I will be the first to break my camera.

Thursday started out early with a boat cruise on the Glass Bottom Boat to the Seal Island. We all decided to stay inside the boat because it was raining pretty hard. The water was a little choppy and we all were a little unstable! I ended up falling over and pushing Emily S. onto another man’s lap! After that, we decided to move onto the deck so we didn’t end up falling on anymore people and we could get a better view of the mountains and the seals. The rain had let up a bit but the water was still quite choppy. The mountain was gorgeous, as usual, and the seals were resting quietly as we drove past on the boat. We all took dozens of pictures. It was really cool seeing all the seals lying together with the mountains in the background. For a group picture, I asked Christen’s husband, Mark to use my camera to get a shot. As we were doing a hand-off of the camera, because of the rain, and the camera slipped and hit the deck pretty hard. For those of you who know, I have a pretty long track record with digital cameras. This is number four in five years. Thankfully, Mark is a pretty good handyman. He pushed the part that zooms our back straight and I was good to go! I honestly don’t know what I would have done if it could not have been fixed! I have a feeling I will be the first and only to break my camera on the trip. It’s inevitable…

Then we stopped and saw some penguins and had some lunch before getting back on the bus again and taking a beautiful scenic route up to the Cape of Good Hope. This the southernmost tip of South Africa. While standing at the top of the cliff and looking over the Atlantic Ocean, you are looking towards Antarctica. It was so beautiful and SO STEEP! We all took about 10-15 minutes to walk up and then spent quite a while at the light house that was looking over the ocean and the mountains. The funniest thing happened: when the day started, it was raining and the day did not look good in regards to weather. As we were driving to The Cape of Good Hope, the skies started clearing and we were able to see the tops of the mountains. When it rains, fog covers the mountains. The entire time we were at Cape Hope, the sun was shining and the weather was beautiful. We were able to fully appreciate the beauty of the ocean and the surrounding area. When we were finished, the clouds started rolling in again and the rain began to fall. The timing was perfect. =)

We once again boarded the bus and headed towards the Kirstenbosch Botanical Society Conservatory. At first I was a bit worried. I thought, oh great – a great big garden. We walked into the green house thinking it would be warm. We were SO cold! It was SO COLD in the green house. Who would’ve thought? We walked around and it was really cool to see the plants that would grow in the summer and in the winter in South Africa. The plants were shaped so oddly. But then we got to the cool part. We walked outside and there were hundreds of acres of land filled with trees and streams and plants. We were free to roam around and look at whatever we wanted. At some points we felt like we could have been in the jungle! It was breathtaking.

While on the bus tour, we passed a township. In the townships, people live in houses that, for me are very hard to describe – so I’ll do my best. The amenities in these homes vary. The ones we saw while driving by looked as if they were large refrigerator boxes piled on top of each other with metal shingles on top. (Of course, this is only a perception.) I think it's going to be very emotionally difficult this coming week when staying in the township. As a group, we will be doing homestays with different families who live in a township called Gugeletu. This is the portion of the three weeks that I have been looking forward to the most but I have also been a little anxious about. This is the reason I'm here. Yes, sightseeing is great and wonderful - but I feel I will be able to learn so much more from these five days than I would in one year solely being a tourist. I definitely think there was a purpose for all of the tourism this past week. We weren't simply tourists, we were learning and experiencing the culture too. This experience will hopefully help us bond better with the families and children we will be spending time with this week.

I hope to have another blog up tomorrow before we leave for the township. But if not, I won't have internet access until Friday - so there won't be any new posts. Expect LOTS the week after that!