2.21.2008 - Southern France
Joe and I were staying with our college friend Dr. Walsh who is here doing some post grad work in Astronomy for the next 2 years. The first few days were pretty tame, saw the sites - Cannes, Nice and Monoco - and hung out a bit. Here is a picture overlooking Monoco.
Monoco is like the supper rich place where the Monte Carlo Casino is and it has that grand prix that goes through the streets. Basically everyone was driving around in Ferrari's, the harbor is full of boats that look like this:
The last few days were very active. We started with a 7mile hike, our GPS track here in blue:
It had some great views.
Sunday the 3 of us took a $1.50 bus about 2 hours away to the Alps for a day on the slopes. The mountain was ISOLA 2000 and it's base was at 2000m. The top of the lifts easily went above the tree line.
This was by far the nicest place I've ever ridden, it took us 2 full days to hit all the trails and there are tons of trails to make up yourself (I spent most of the time in the glades). The snow was nice and the lifts were fast and line less. Joe and I hiked up above one of the lifts to get to the ridge of one mountain:
I'm definitely coming back to the Alps.
After 2 days one the snow (with one rest/hiking day in between) Joe and I went for a bike ride, with real bikes:
Our goal was to get to Italy but Joe didn't quite make it after a little accident about 5 miles away from the boarder (just a couple scratches). I saw him to the train station and went on to Italy. Here I am at the boarder:
This route provided some pretty crazy climbs and descents. I realized that I really enjoy both of them - I like things that are hard or scary and respectively, these are just that. Walsh had a GPS dealie, here is the route in blue (click of larger image):
Tonight we take the train to Rome for 5 days. Then we're thinking about Switzerland and finally Berlin.
2.13.2008 - Paris Part Deux
As for touristy things we saw a few more sites including the Louve - which is just mind boggling - the quality and quantity of items on display is just insane. But no one wants to read about that, you want to read about the Catacombs!
So, apparently there is a whole underground network of tunnels that are left over from old mining operations back in the day. They run under about 10% of Paris and are highly illegal to go in. A few of Olivier's friends are really into them so he organized a trip for us. We parked the car at the exit and walked up to an entrance.
Our 'guide' Toma is seen here pulling up a man hole cover in the middle of Paris. This will be our entrance.
We then had to climb down a ladder about 10m.
Luckily Olivier gave us some shoes and pants to wear because we were often wadding through a foot or so of water.
We would stop at different caves and rest, in this one we came across another group of guys
In another one we came across a whole crap load of human bones which were are from the Revolutionary war when the grave sites got overrun.
Our intended exit was flodded so we had to find another way, here is Toma coming back from the flodded area.
Finally, we found a way out that passed by this old nuclear fallout shelter complete with a working light!
Paris was a great experience, we got to see all the Touristy sites but also got to meet and stay with a number of French people. I'm now in route to Nice, traveling like 180mph across the French country side. More from Nice soon!
2-10-2008 Paris Part I
Thursday morning I took the train down to Paris where Joe (a friend from College) was waiting for me, he took the red eye from DC. In an email he said "I'll be the fat bald man looking confused, tired and hungry" so I was able to find him easily. We spent the half day visiting Montmarte and walking around a bit but had our bags with us so we weren't very mobile.
In the evening we took the rail out to the suburbs to meet up with and old family friend of mine. It's really great to experience French Culture by staying with a French Family. For instance, the first night we showed up around 5:30 since they wanted us for dinner. We sort of expected to eat around 7 or so but didn't end up eating until 10pm! The food has certainly been different but it's been really good - especially the cheese and wine!
Day two we went to Versailles, which is the Palace Louis XIV built back in the 1600s. This place is just massive, I still can't believe it. And not only is it massive, the amount of detail that went into each hand carved stone is just unbelievable. The garden in the back yard is also incredible, I'd love to come back in the spring.
My favorite room was the hall of mirrors. The afternoon sun comes into the windows and creates a really cool lighting effect, this picture doesn't do it justice:
Day three we got a late start after going out on the town the night before (the bars never close).
We saw the Arc de Triomphe and walked down the Champs-Elysees before dinner.
Then we headed up the Eiffel Tower at night which was really neat. It was an early night but we still didn't get home until midnight.
We have been spending money like there is no tomorrow so far which we need to get better about. A cheap meal, with a bottle of wine, runs upwards of $30 Euros each which is about $45. Other than that it's been a great start to Europe.
