Where the wild things are [part 2]

Continue with the journey ...

We actually got to sleep in until ... 7am on Tuesday. Oh trust me, after 3 nights of getting up at 4am, even for a morning person like me, it was amazing to get those 3 extra hours of sleep, to have enough time to sit down and have a hot breakfast with eggs and toasts instead of cereal and bananas. We spent the entire morning on the bus (more sleep, amen) as we moved to our next destination – Soweto, moving from the wilderness to an urban atmosphere, and from an exciting nature experience to a historical and cultural one. To give some background, Soweto is a large, highly populated township in the city of Johannesburg (I will get back to Johannesburg later). Soweto stands for South West Township and is actually developed enough to be a city of its own.

On the way to Lebo’s, the backpacker place that we spent the next two nights at, we made a quick stop at Soccer City.  I was ecstatic to see the stadium that housed the World Cup with my own eyes. If only I was here last summer to experience all that hype and excitement and to be able to watch a real World Cup game in the midst of all the noise of the vuvuzela. That would be one hell of an experience.

We arrived at Lebo’s backpacker just in time for lunch. Similar to Old Vic, Lebo gaves out a friendly and homey atmosphere, with its set up no different than a typical house: kitchen, dining rooms, office, living room and backyard. The only differences would be there were way more rooms and bathrooms (which is kind of a necessity) and a backyard decorated in tribal style with the bar, a fireplace surrounded with cushions and hammocks, fooseball table, pool, darts, picnic tables and a bamboo house. I was in love with the decoration of the yard, especially the upstair section that gave off a Mediterranean and African fused feeling with decorative beaded throw pillows on the floor, for us to lie down comfortably while hanging out. The workers here were exceptionally nice and they gave me the feeling of family members. I became friends with them immediately, considering how often I snuck into the kitchen to make coffee and tea during the 2 nights we stayed there.

The painted wall outside of the house

After a light lunch with tomato grilled cheese sandwiches, fish and chips, we set out to pick our bicycles for the bike tour. It was a struggle for me to find a bike my height. Don’t laugh. I wouldn’t exactly be happy if I couldn’t find a bike. Thankfully, there was one. We were given a brief history of Soweto as well as various interesting facts about it at the beginning of the tour. Not only it is big enough to be a city on its own, with developed economics and industrial centres. Soweto also had a surprisingly rich cultural background. It houses some of the most famous landmark of South Africa, including the Nelson Mandela House and the Hector Pieterson museum and monument. Without said, it has an extremely eventful history, involving various significant events and political figures. Cultural wise, there is one interesting fact that I actually remember. The popular soundtrack “The lion sleeps tonight” from The Lion King is actually an English version of the original song “Mbube”, recorded by Solomon Linda who lives in Soweto.

As we biked along town, we got to experience various local traditions and learnt more about the township. We tried the local beer that the women made for their men during the time they had to work in the mines, learned the dance that went with it, and showed the local people an “American” dance. We stopped by a local “restaurant’, street style, for people to try cow tongue. For a Vietnamese, I guess that is not something new but it was interesting to see how they used different spices and other dishes accompanied the meat. The way they served the food was also different. We visited the monument of Hector Pieterson and made a quick stop at the Nelson Mandela house. I actually realized I knew very little about the history and politics of South Africa and Africa in general, since I couldn’t even think of one fact about Nelson Mandela (except that he was black man, j/k). I have never been really interested in history and politics but for some reason, I felt like I should know the most basic things about the place I visit. Time to do some research *sigh*

After around two hour biking around town, we headed home. It was such a great exercise after all that time sitting in planes, jeeps and buses. I felt like my muscle finally got to move again and surprisingly, was still in good shape. After all the cakes and dessert that I have consumed for the past few weeks, I did not expect myself to breeze through all the hills without much problem. Pretty proud of myself, not gonna lie.

