Don't you forget about me...

So I’m sat in Johannesburg OR Tambo airport and I can’t actually believe that I’ve left Swaziland for the last time (in the foreseeable future). The last few days have been the most emotional time of my life; my heart has been dragged through happiness and sadness alike, memories have been made that I will cherish for the rest of my life yet the pain of leaving those that I love is still fresh, and I know that it will only heal with time.

Swaziland has made such a huge impact on my life in such a short space of time; 1 year seemed like forever when I was preparing to come out here, but now I realise just how short this time is in the grand scale of things. The culture, the people, the country and my children have all taken a special place in my heart and in my soul... they have changed me for better and I am never going to forget the experiences I have had here.

1 year is so short and fleeting and the children I have worked with are so young that the majority of them are going to grow up and not remember me, even if they don’t remember me I will always remember them and everything they taught me about loving others unconditionally. Despite everything that they go through (things that even adults shouldn’t be expected to handle) they still have the energy to express their love to you in every moment they are in your presence...

I am going to miss the hugs, the kisses on my hand as they leave the classroom, the hugging of my knees as I’m trying to walk and the playing with my hair. I will miss the cheeky smiles across the classroom and the giggles as they press my skin to watch the colour change, I will miss them calling me Aunty Katie and I will miss the pride in their eyes when they are confidently speaking English to me. I will miss the joyful singing and the energetic dancing, I will miss the unnecessarily loud talking and the bright colours, I will miss the dirty faces at soup kitchen and the thank you’s that we really don’t deserve, I will miss speaking in SiSwati and watching people’s reactions when they realise we understood them. I am going to miss the sun shining every day and I will miss Swazi time, I will miss the hard workers, the cheeky children, and the shy ones who you have to invest time in over a few months before earning their trust. I will miss making a sad child smile and I will miss the laughs with the happy ones. I will miss my African life. 

I am scared to go home. You know when you come back off holiday and sit on your bed and it doesn’t feel like you were sunbathing on a beach in Spain only yesterday... it feels like a dream, it feels like you were never away. I am afraid that when I get home my time in Africa will feel like a distant memory, like it isn’t real. This scares me because this has been the most REAL year of my life, I’ve experienced real lives and real people for the first time ever and everything that I have learned I want to keep with me, I don’t want to let it slip out of touch.

This year I have been blessed with a second home, second families, Swazi mothers, new brothers and sisters and too many children of my ‘own’ to count. Leaving Swaziland is difficult as I don’t know when I will be coming back; I don’t know who I will see again. Tears have been shed but it is time to move on, I have to step aside to allow someone else to begin their journey into what I hope will be the first real year of their life. I am so grateful to have had this opportunity; it has been an experience that only comes around once in a lifetime...

You are born and then you die, but in between you can do anything you want. You have to grasp life and shake it by the shoulders, make every mistake possible and learn from them, take risks and mess up... but most of all make sure you have fun. Make sure you never waste a day. Go to sleep with no regrets.

This HAS been the best year of my life, but now it’s in my hands to create more great years.

Kate xx

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdqoNKCCt7A

“This is a disaster, Debonaires aren’t delivering.”

So we’re back on holiday for some more travelling! Ahhh I love to travel after a long stint of hard work. Instead of trying out some place new we decided to revisit one of our favourite stops from our Christmas travels down the coast. COFFEE BAY.
This time around we managed to stay in Coffee Shack; probably one of the best known backpackers in all of South Africa and we were reunited with a fellow PT friend! Sally works in Mthata (about 1 hour away) so she came down to Coffee Bay for a bit of a party with us on the Friday night before she had to go back to work. The night was joyous, with flowing drinks and many pool challenges; I was even so lucky to find R300 on the floor of a toilet cubicle, but in my stupidly truthful drunken state I insisted in finding the owner of the money instead of just spending it on drinks... which was the worst idea ever looking back now because I’m pretty sure the girl I ended up giving it to was just lying. I think I should just stick with the mantra of “finders keepers” in the future, for I have never been so lucky.

Anyway, the next morning was actual hell, we woke up early in order to get ready for the ‘beach day’ we had booked; a fun filled day of beach activities, surfing and toasties, which was just the perfect thing to be doing with a massive hang over. Despite our less than fit states we actually had a really great day sunbathing, napping and surfing! We really did surf too, stood up properly and everything!

After our great weekend in Coffee Bay getting reunited with the locals and their colourful business pitches, haha, we headed off to Mthata to meet Sally on her project! Bethany Care Home is an orphanage for babies and children and provides them with education and a safe place to stay. THE BABIES ARE THE CUTEST THINGS I HAVE EVER SEEN ON THIS PLANET. I know that I say it all the time, but I really really really would steal one of them back to England if I could get away with it.

So we stayed with Sally for a few days and helped her out on project; it’s basically a room filled with babies and toddlers and you just get to play with them! And obviously wash them, feed them, sniff them for bad smells and change diapers. So this was my first experience looking after babies as an ‘adult’ and I have to admit that the diaper thing was pretty disgusting the first time, and the second time... actually, it was disgusting every single time but once you’ve started getting to know the babies you don’t mind as much because they are just so adorable! Now I know that it’s probably bad to have favourites but I couldn’t help it; one little girl completely stole my heart with her Asian looking features; she apparently has no Asian in her what-so-ever so I don’t know where the look comes from but she was totally irresistible. She was gorgeous but always looked sad; until the evening where I helped Sally on night shift, for some reason at 3:00am in the morning she was the happiest little baby ever and that was the only time I ever saw her smiling... well, and the time she sharted on me but that was probably more of a grimace than a smile.  (And for anyone who doesn’t know; a ‘shart’ is the word for when someone farts and follows through, i.e. a shit-fart. Just clearing up any confusion).

