Today was National Youth Day. For information visit this link: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soweto_riots . It is a national holiday here in South Africa, and as such most of us did not have work today (Collin and Luke helped at an AIDS event for their organization, GrassRoots Soccer). In order to do something fun on our day off, we decided to head up to Kristenbosch Botanical Gardens, a garden/park located near Cape Town. The Gardens are beautiful. I hope that after reading this update, you take the time to view the albums I put up that is dedicated to the KBG.
We saw so many beautiful fauna and flora at the gardens. The area was overrun with guinea fowl, which are hilarious birds. More on that later. Anyway, we spent around an hour to two hours walking around just admirning the different plants and animals, when came to a sign that said “Skeleton Gorge.” We had to explore this.
We followed the path, and we climbed. And climbed. And climbed. And then, because we were bored, we climbed some more. We traveled up the path, following the signs, and moving further and further into the darkness of the foliage. Eventually, we realized that we weren’t going to make it to Skeleton Gorge because some of our party wanted to make it to Khayelitsha to see Collin and Luke work the AIDS event. At our stopping point, Suvrat saw this amazing waterfall.
The waterfall was amazing. We all climbed out onto some rocks that were at its base and took some pictures, and just generally relaxed and enjoyed ourselves in this secluded, relaxing location. After maybe 30 minutes at the waterfall, we left and made our way back down the trail. When we reached the location where we had branched off to find the waterfall, we found a sign that told us how dangerous it would’ve been to continue climbing up to Skeleton Gorge. I took a picture of the sign, so you can read it when you view the album. Needless to saw, we never noticed the sign the first time we were there, and we would’ve continued on and found ourselves in a picky situation.
When we made our way back to the entrance, we saw two children chasing a guinea fowl around the patio surrounding the restaurant. It was hilarious. The children were throwing food to the fowl and then chasing it. The bird wasn’t sure if it should eat or run, it kept pausing and starting to the food, or even eating some and then running away from them. As I said, It was hilarious.
After we left Kristenbosch Botanical Gardens, we headed to Khayelitsha to see Collin and Luke. The event was really cool. It was a soccer tournament for local teens, and as part of the event, they could partake in voluntary AIDS testing. I can’t imagine the fear in those children as they awaited the news, yay or nay. I’m eagerly awaiting graduate school news, but either way my life won’t be suddenly turned upside down. The news these children might hear is potentially life shattering. I cannot begin to describe how brave they are for volunteering for this procedure.
After Matt, Tara, Mike and I left, we all came back to the apartments. Mike, Tara and I then proceeded down to Nando’s to eat some chicken. Nando’s is AMAZING. I’m in love with their peri-peri chicken, and especially their peri-peri chips. It was an amazing dinner. Alright, ladies and gents, that is all for tonight. I really want to finish reading Life of Pi tonight (been 30 pages from the end for the past two nights) so I’m off to do that. G’night everyone!!!!
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