One thing I loved about the trip was that we had plenty of time at night during dinner and after to hang out and really bond with each other. There are only around 20 of us in the program, and normally, we have always been pretty close to each other, going to class, field trips and travelling together. However, this was an excellent chance for me, at least, to break out of the normal circle of people I usually hang out with and got to know the others more. Spencer, Ben, Wes and I started an “intense” game of foose ball and obviously, Wes and I lost, thanks to my amazing eye-hand coordination skill. Don’t really understand how people manage to play that game =.= I actually got to know Ben much better during the time at Lebo’s. It was great to be able to know more than just he’s from Switzerland, goes to U of R and he plays squash. Also, during this time I have managed to convince Monica, Spencer and Portia to come visit Vietnam, even if it was only for the spa, manicures, and coffee shops. It actually occurs to me that knowing people from U of R is actually quite a nice thing, especially when thinking that I can still see Monica, Spencer, Ben, Toni, etc., next semester and maybe have lunch or dinner with them and talk about the awesome time we had in Cape Town.

The guys at Lebo had amazing taste in music. Everyone had the time of their life dancing in the yard, or gathered around the fire place and had a little fun with good alcohol and fruity hookah. I actually was being lame and fell asleep pretty early while reading my novel, lol. Oh, one more thing I absolutely love about Lebo - the zebra skin on the couch – I want one so badly.

Various locations in Maropeng

Another morning, another delicious breakfast being served by the amazing ladies and gentlemen at Lebo’s with almost all the breakfast essential: cereals, toasts, cheese, scramble eggs, bacons, sausage, mushroom, tomatoes, yogurt, fruits, juices, coffee, tea, etc. We were so into breakfast that we were literally 15 minutes behind on our schedule, lol. Besides the safari trip, I think the next destination was my second highlight of the trip – Maropeng aka the Cradle of Humankind.

Years of drilling in my head about various species of Homo erectus, Australopithecus africanus, Homo neaderthalensis, Homo sapiens, etc., and Africa, as well as having to write numerous reports and taking exams on Darwin and his theory of Origin of Species, I thought I hated Evolutionary Biology with a passion. Apparently, I’m more of a biology nerd than I thought I was. I literally had butterflies and this feeling of immense happiness to take the first step on the ground of the “cradle of humankind”. The extravagant stone columns at the entrance only elevated my feeling. It was pretty epic, no exaggeration.

This is one of the sites that I actually know lots of related background information about. The Cradle of Humankind was named by the UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in 1999 (it was the 9-year-old’s girl dream to be able to visit this one day, and it came true!). Maropeng is a Setswana word that stands for ‘returning to the place of our origins’. The site is actually quite large with around 40 to 50 caves in which fossils were found. Too bad we only got to visit the museum part *sad*. I wish I could have seen the Sterkfontein caves, the site where they found the skull of “Mrs. Ples”, a 2.3 million year old Australopithecus africanus. Statistics: almost 1/3 of all hominid fossils ever found are all excavated in Sterkfontein.

The four elements

The exhibition and display of this museum is really well done, aesthetically and professionally. Most exhibits are interactive, eye-catching and contain basic yet interesting information. The walkway to the boat ride was painted with the time line of origin of species, starting from the modern day as we walked into history, and ended at the very beginning of time when the Earth only consisted of the four elements. The boat ride showed us how the elements acted together in other to bring living beings into life. It was a pretty fun ride, scary at some points when it comes to certain elements, especially for people who are scared of water like Qamar (lol, we made fun of him the entire ride). The main part of the museum contains various information about the path of humankind development, its origins and other related topic, up to those of the modern day. Along the side wall presented various global and economic tissues that humankind are facing with, with the intriguing opening line “Are we destroying ourselves?” The graphic design of these posters and signs is impressive. They attracted attention with bright colors and presentation, and they got the information across with amazing typography. I was in love with them, and took way too many pictures. The museum ends with a glass wall and the question “What is our future?” (glass wall = reflection, clever, eh?), before it leads out to the open space with a gorgeous view of the infinite scenery. We hung around in the yard, taking in as much sunshine as possible. Spencer, Luke and I went explore and found this adorable kid’s cave as well as a playground, where we spent a decent amount of time playing a huge version of “snake and vines” on the ground, and played with the swings of course.