See, look how happy she is!

...but this is what she normally looked like. So sad :(

And this was after the 'shart' - tactically holding her away from my body here! Hahaa.

The girls at Bethany have their hands full all of the time, it felt like being a full time Mother to about 11 babies all at once, so many demands! I now feel like I’ve had an introductory lesson into how to be a Mother, and I can tell you right now it does not seem easy – thank god this is far in the future for me! Being with the babies kind of reminded me of when we used to take the neighbour’s dog for a walk... they’re cute and you want to play with them but as soon as they go to the toilet you can’t wait to pass over the poop bag and the responsibility to someone else. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I loved being on the project for a short time, but I don’t know if I could handle the puking, pooping and crying every day... yeah, the girls do a fantastic job.

So now the visit is over, and it’s time to go and meet my family to Johannesburg!

Kate xx

Watch out Polokwane, the Swazi’s are here...

SOUTH AFREEEEKA AGAIN. So we’re having another pit stop in Pretoria the ‘student city’ before hitting Polokwane. After a terrifying ordeal of our taxi not turning up and fearing we might miss our bus the staff at the backpackers find us a ride and we make it to the bus station on time with minimal shit in our pants. Obviously a saying, Ashley and I aren’t incontinent.

View over Pretoria

The bus pulls into Polokwane at ‘Mall of the North’, the BIGGEST shopping centre I’ve seen since the last time I was at the Metro in Newcastle, which was a long time ago. This shopping monstrosity is only 2 minutes walk from where the girls work; Mitchell House. No wonder none of them have any money, they’ve all developed an addiction to a shop called ‘Factorie’ which I admit is fantastic as it is on the level of Topshop, but when you convert the price tag you’re paying more a New Look price... and if you shop on the sales rack (haha, me) you find yourself paying Peacocks prices for awesome clothes!  Needless to say Ashley and I treated ourselves to a little bit of retail therapy while we were in Polokwane.

Mitchell House is a private Primary School and High School with an Enrichment Centre for children with disabilities; the Enrichment Centre is where the girls are working. They have a Junior class, a Senior class and a Life Skills class for the older students; the girls have a really full on day and work from 7:00am until 5:30pm with incredibly challenging children.
They have small classes as the children need constant one on one attention so there are a lot of hands on deck; the children themselves are lovely, no matter what their disability is it doesn’t  affect how friendly, funny, witty or loving they can be!

Our last day in Polokwane was spent at Mitchell House and then going for pre-drinks at Spur Steak Ranches with the best waitress ever – Dudu. Ashley and I also joined in with the new rule that the girls have set up; everyone who visits them in Polokwane is expected to go and get a piercing. Not too sure where this originated, but we obliged and Ashley braved the tragus whereas I just settled for the second hole in the lobe. Nicola also joined in and had her tragus done too, just the thought of it makes me want to be sick, I don’t know if I could handle it!
So after our visit to the jewellers some pain relief was in order... we hit the liquor store just before closing time and then made our way back to the girls apartment to get ready for our night out!

In true British style we braved the cold African winter night in dresses and skirts, determined to look good even if it meant suffering. We then hit one of their regular bars called Ngunies (which came as a shock to Ashley and myself because it was very white, something we haven’t experiences in a loooong time!) and proceeded to dance embarrassingly. We all had a good time, but I regretted it the next morning when we woke up at 6:00am to catch our bus to Johannesburg. 

We must have looked pretty worse for wear because as we sat on the concrete parking lot of a petrol station wearing last night’s makeup waiting for our bus a man approached us with a loaf of bread asking if we were okay... we assured him we were okay but he insisted that we take the bread anyway. After taking bread off a stranger I realised that I felt the lowest I’d ever felt in my life, in turn  this made me feel awful because this must be what homeless people feel like on a good day when someone is actually being kind to them.
To make the story even more unbelievable the same man returned 5 minutes later with two portions of MacDonald’s fries and insisted that we take them as well, he’d driven to MacDonald’s to buy them especially for us. This is the single most crazy thing that has ever happened to me; technically I felt like I should be mortally embarrassed, obviously we looked such a mess we appeared to be either homeless, in trouble or attack victims (or a combination of the three), but it’s hard to take a moral high ground when you’re sat on concrete with a hangover and your hands have just been filled with a portion of steaming hot FREE fries. Silver lining, yep, I see it.

So after the rough journey back to Swaziland via our favourite Park Central Station in Johannesburg we spend a comfortable night in Manzini at Kathy and Richards house, complete with homely meal, warm shower and actual bed before arriving back at hostel to throw ourselves onto our beds, sigh relief, wash our bag full of stinking clothes and sleep.

Holidays, you are wonderful. But is sure is good to be home.

Kate xx

“SHUT UP. Justin Beiber’s DEAD?!”

First things first, let’s talk about New Years Eve!

During the day about 20 of us decided to head down to the beach at Camps Bay; unluckily for us there was a strong wind blowing over the ocean, and it was crashing angrily into the sandstorm of a beach... no sunbathing and swimming for us then. We decided to go to a nice restaurant for a pizza and cocktails instead, it was a little pricey for our backpacker budgets but it was NYE, so I didn’t feel guilty indulging myself on the culinary delights.

