantime, we've got big plans for hiking in the mountains and visitng Lesotho at the end of this month, as well as a slowly-forming but very exciting trip to Cape Town planned for April. We also met some really inspiring folks out climbing (funny how in the outdoors you can pretty much rest assured that the people you meet are going to be interesting), one of whom is a British gentleman who has been climing for 56 years all over the world (including Squamish), and the other who, in addition to travelling around Western Canada on her own at the age of 47 picking apples when she needed money, spent most of her life as a Ranger/Mountain guide in the Drakensburg. She has hooked us up with a great contact in Sanni Pass (which takes you over to Lesotho from here) for our trip to the mountains and has also offered to drive us out there for a day hike sometime. Donkeys and mountain-top pubs here we come!
So, enjoy the pics, and thanks for continuing to check this page out despite the fact that we can't seem to get around to updating it more than once a week.:) Hope everyone is well!
Peace out,
:)Christina, Laura and Allison
In other news, we've become regulars at the Friday 'coffee joll' (joll=party, spelling unsure) mentioned in our last post (at which we met Steve), and of course have already started trying to siphon venue control away from the joll's original origanizer (another very sweet fellow by the name of Roger). We also checked out Tsotsi, of Academy Award fame (Best Foreign Film). You would have thought that the local audience would have been the best crowd to see that kind of super-intense film with, but between the snoring guy (Allison got to live out her fantasy of chucking a wad of paper at some dude snoozing in the back) and the highly inappropriate gigglers, it seemed we were the only people in the room that found that movie to be really hard-hitting and well-done. We highly recommend it.
Hmm, what else...Master's classes are ticking along. The South African constitutional class is really great, as they're starting at square one and going into great detail, and our professor was one of the negotiators at the provincial level for KwaZulu-Natal, which we're coming to understand is kind of like South Africa's version of Quebec. Still trying to hunt down volunteer opportunities, and we must say it's pretty surprising how much of a challenge that is proving to be. But we're hot on the heels of a few leads now (Amnesty International, the Gender and Human Rights Commission, the Legal Aid clinic's HIV/AIDS awareness program, and a children's hostel to be specific). Hopefully something will pan out for us soon.
But in the meantime, we've got big plans for hiking in the mountains and visitng Lesotho at the end of this month, as well as a slowly-forming but very exciting trip to Cape Town planned for April. We also met some really inspiring folks out climbing (funny how in the outdoors you can pretty much rest assured that the people you meet are going to be interesting), one of whom is a British gentleman who has been climing for 56 years all over the world (including Squamish), and the other who, in addition to travelling around Western Canada on her own at the age of 47 picking apples when she needed money, spent most of her life as a Ranger/Mountain guide in the Drakensburg. She has hooked us up with a great contact in Sanni Pass (which takes you over to Lesotho from here) for our trip to the mountains and has also offered to drive us out there for a day hike sometime. Donkeys and mountain-top pubs here we come!
So, enjoy the pics, and thanks for continuing to check this page out despite the fact that we can't seem to get around to updating it more than once a week.:) Hope everyone is well!
Peace out,
:)Christina, Laura and Allison
posted by AXL in Africa at
8:05 PM
1 Comments:
AWESOME. Go Christina and Allison; new climbers defying death in fine form indeed. 'had to save a few of the cool pics of you guys climbing.
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