The day became hotter and the sun rose higher, telling our stomachs that it was high time for lunch. Thus, we headed out to our bus and another hour drive to our next destination – the Sparkling Waters Hotel and Spa – to get lunch and ready for our epic canopy trip. A simple lunch was served in a sun-filled room as we split among us into three different groups of 7 each. The groups went into a half hour interval after each other while the rest waited at the hotel to enjoy all the facility, including a swimming pool, tennis court, and other things. Monica and I decided to go for a spa session as we both agreed that we were desperately in need of a back massage. A sundeck back massage was the best thing I could ask for at that moment, after many hours of travelling. Warm sun, soothing music, aromatic smell of herbal oil, and a relaxing massage did the trick – my body was revitalized and I felt alive again, ready for the adrenaline rush of the zip line tour. 

We had a brief session of tutoring how to slide, fitted with our harness, helmet, sliding gloves, packed on a truck and drove to the mountain for our adventure. I have always been a fan of extreme sports and I actually love heights and the feeling of being on top of the world. As a result, I breezed through the adventure with much excitement, yet a little part of me wished it could have been a little bit scarier. I know, lol, I am kind of crazy. It actually made me want to go bungee jumping and skydiving really bad. I need more of an adrenaline rush. 

Our group was perfect: Carimah, Monica, Megan, Maxine and Wes. Monica, Carimah and I were singing random lines from our “terrible song” as we slid down the line. Megan just made our adventure so much better as she was literally scared and made all the best impression ever. Wes, well, was just being silly was always with his “African swag”. We actually ordered the DVD that recorded our tour and pictures. Although I actually regretted not bring my camera with me, a self-taken picture in the middle of zip-lining would have been pretty sick. Oh well. Everyone seemed to have enjoyed the experience and all talked about it excitedly during the two hour bus ride back to Lebo’s.

It was our last night before we did some more touring tomorrow around Johannesburg and caught our flight back to Cape Town in the afternoon. While everyone was outside drinking and dancing by the fire place, I was too afraid of the cold and decided to make myself comfortable on the couch with a cup of hot coffee. It turned out was not a bad decision at all. I started talking to the other guests aka backpackers that stayed here and got quite interesting stories from them. 2 of them are also study abroad students from the US, go to UCT and are majored in architecture. I have to say I’m mildly jealous, I can’t imagine get to study architecture in such a wonderful country of diversity. Architecture here is just amazing. The other girl is from England, and she has done a ridiculous amount of travelling, including Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, China, Japan, Korea, Australia, around Europe, now she is in Africa and plans on going to South America next. She actually takes 2 years of just to travel and learn more about tourism. We technically talked for almost 4 hours, sharing with each other different stories of our travelling experience (more of me listening and her telling). She was doing some volunteering work in Soweta and has been there for 5 months. I’ve always read on travelling blogs about how backpackers are such nice place for travellers because they are extremely homey and people become attached to them easily, now I know that these bloggers do not exaggerate at all. I wish one day I could travel like that, from cities to cities, countries to countries, getting to know the local people and learn the lifestyle. It is such an enticing and alluring aspect of travelling. People came out and in of the living room, wondering how the hell I was talking to a random people for hours and with the vibe that I have known them for a long time. I didn’t even know their names. Actually, none of us asked because we didn’t feel like we have to. I spent the rest of the night watching a movie with Spencer and Ben, and didn’t really go to bed until 1am, the latest I had been the entire trip.

Thursday morning, at this point, despite all the excitement, I felt like I was ready to go home. Five days full of activities and lots of bonding time with people were just right. I needed some alone time to do my own things, or nothing at all. I missed my comfortable bed, warm room, hot showers, and talking to my friends online. I know travelling is all about meeting new people and making friends, but what’s the point of having all the fun if you have no one to tell? I could NOT wait to get home, edit my pictures, write my blog and share the experience (and make people jealous, haha). Packing that morning brought a mixed feeling of both sad and happy at the same time. We had two more stops to make before we hit the airport: the Apartheid Museum and the SA Breweries for a World of Beer tour.

The Apartheid was quite a turning point and significant event for South Africa. I could never know how it felt to be treated with racism. Being an Asian, racism has never been a big issue for me, at least. Obviously, stereotypes come up often, especially when it comes to inter-racial differences. However, I don’t think it has never been that terrible an issue. On entering the museum, we were randomly assigned the classification of “white” or “non-white” and entered via two separate gates. There was information about this system of legal racial segregation into four groups: native, white, coloured and Asian. They were classified according to skin color, hair texture and other characteristics. White people became colour, colour people became black, asian became white all using these rules. How could you classify people like that, I have no idea and could not see the reasoning behinds it. They were all treated differently, to the point of different gates, bathrooms and other privileges. Again, the layout and design of the exhibition was incredible. I learned a tremendous amount of information about Nelson Mandela. My most favourite fact? The one that talks about how Nelson is an extremely stylish person. He cares about how his style is presented to the people and is always very concerned about his suit. His favourite suit was tailored by the most talented designer in Africa and was among one of the most expensive suits ever made. He is definite a great man, not that I didn’t think he was before I learned about his fashion style. Overall, the museum did a astounding job at illustrating the rise and fall of apartheid and the struggles that people went through. It was a great learning experience.

I risked my life for this picture, lol.

Putting all the serious things behind, we moved on to a more light-hearted experience: the World of Beer tour at the SA Breweries. Actually, I had no idea how the tour was. I am not a big fan of beer so I joined Carimah, Qamar, Megan and Monica for a short tour around the city of Johannesburg instead. Johannesburg, also called Jozi, Jo’burg or Egoli (city of Gold), is the largest city in South Africa and is also one of the most industrial and political city of SA. Joburg is famous for its large-scale gold and diamond industry. It has some of the tallest buildings in the entire Africa’s continent. I heard clubs and bars here were pretty sick too. Due to time limit, we could only walk around for a few blocks, passing the market and several interesting buildings on our way. Joburg has a completely atmosphere compared to Cape Town. I felt like I was back in Ho Chi Minh City: lots of traffic, local stores along the streets, vendor stands along the pavement, people rushing everywhere and yelled at us for stopping and taking pictures. It wasn’t, from the impression we had of our short walk, a very tourist-friendly city. That or we just got into the wrong part at the wrong time. Our love for taking pictures almost got us in big trouble with national security *cough* and almost got arrested at the African National Congress headquarter building. Even the FNC bank headquarter were not picture-friendly. It was interesting having a taste of Joburg. We walked back to the Breweries to join the other for another delicious lunch. I was glad to get my salad, needed the vegetables. French fries here is delicious, by the way. We ordered like three extra servings of fries, lol.

That was the last stop of our spring break. As as the plane took off, I looked out the window and took in the scenery of the place that had given me such incredible experience and made part of my dreams come true. Without fail, Cape Town greeted us gloomy and rainy weather, which was kind of depressing after five days of sunshine. There was this paralyzing feeling lingered in me, the feeling of knowing that I was going to leave a place for good, and that the chance of me being back was close to 0. It felt like a dream, and the paralyzing feeling reminded me that I would need to wake up to reality soon.

What I got from this incredible-fantastic-mind-blowing spring break?

1.      Tons of pictures that captured priceless moments

2.      Amazing souvenirs and postcards

3.      A nice tan and several bruises of unknown sources

4.      An ice-cream addiction

5.      The astonishing diversity of this country and how lucky I am to be here. I should appreciate history and cultures more.

6.      “All good things are wild and free” 

7.       The feeling of getting to what you learned from textbooks with your own eyes is indescribable.

8.      Great friends can be made everywhere and anywhere, if you are willing to open up.

9.      The fact that people come together from various places and belong to different races can eat, tak and laugh together is something should not be taken for granted.

10.  Cape Town has become another “home” away from home for me (now I my own home in 3 different continents, and 3 different states of the US, lol)

Nadia, our RA greeted us with her usual cheerfulness and an endearing phrase: ‘Welcome home, girls.”

And the truth was, 

I am happy to be home.

I'm home - where humanity begins and where the wild things are.

 [az]