That evening we pre-drank in the backpackers to save some money when we were out; our usual pubs and clubs had put door fees on for the event, so we were going to be a little more strapped for cash than usual. Pre-drinking quickly turned into a massive game of ‘Never Have I Ever in Africa’, which was basically an opportunity for everyone to reveal things about their partners to the rest of the volunteers, which is both hilarious and embarrassing! 

I headed straight out of the backpackers and straight into Bob’s; as it turned out that was where I spent the whole evening, it was mental. Free giveaways on the door (not so free when you realise you’re paying to get it) included a plastic whistle, a colourful wristband and a chupachup, those whistles were blown all night long by every person in that club... The noise was still ringing in my ears 2 days later; it was so bad I was pretty damn sure that I had tinnitus. 

My two highlights of the night are as follows; (the first) I was dying of heat and possibly dehydration but the bar man refused to serve me anything other than alcohol, so he decided that the way to cure my problem was to dump a jug full of iced water over my head – what can I say, it did help! The second highlight, and possibly my favourite includes the free whistles, drunk volunteers, Maccy D’s and everyone’s undoubted love for Gangnam Style. After Bob’s we were feeling pretty hungry, so about 7 of us headed up to McDonald’s at the other end of Longstreet; we suddenly realised that once you walked a few buildings away from Bob’s no one had whistles, so we took advantage of that fact. We whistled the tune to Gangnam Style whilst proceeding to do the Gangnam Style dance up the middle of the busy (but traffic jammed, so perfectly safe) road. A few drivers and passengers were probably harassed on the way, and we received some dirty looks from the classier establishments that we passed... but it’s New Years Eve! CELEBRATE IN STYLE PEOPLE. More precisely... CELEBRATE IN GANGNAM STYLE.

2013 baaaby!

The last day and night in Cape Town were spent in the beloved Mitchell’s Scottish Ale house, and a rare early night was taken due to the fact that Ashley and I had to be up at 4:45am (along with the Outward Bound girls and two of the Polokwane girls) to catch the Intercape bus to Sedgefield... we were going to visit their OB project!
Nicola and Amelia (Polokwane) slept in and we had to ask the bus to wait for them, Intercape leaves at 6am on the dot and they woke up at 5:45 in their backpackers. After running to the bus station with 100 litre backpacks on not only had they just completed some kind of impossible physical feat due to adrenalin, they managed to make the bus. Close call.

Sedgefield

Due to last minute plans Ashley and I didn’t actually have a place to stay in Sedgefield, we thought that it should be fine if we tagged along with Nicola and Amelia to their backpackers hoping that there were some free beds or sofas that we could crash on. Typical that the one backpackers we don’t book into has the most unhelpful and unfriendly manager EVER. Since travelling in Africa I have realised one thing, backpackers are awesome and the people who work in them are normally pretty cool and laid back. If you walk in and there are no beds they ALWAYS sort you out, and don’t treat you any differently from those who booked a place.
This woman was a different story. Oh no, we were the biggest inconvenience in the WORLD. The annoying thing is that she had one bed, so the only issue was that there was one extra person. Ashley and I offered to share the bed but both pay the full price (pretty good deal for her I’d say), but noooooooo, we can’t share a bed, if we do it everyone will want to do it. Really? Even if they did want to it would mean she’d be making twice as much money on the same amount of beds, idiot. Not a great business mind in my opinion.
Anyway, after a lot of huffing and puffing she agreed to put out a mattress in one of the dorms (hallelujah), but we could only stay for 2 nights, on Friday morning she wanted us out. She put it just about as nicely as that too. For the two days she treat us like we were the plague, granted she did eventually get around to any queries we had, but it was with a face that looked like a baboons arse.

Then again the backpackers had jacuzzi's on the roof... So all was well. 

We head to La Piazza on our first night in Sedgefield to meet up with the OB girls for dinner; they’re really close with the owner, Gary, who is a little bit of a legend but keeps buying us shots all night even though we’re on our Cape-Town-Come-Down. This is what I’ve decided is the best way to describe the feeling when you’ve stopped partying and your body has gone into some sort of shock from the lower levels of drink ingested. You start to feel tired early on in the night, your throat hurts and you are blocked up from your toes to your brain – pressure centred in the nose area.
We all down the shots and decide it’s time to head home. Everyone apart from Ashley. She’s been on the Jager all night and isn’t ready to go anywhere, so she stays at the restaurant herself and parties with Gary and his staff. In the morning I discover her hungover in her dorm wearing a Jagermeister t-shirt, cap and lanyard with another top strewn on her bed. The story is that she was dropped off at the backpackers at 4am after being bought free drinks all night. I don’t know how she does it, she’s a machine. I was almost sleeping on the table in La Piazza at 10:30.
The amazing thing is she’s up for it again our second night there! We wind up playing beer pong with some guys from our dorm in the backpackers, and she doesn’t seem fazed by the hangover at all. I have to admit, I didn’t really feel like drinking that much but beer pong is awesome! I will definitely be cracking that one out a parties when I return – so be ready everyone, cause I am goooooooood. Well, I’m okay but Ashley and I both managed to throw the ball at such an angle and speed that it span around the inside of the target cup before plopping into the drink, I wish more people had seen it, it was pure skill. Remember those charity machines in supermarkets when we were younger; where you pushed the pound coin in and it span around and around in circles before dropping down into the hole at the bottom? IT WAS LIKE THAT.