2-7-2008 Bye Bye Cape Town
I reluctantly left Cape Town a few days ago heading for London. My stay in Cape Town was everything I dreamed it would be. I assure you I will be back for visits later in my life - I just wish it were closer so I could visit more often.
I took the red eye back to London where I stayed for another 2 nights. This time I was able to relax more since I already did the London visit. I did spend a full day at the Imperial War Museum where I learned more about WWI, WWII and the Holocost in one day than in my entire High School career. Very interesting stuff.
From London I'll be heading to Paris to meet up with my friend Joe. Joe and I are going to spend the next 4 weeks touring around Europe. The itinerary isn't set yet but it should go something like this: Paris, France -> Nice, France (hopefully some snowboarding) -> Rome -> maybe Vienna, Austria -> Berlin, Germany -> maybe Copenhagen, Denmark -> Sweden. We scored places to crash in everywhere except Rome which makes things a lot easier (and cheaper!). It should be a great trip, I'm stoked.
Township 1/12/2008
Townships, which I use to refer to as Shanty Towns, are located all over the outskirts of Cape Town. Ive only seen the from the roads but had about 100 questions. 'Who owns the property', 'How many people live in there', 'What do these people do during the day' etc...
We came across advertised tours of the Townships, intrigued we asked the tourism lady really the only question that we cared about... are they safe. Apparently very much so, by touring there we're bring in revenue for the residence who run the tours and such. It costs about $15 each but that goes a lot further than you and I would imagine.
We toured it between 10 and 12 on a Sunday, there was tons of activity. This specific township had been worked on by a group from Ireland (think Habitat for Humanity) and they erected hundreds of 2 bedroom houses. I'm thinking this is one of the nicer townships but on the outskirts the views looked more familiar to what I was use to - 10ft x 10ft shacks just erected from whatever materials available, no water, dirt paths etc...
The Townships have shops, bike repair, auto repair, barber shops (TONS OF THEM?!), and even medical huts inside. Currently the place holds about 40,000 residents in an area that couldn't have been more than 5sq km
At first I was a little nervous, we were the only white people in there. All eyes were on us. For example one time we were walking by a hut, our guide walked by first – the 3 kids in it looked up briefly without expression, then when Donna and I came into view you just heard a 'whoaaaah' and they all ran for the door to look:
But, we quickly found out everyone was extremely friendly, and the kids were so cute! Most of the kids would be wide eyed not sure what to do, all it took was a simple wave and a 'hi' and their face just lit up when they said hello back.
I remember seeing a report in the States about the value of brand names. I kept a watchful eye on brands such as the Googles and IBMs but I always noticed Coca-Cola was number one – by a long shot. It never really made sense to me from what I saw in the states but with traveling I'm starting to understand it now. What our township guide mentioned today pretty much sums it up: “Any building with a Coca-Cola sign outside is a shop” - many of these had absolutely no other markings yet sold an array of items.
It was really great to see the signs prosperity in these Townships, they weren't everywhere, but you'd look in some of the houses and see large TVs, fridges etc. There was also a lot of
construction going on all over the place, people putting up 2nd floors and such. Some people were even walking around with designer clothing – although I wouldn't be surprised if some of this was stolen - I was secretly looking for my shirt and shorts that were stolen from the car the day before (along with my wallet, car radio, cell phone and a few other things).
I was hoping to hear / see a little more regarding AIDS as I'm assuming the Townships are one of the places it breeds in South Africa but there was no mention of it. I wish I could say this was due to a decline in the disease but as we all know statistics say otherwise. From what I understand there is still just a huge stigma surrounding it here, when people die from it, it's labeled as anything but – often the deceased is said to have been poisoned. Sad.
Bungee Jump 1/10/2008
Well we were passing the world's highest Bungee jump on the way back from the Safari so I had to have a go. 216 meters is the height of the bridge, I must have gotten within 20m of the ground....
Surprisingly there was very little time to even think on the first decent but the rebounds leave you with plenty to worry about. Eventually you come to a rest and you're just hanging there, totally disoriented waiting, what seemed like forever, for the guy to lower down, clip you up and tow you back up. Anyways, I survived and don't plan on doing that again anytime soon (although totally worth it!).
Safari 1/9/2008
*Just to give you an idea of how close the animals were – These pictures were taken with a 2x zoom camera (with a little photoshoping zoom here and there)
Donna and I took a week to hit up Addo Elephant park in central South Africa. It was about 800 Kilometers from Cape Town across the Garden Route which we did in two days each direction and spent 3 days at Ado.