The girl’s Outward Bound base is gorgeous, there’s a lake surrounded by rolling hills and paragliders are always floating just above the hilltops. I was a tiiiiiiiiny bit jealous because I had been really interested in Outward Bound, but I love my project too much to be envious of it! We had a lovely swim in the lake to Reeds Campsite (our accommodation for the night since that morning we had been made backpackerless), and emerged from the lake looking like Chewbacca because all of the mud and dirt in the water sticks to the fine hairs all over your body. Sexy sight! 

The Chewbacca lake!

After swimming we decide to set up camp early so that we’re not wrestling with poles and guide ropes in the dark; on our walk down to the campsite we get a lovely surprise in the form of a completely naked old couple driving their car in what they clearly expected to be a very rural area, the smiles on their faces indicated what they had been up to, and they clearly hadn’t been expecting any company! The part that ‘topped it off’ (hahaha, you’ll get this in a minute) for me was that we all saw the lady lean over to her (I presume) husband who was driving and strategically place a basketball cap over his ‘man-parts’, that’s right lady we all saw you! What makes this story even better is that once we got to the campsite there was another car, two people were already inside and the third was stood outside of the car finishing off dressing themselves... what can I say, there are a lot of randy pensioners in sleepy Sedgefield! You DOGGERS.

Our spot at Reeds Campsite!

Despite having two 2 man tents Ashley, Lucy, Lauren and myself (the happy campers) decided that we could all squash into one. This was lovely and cosy when we first got there and it was freezing cold, however as the night and film we were watching progressed the layers started coming off and our small tent turned into a sweat box. I had a cramped and restless night’s sleep, I could not find an angle where the tent was long enough for my body and getting out of that tent into the cold night to go to the empty one was not an option.

Sedgefield is a beautiful little town on the Garden Route and is home to the fantastic Wild Oats Farmer’s Market, seriously the food there is to die for and there are hundreds of little stalls with jewellery, bracelets and crafts – so as girls we were all in heaven.
It didn’t really feel like we were in Africa though, it’s very Westernised and there were so many white people! Most of the population is white, which was really strange for us compared to Big Bend. It felt more like a little town in the Lake District (but with better weather of course) than South Africa.

In Transit

Intercape, we meet again. As we’re lining up we realise that it’s assigned seating, damn, we’re going to get a really rubbish place. Or are we? The one in a million happens, the lottery win of coach seats, the creme-de-la-creme of over-night travelling... we score top deck front seats! Not only is this the prime road viewing position, but we have at least twice as much legroom as anyone else on the bus. I could not be happier. This lasts until my iPod runs out of battery... 30 minutes in.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Intercape company, please allow me fill you in on a few facts. Intercape are a company with STRONG Christian beliefs, beliefs that they don’t keep to themselves. They pray before we set off travelling, and they pray once we have reached our destination. But that’s quite nice, I respect that, it’s just everything in the middle that drives me crazy. All of the content that is fed over the speakers or shown on the TV is Christian; Christian songs, Christian cartoons, films with plots that are biblical and the very worst are the short VT’s of American farmers from the deep south giving their views on passages from the Bible. First the accent then the opinions – it’s enough to make me throw myself straight out of that top deck front window. By all means keep your beliefs to yourself; just don’t use cheap travel as a way of trying to convert people.
To escape this I did the only thing left to do, I slept. We arrived in Johannesburg at 7:50am Sunday morning; I had not been looking forward to this part of our travelling as we have heard our fair share of horror stories about J’burg. Unless you’re in the very rich areas you have quite a high chance of being axed to death in the car-park of Shoprite (true story, this year’s J’burg volunteers saw this happen with their own eyes). We were in Park Station, not a rich area and not a white area, I’m not going to lie, I was very apprehensive about getting off that coach.

Thankfully our Christian coach conductor found us ‘a guy’ and he walked us safely through Park Station to where the Swaziland bound kombi’s were parked. All was well and we made it back to Swaziland in two pieces, one named Ashley and the other named Kate.

Swaziland

J’burg was NOT what I needed to be worried about! Getting off the kombi in Big Bend felt like I had just been happy slapped by a bag of burning hot coals. The heat was immense; I have never felt anything hotter in my life. 47 degrees Celsius, whaaaaaat?! I should be the hottest thing around here ;) Not like that though, I mean body temperature. Anything over body temperature should not be allowed. Ashley and I almost died walking from the kombi park to Sisekelo laden like donkeys with our large backpacks on the back, small backpacks on the front, and two shopping bags in each hand... the only positive thing was that we were excellently counter balanced.
24 hours of travelling later and 48 hours of not sleeping in a proper bed meant that we both crashed out almost instantaneously.

South Africa, you were brilliant. But it’s good to be home.

Kate xx

P.S. The title of this blog is yet another quote from Ashley. A few people were discussing some news that a paparazzi guy had been hit by a car and died while trying to photograph Justin Beiber. Upon only hearing part of this story Ashley jumped up from her seat and screamed the words “SHUT UP. Justin Beiber’s DEAD?!” No Ashley, calm down. She is rather a fan, her trauma was visible. It was pretty funny and deserved some recognition, so here it is.  

Chunder Dragon

This week has been our first 7 days of Cape Town, and we’ve seen though some great (and also not so great) times.
If I’m perfectly honest we’ve all been living for the night, we have established our local watering holes and some people have created names for themselves.

Our favourite places on the not-so-long-street that is known as Longstreet are; Bob’s, a club run by an English man, it is a firm favourite because they give out free shots for karaoke singing and pole dancing. The Dubliner, unfortunately is quite expensive, but it is an Irish bar with live music so the atmosphere is really great! Stones; a club/pool and snooker house, (for all you Darlington residents, I believe it is probably like Riley's). Last but not least comes The Food Inn; who undoubtedly fed the 30+ Project Trust volunteers for the 10 days on cheap Indian food, and never failed to provide chicken tikka sandwiches stuffed with chips after many a great night out.
A more classy area to Cape Town is The Waterfront; there’s a large shopping mall, outdoor amphitheatre, canal boats on the river and fancy restaurants... Among all of this is a Scottish Ale House that goes by the name of Mitchell's, and over our stay in Cape Town I can safely say that we all became rather fond of the place. I’ll miss the times we spent there listening to the lads shouting obscene football chants at the South Africans after watching a game; “I bet they’ve never even BEEN to England, and they support MANCHESTER UNITED?! They’re just glory hunters, that’s all they are!” 

Longstreet is great for teenagers on holiday as there’s everything you need right on your doorstep; however it has to be one of the most dangerous places I’ve come across since I’ve been in Africa. It is a hotspot for petty crime, pick pocketing, muggings and people with fraudulent tendencies. You have to have your wits about you every second of every day which can get tiring after a while, but if you do look out for yourself and your things you can have a brilliant time! Luckily I managed to have a fantastic stay on Longstreet and didn’t become the target of crime but other volunteers weren’t so fortunate; we experienced stolen bags, money swiped from people’s hands on the street, stolen phones, tricks at the ATM’s, laptops stolen from backpackers and muggings. But despite all that everyone carried on in true British style, picked themselves up, borrowed money and went out to hit it on the night and forget about their problems!

Christmas Day was spent in a cave on table mountain; our backpackers organised the trip and we all paid E200 (£14) for the privilege of joining them on Christmas day with food, drinks and 70 odd bottles of champagne. Unfortunately to get to where the party was at we had to complete a short hike from where the truck dropped us off (at the bottom of a shale slope) up to the cave. This doesn’t sound so bad until you add in all the variables which made it hell. Firstly it was midday and scorching hot, we all had to pitch in with carrying the food and drinks up to the cave (I was stuck with a large pudding in a metal bowl, which heated up in the sun and caused the pudding to melt into some sort of slop which did not want to stay in the bowl), and to top it off we were all hung over due to our Christmas Eve partying the night before.
It was all worth it; the views from that cave were spectacular, we had food drinks and music and all looked very festive in our free Santa hats from Bob’s the previous night. Unfortunately it didn’t feel like Christmas Day, but it was a really lovely Tuesday! Plus, how many other people can say they’ve spent Christmas Day on one of the (newly appointed) seven natural wonders of the world?

Me, Sam and Sam (the Botswana boys) and Ashley

This week I decided to experience some African culture; a few of us went to the District 6 museum to broaden our knowledge on the whole subject – unfortunately the museum wasn’t really in a logical order, so I’m not an expert on it but we did learn some interesting things. The same day we went to see the Hobbit at the cinema, which was AWESOME and made much more sense than the District 6 museum.

This week also saw my brother turn 17, which is crazy; I can’t believe he’s so old! We had a little Skype session on the morning of the 28^th and then Ashley, Sam, Georgia and I went for a Mexican meal at ‘The Mexican’ (which was great and really filling, damn I love Mexican food) and all the volunteers headed out for a flat party! Two of the Cape Town volunteers had us all round for the night, apparently it was a good party – unfortunately for me I can’t remember, however a few embarrassing photos have given me the jist of how my night went. Said photos have also given me the nickname ‘Chunder Dragon’, and I will now always be remembered as the girl who drank too much vodka, chundred everywhere and star-fished in the freezing cold out on the balcony. What a legacy I have left behind me.

Before I made a fool of myself, having a nice time with everyone... why Kate why?!

The next morning I was positive of how my night had gone, I had the second worst hangover of my life (those of you who were at my 18^th house party will know that was the first worst hangover of my life, so you can gauge just how bad I was here), and I was still at the flat. Not at my backpackers. There were 4 of us who had stayed behind, and it took us all well into the afternoon before we could move far enough to get a taxi back to Longstreet. I was hungover and shoeless (don’t ask why) and there were 7 of us in a 5 person taxi... this isn’t even counting the driver. I spend the rest of the day in bed. It was a rubbish day.

The day after I’m still feeling pretty rough, but it’s getting to the point now where we’ve been in Cape Town for a week and not really done any sightseeing, so we’re all feeling a bit guilty for wasting our time... We make a desperate decision and head to Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope with some German volunteers that we had been bumping into on our travels all along the coast. We see some African penguins, climb to a lighthouse to overlook the massive expansion of ocean (at some point you can see the joining of the two oceans (Indian and Atlantic), and have a scramble on some rocks at the Cape of Good Hope. They really are beautiful places and I felt a bit happier for actually seeing more of Cape Town than Longstreet.

Cape Point 

Cape Point - somewhere out there is the Indian and Atlantic oceans joining together.
How cool is that?!

View back to the mainland

Myself, Lauren, Yolanda and Ashley
(Two out of the four girls from the Outward Bound project in Sedgefield, South Africa)

Nice little view from our scrambling adventures up the rock face :)

These holidays are going too fast, I can’t believe they’re nearly over!

Until next time, Merry Christmas (for this week) and a Happy New Year <3

Kate xx  

Fear is Temporary, Regret is Forever

When you’re stood in a shower alternately washing yourself with shower gel and 3 pairs of pants with soap powder, you get the sudden realisation that you should make an attempt to wash your clothes before you run out completely.

So, we’ve hit the Baz Bus’s compulsory stop over destination – Port Elizabeth. Apparently there’s not really anything special to see here, so we only spent the night before moving onto somewhere more exciting. However in our backpackers we met another Project Trust volunteer; Gabriel, from York and he’s on a township project. So the planned early night went straight out of the window and we stayed up until 4:30 chatting about our projects and travels – we felt sorry for Gabriel who had to get up for the Baz Bus at 7:00am, but we had a great night.

Jeffries Bay

We make our own way to J-bay on public kombi’s because the Baz Bus are rip-off merchants and don’t have any room for us. Even though we paid extortionate amounts of money for our tickets and we called them up to book our places MUCH earlier than the advertised ‘72 hours in advance so you’re not disappointed’. We hate the Baz Bus.
Anyway, Baz Bus hating aside Jeffries Bay is amazing! Our backpackers ‘Cristal Cove’ is right on the beach and there are loads of surfers walking around. It’s exactly like the Boardmasters Festival at Cornwall... apart from the weather is much better!
We have a very mature 45 minute stroll along the beach for some calamari, and on the way back we have a swim in the once again warm ocean. I don’t know what happened between Coffee Bay and Jeffries Bay, but the water at East London was FREEZING – Indian Ocean, waddup wid dat?

Turns out the Polokwane girls and Gabriel are also in J-bay, so we walk to their backpackers and meet up with them for the evening. We head to this place called ‘The Mexican’ for a live music night; it takes me a good 45 minutes to get served at the bar because the place is so packed. I make the logical decision of stocking up on drink and buy myself a few bottles so I don’t have to go back to the bar for a while. You wait so long to get served you actually sober up in between drinks! It’s probably a smart ploy to make money, everyone has to drink more than usual to get drunk. Touché.

Storms River

Turned out to be an unplanned stop! Because Baz Bus are rubbish (we hate the Baz Bus), they didn’t have room to take us the last 40km from Storms River to our backpackers, Wild Spirit Lodge in The Crags. Therefore we were thrown off the Baz Bus into the heat, dirt and unknown... backpacks and all. Alright, maybe I’m exaggerating, we were dropped off at Dijembe backpackers in Storms River. The staff were all really lovely, gave us free tea and coffee and kindly let us stay the night.

Is this the prime place to chill, or is this the prime place to chill?

We bump into the Polokwane girls AGAIN, this time is does come as a surprise because we knew that they were staying in Plettenburg Bay (which is further down the coast from Storms River). We decided to go tubing and heard familiar screams on our way down to the river... Turns out the Baz Bus royally screwed them over and they couldn’t get on it at all, so they had to hire a car to continue their travelling. So with their new found freedom they travelled back up the coast to Storms River to do the very popular activity that is tubing! Tubing is great fun, you basically sit in a sturdy rubber ring and travel down a river going over rapids, floating calmly and climbing up rock faces to jump into deep pools. It was exhausting work on my arms as we were on the river for a good 3 hours or so, but it was definitely worth it.

Our instructors told us that the last cliff jump was 12m high, and that only 14 girls had ever done it, so obviously I was well up for increasing that total. I’d done coasteering in Newquay, Cornwall before and had jumped from higher places so I was a little bit overconfident.
On the way down all the jumps that we did were a little bit hairy, the 8m jump was set back into the cliff so you had to jump at least 1m forwards to clear the rocks below and land safely in the water. This was a little nerve wracking, however I didn’t expect the 12m to be quite as dangerous! I am telling you, the ‘jumps’ that we did on that river would never be health and safety accepted in the UK, if you put one foot wrong or didn’t push off hard enough you would have kissed rock-face.

I’m not going to lie, standing on that tiny outcrop I was s****ing my pants, I’ve never been so scared in my life. Even when I get scared it’s not normally from doing activities like this, I love this stuff! I couldn’t work out what was happening to me, every time I pushed forwards to jump my foot wouldn’t move, it was frozen to the rock. My heart was pounding and I was looking sceptically at the 2m rock outcrop that I would need to clear in order to survive the jump. My hands were shaking, my voice was shaking and I’ve been told that I was stood there for half an hour.
I didn’t jump. Excuse the language, but all that can be said is that I pussied out. Big time. I’ve never been angrier at myself for not doing something. Now I was just an unknown statistic on the side of the girls who didn’t have the guts to do the jump.
The worst thing was that Ashley screamed like a little girl on the 8m, but she still managed to jump the 12m, now 15 girls are mental enough to hurl themselves off that cliff – good on Ashley!

The Crags 

We finally get to Wild Spirit backpackers and it is again, beautiful. So far for me this backpackers and Amapondo Backpackers at Port St John’s are in tied 1^st position when it comes to the most amazing locations! The views are gorgeous, we are surrounded by thick forest and the mountains fade out on the horizon as far as the eye can see. Looking out over our balcony from our dorm room there’s a sea of green below us, and within 20 minutes you can walk in either of 3 directions to get to a waterfall, the magical forest or the ‘Big Tree’.

Climbing a big tree, before 'The' Big Tree!

Friday 21^st December brings the dreaded Apocalypse, so I go to reception before breakfast and book myself in for a bungee jump at 5pm. Why not.
All 4 of us go on the short hike it takes to get to the waterfall and find ourselves in a place written about in story books; we cross the rickety wooden bridge over a glimmering plunge pool and climb up to where the waterfall is cascading down the rocks. The water is freezing cold, but it’s too stunning to not swim in!
After the waterfall we walk to a farm stall for lunch and find the best deal ever; fresh milk for E5.50 per litre, that’s about 40p. Fresh milk in Africa is a rarity for us as we get given UHT milk, nasty long life rubbish. So we empty out our 1litre bottle of drinking water onto the ground and fill it up with the fresh, non-UHT, organic and cooled milk. Words cannot describe how much we loved that milk, however we did have to buy another litre before leaving!

THE BUNGEE

There’s only one word for it, it was SICKKKK! Driving to Bloukrans Bridge I was pretty nervous, but as soon as I was there and had on my harness I was ready to go. The guy harnessing me up even asked me how many bungee jumps I had done before, and when I told him this was my first one he seemed surprised and commented on how calm and chilled I seemed to be – so at least I wasn’t a nervous trembling wreck like I had been on the cliff jump the day before.
Once my group got to the bridge it was even better; we walked along a covered grate walk over the valley (so there were some amazing views) to the middle of the bridge, I thought I had just walked into a club. Obviously it wasn’t dark dingy and foggy but there was blaring music and all the guys who worked there were dancing about all over; firstly they were clubbing and secondly they were working at a bungee site. It was such a good atmosphere and got you pumped up and ready to go! Unfortunately I didn’t jump to a brilliant tune, but that didn’t take away from the experience.

After my freak out on the cliff jump I wasn’t too sure how I would feel once I got to the edge of the bridge... Luckily the guys give you a pretty swift count down so you barely have time to think about what you’re doing! ‘5,4,3,2,1 BUNGEE’ gets you to jump pretty quickly, and if you don’t jump they push you, so I knew that one way or another I was going headfirst off that bridge.
I don’t recall bending my legs and pushing off at all, but I definitely jumped... The first split second that I was in the air I felt my body spasm and try to pull back, I think it was a reflex that was telling me ‘no, don’t do this, what the hell are you doing?!’, and then it was over and I was falling. I watched the valley pass me by upside down, and saw the river below getting closer and closer... and then came the bounce back up.
When I watched other people jump the bounce back up looked quite violent, their bodies were jerked at strange angles and the warning of ‘retina displacement’ was fresh in my mind... but I didn’t feel it at all. The most amazing part of the whole experience was after the bounce when my body was free in the air, it feels like you’re flying (instead of plummeting headfirst to the earth) and it is the calmest and most peaceful I have ever felt in my life. A calm, peaceful bungee jump, a little bit contradictory I know, but that’s how it was for me!

Mossel Bay

Saturday 22^nd December, everyone is still alive. I am so surprised.
We Baz Bus to Mossel Bay and again meet up with the Polokwane girls and Gabriel at their backpackers. We have a lovely meal together and then hit the bar; Daisy and Ashley ask for free shots and get given something that is an absolute killer – this then leads to some hilarious events including cartwheels on the beach and unhappy beach wardens.

The next day we’re due to head to Cape Town! Baz Bus isn’t due until early evening so Ashley, Daisy, Sam and I decide to go sea kayaking. We’re doing doubles and Daisy and I are terrible; we can’t go in a straight line and we zigzag our way along the coast by heading directly to shore, then out to sea then back again towards the shore. I’m pretty sure we kayaked twice as far as Ashley and Sam, but we were about 40m behind them all the time! 
Then the inevitable happens... the Baz Bus is early. Normally it’s late, in fact it’s rarely ON TIME, but today it’s early. We’re fresh out of the sea and not even at our own backpackers! Luckily we packed that morning so the driver lets us jump on as he was stopping by our backpackers anyway and we manage to make it... just. We’re in swimming gear and wet, but we’re on the Bus and on our way to CAPE TOWN!

Thank you Baz Buz express service, we just caught you in time and now you’re on your way STRAIGHT to Cape Town... Baz Bus, I think you may have redeemed yourselves in my eyes just a little bit. Express service means that we get to Cape Town around 9:00pm instead of in the middle of the night and we meet some of the South African volunteers and go out on Longstreet!

It’s going to be a LEGEN-wait-for-it-DARY 10 days!

Kate xx

P.S. The title of this blog is a poster I saw at the Face Adrenalin bungee jump, rather motivational don’t you think?

“One five minutes, one five!”

Sadly it is time to leave the beautiful Amapondo backpackers in Port St. John’s and move on... I will surely miss the thick jungle and amazing views.
So it is back to the Shell Ultra City (a petrol station where we have been spending quite a lot of time due to the Baz Bus shuttles) and then we move on to Coffee Bay! We were all excited at the prospect of spending some time in Coffee Bay as it has had a great reputation among the past Project Trust volunteers, so we were about to find out for ourselves why it was so amazing.

Coffee Bay
We arrive and it is beautiful, it is a tiny little place with a couple of beaches and hills that you have to wade to across a rivers’ mouth to reach, and the landscape is pretty much untouched. We had a walk to the ‘main part’ of the town which is home to; two backpackers (Coffee Shack and Bomvu), Kaleidoscope Kafe (a little hippy shop and cafe, who also sell the most amazing homemade passion fruit ice-cream!), a pizza place on the top of a ridiculous hill, an Indian run family store (who have all of their products behind what looks like prison wire, so they’re clearly conscientious about safety) and... well, that’s pretty much it.
I’m lying, that’s almost it; I’ve nearly forgotten about the jewellery ladies! As you hop across stepping stones over a little river to reach this area the grass banks are lined with ladies sat on blankets selling their handmade jewellery. Unlike stall owners in Swaziland these ladies don’t sit quietly and hope you will buy something...
As we passed by what must have been 15 stalls all selling the same thing we had 15 ladies all introducing themselves to us, telling us we must buy from them and saying that we must remember them and come again tomorrow. I smiled apologetically and said that I had no money and carried on walking, Ashley however stopped to have a look at one stall and that was the end of her. As soon as she was stationary all the ladies grabbed pieces of jewellery, sprinted from their stalls and threw themselves onto Ashley; within seconds she was laden with necklaces, bracelets and anklets, and she was surrounded by women so desperate to sell that their approaches to customers were more intimidating than friendly. In the end she paid for pretty much everything that had been attached to her body as it was the only logical option for escape!
This happened to us every time we walked past, which was a few times a day. I took on the inspiring motto of “if you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball” and zigzagged my way through the danger zone with my reflective aviators on so that no one could catch my eye.  

Arriving, it's a tad cold, but the weather will soon pick up!

Our accommodation at Sugar Loaf backpackers! Finally I get to stay in an African hut!

 Tuesday morning starts with disaster, we booked a surf lesson for 7:30 in the morning and set an alarm so that we could get up and walk to Coffee Shack in enough time. Unluckily for us Ashley’s alarm decides to not go off and we get a call from the backpackers at 7:20 asking where we are and the answer is in bed. We all jump up that second (it is the quickest we have ever moved on a morning), throw on some clothes, grab our swimming gear and run to Coffee Shack which is about a 10 minute walk away. At 7:25 in the morning you do not want to be running for your life in flip flops on a dirt track wearing nothing but a bikini and a top. We made the surf lesson though and it was pretty fun! The water in Coffee Bay is as warm as a bath because it is the Indian Ocean, lovely.

We spend the day sunbathing and swimming on the beach and then head off for some pizza and ice-cream, I love holidays. 

Nothing says "Welcome to Africa" quite like cows on the beach...

Me not having a poo on Coffee Bay beach, just unfortunate timing!

Mmmm! Sun sea and sand <3

That night we decide to get in touch with some African culture and we head to Bomvu backpackers for the free drum lessons around the campfire! Considering I am the most unmusical person in the world I really enjoyed the drum circle, the guy lead us with some simple beats and we just copied him, when there’s about 20 people all playing in time on the dijembe drums it sounds quite impressive (even for a bunch of amateurs).

Dijembe Drums

Looking sunburned and sweaty, sums up my time perfectly really!

 The next day is hell, Ashley and I contracted third degree burns from the beach (the boys weren’t as bad), but none of us can move very far. My lips have blistered (which has never happened before in my life, and I’m very familiar with sunburn) and my face is so red and shiny I look like a prematurely born baby. Ashley looks like she has skin disease because she sun-creamed in patches before getting bored and presumably giving up. We took advantage of the aloe-vera plants growing in pots around the backpackers and cut off big leaves to take to the bathroom, there we spent half an hour covering ourselves in think, green sticky (but amazingly cooling) goo.

East London
LANDAN BABY! We head off to East London from Coffee Bay, and on the way back to our favourite petrol station (Shell Ultra City) we pass buy Nelson Mandela’s house and old village! WE SEE HIS REAL HOUSE, WHERE HE LIVES! And just like the Queen when he is home a flag flies from the rooftop, but when we passed there was no flag, because he is in hospital.

The Big Man's house.

We bump into the Polokwane girls at the Shell Ultra City; they’re getting off the Baz Bus to head to Coffee Bay. It’s so strange seeing them again after all this time, they visited us within our first 3 or 4 weeks into our stay in Swaziland, but when I see them again it doesn’t even feel like we’ve been apart for very long!

Our stay in East London was quite a long one, so we took advantage of the time and fitted in some activities. We went sand boarding on our first full day; sand boarding for those who don’t know is basically snowboarding on a sand dune. What we didn’t think about when we booked it was that in order to sand board DOWN the dune, you had to climb up it first. Unlike snowboarding there aren’t any lifts to the top; so in 30 degree heat and bare foot on scolding hot sand we were jogging up this sand dune, carrying our boards and struggling against the constant sand avalanches which hindered our progress.
Physical exhaustion (and embarrassment about how unfit I have become) aside I had a great time! Ashley, the Sam’s and myself bit the dust, literally, many times but before the end of our 2 hour lesson we all managed to make one full run down to the bottom! Sam Rutherford was so hardcore by the end he managed to snap his board in half, good effort my friend.

The next day we set off for a family friendly animal park; not the normal choice of destination for a group of 18 year olds but there was one good reason we were heading there... lion cubs. Need I say more?
For 30 rand (£2.15) you had access to view all the animals at the park (tigers, lions, crocodiles, cheetahs, rabbits and some of the biggest tortoises you will ever lay eyes on), and the opportunity to play with lion cubs! Money well spent.
It was a pretty funny day; I managed to electrocute myself on the cheetah enclosure (which is also on video because Sam permanently has his camera on to document everything that happens) and we found a llama that looked exactly like Ruth (a woman who worked at Kaleidoscope Kafe in Coffee Bay). Therefore we entertained ourselves for a good 30 minutes doing voice-overs to the llamas in a posh Johannesburg accent; it was almost like Ruth was with us.   

Howzit Ruth?

It's not everyday you get mauled my a Lion Cub :D

So, that’s it for this week! I’ve seen some more beautiful places and I’m definitely catching the travelling bug. 

Kate xx

P.S. The title of this post is dedicated to the one and only Petros, the best Baz Bus driver South Africa has to offer.

Petros: “Ok guys, we have fifteen minute stop, yes? Everyone back here in one five minutes... one five, one five!”

We love Petros.