The park is absolutely huge with a large array of animals including some 450 elephants. The other big game include Buffalo, Zebras, Lions, Kudu, Elands, Rhinos and one Leopard. We saw pretty much all of the major game except Lion, the Leopard and Rhino – which are all very hard to spot. (trust me, we tried)
We stay in one area of the park which is gated away from all the big game but our tent had a nice view of the game area:
Each day we head into the park for 2 or 3 self guided drives (you can go with a guide too). We drive around, very, very slowly, and look for things. It was very chill but sometimes the elephants can make you a bit nervous such as this one who was protecting her baby... Suffice to say after much frantic reversing we had to find choose route:
Although extremely common, I think my favorite animal there was the Warthog:
We did manage to catch a great sighting of this Caracal. Apparently it's very rare to see one this close that doesn't run away:
My least favorite sighting was probably this Cobra. I would not want to run into one of these guys out of my car.
And look out for this dung beetle photo in the running for the Pulitzer prize this year:
The last day we went on a horse back ride in the portion of the park fenced off from the big game, but plenty Antelope and smaller guys were there. My horse 'Girly' did not want to cooperate with me. It was listed as a beginner walk but my horse wanted to either stop and eat grass or trot to catch up with the rest who were walking. I didn't mind the eating grass part too much, it was the trotting, or galloping or whatever you horse people call it, that made me wish I were on a 4x4 with controls that actually responded to me.
New Years Eve 1/1/2008
New Years was pretty Chill, we relaxed at Donna's summer house, drank a bit, played some board games and watched the sun go down.
I made two new years resolutions this year:
1) Waste less food.
2) Edit my digital photos before uploading online.
A few days before New Years Donna and I hiked up Table Mountain (The one in all the typical Cape Town photos) and took the Cable Car down. It was quite a hike around 300m vertical.
New Years day we went for a hike at Cape Point, this time it wasn't as overcast and we were able to see the actual point. On the trail back Donna's father noticed a Puff Header below one of the walk ways. We all had to pass eventually keeping a wary eye on it coming within a meter of the guy (granted below the grates) but it was still pretty scary. Got this picture:
Surfs Up 12/29/2008
I was talking to Mike, a Dewey (Delaware) local kiter, one day in Spring 2007. Mike came from surfing and rides the kite when the swell doesn't deliver (which is most of the time). I once asked him, “given the conditions were 10/10, would you rather kite or surf”. I was thinking this was a stupid question, of course he was going to say Kite but without even thinking about it he threw back Surf. I was astonished.
Swell was up in Cape Town. We happened to be at their summer house for New Years. The first day surf was big and sloppy – by the time we arrived apparently two people had already been rescued by helicopter when swept away from the rip tides. No one else was on the water, we decided to let this day past. The next day Shawn (Donna's brother) and I headed down to the beach to spot some nice 2-3m swells rolling in, a few guys already out there. He loaned me a board and gave me the run down of the spot. Now mind you I've owned a surf board for about 5 years but I can count the number of times I've rode a wave on my two hands.
We hop in on the left side of the beach where there is a channel and the rip is the strongest. I start paddling like mad by habit to rush out and fight against the white water. Shawn sits there up right on his board and laughs at me “Bro, like I said you don't have to paddle, let the rip do the work”. I'm doubtful but obey. Sitting there you don't feel like you're moving until you look towards the shore next to you (in a bay) and see it zinging by. Before I know it Shawn yells “alright, time to paddle out of the rip” I follow him paddling sideways about 5m and were suddenly in the line up. Shit, that was easy – what happened to the 15 min struggle?
In the picture below you can see the right guy in the rip / channel. The wave won't break on him there since it's deeper and you can see how the waves setup for beautiful rights and lefts depending on what you're looking for.
There were only about 5 of us out there, which is a crowded day for this spot. All in all I eat it 2 or 3 times, badly but catch 3 nice waves – one of which stands out in my mind greater than the other two – a beautiful right that Shawn and I were both going for, I got up fist so he backed out and I just got a real nice ride back into the rip. Those 3 waves now make up the best 3 rides I've ever had in my life.
I can honestly say I know where Mike is coming from now. That surfing experience changed my whole outlook towards it. Granted I would still choose the kite, but I could see that changing with a few more days like that.
Now leave some comments dammit: