Reaching the Threshold in Rio

DAY 131: It was only about ten in the morning when the doorbell rang. Lara and I were still half asleep. I opened the door and on the other side was Luis, the designated English-speaker at Angramar Turismo, the guys that got us costumes and tickets in the Rio Sambadrome Carnaval and the apartment we were living in. Luis wasn't his usual mild-mannered self that morning; in fact, he came in really pissed off about something.

"The doorman say you have four Japanese men staying here!" he yelled.

"What?"

"He said four Japanese came here on Friday with big bags and leave yesterday with the big bags," Luis said. "You singed a contract that only you two would stay here."

Lara sprung out of bed in defense. "No one stayed here but us, we told you that."

"The doorman said he saw four Japanese."

"American," I corrected. "That was my brother and my friends. They didn't stay here; they had their own apartment in Santa Teresa."

"We told you it was just us and no one else," Lara added. "We wouldn't do that to you." (Luckily for us, Tim the Aussie never crashed as we invited him to if he was at his wit's end in Rio.)

"The doorman already wrote down the four Japanese men and called the owner. He said he saw big bags come in on Friday and leave yesterday."

"My friends didn't come 'til Saturday," I said. "Maybe he confused them with someone else."

"He said one of them was wearing a Flamengo shirt," Luis said, making me one of the "four Japanese" houseguests, even though I lived there already.

"Are there different doormen?" I asked. "I think the doorman didn't see the bags leave. It was two of them, and it was Saturday, not Friday. They left with their bags that night and went to Santa Teresa."

Luis had calmed down at this point, realizing that perhaps he barged in with false accusations. "Can you come to the office later and explain to Carlos?"

"Okay," I said. "Later."

Lara was still angry about the situation, but still too tired to get out of bed when Luis left.

AFTER DROPPING OFF OUR LAUNDRY at a laundry service, I went to the Angramar Turismo office in Carlos' apartment to state my case. I had already written up a check-in/check-out timesheet of my friends -- Exhibit A.

When Carlos' sister opened the door, no one was in their usual cheery mood. Carlos gave me the evil eye and silent treatment, still convinced that I had betrayed his trust. The five minutes waiting with him in his office for Luis to arrive as translator seemed like an eternity.

Eventually Luis came up, more level-headed than he was earlier that morning. Carlos sat back in his office chair like a mob boss, never making eye contact with me. He said something in Portuguese to his consigliere Luis, who regurgitated it into English for me. Again I heard the fake accusations, but I had Exhibit A to state my case. I explained that people only came in and out for no more than a couple of hours at a time. I explained that on the Monday, none of my friends even came over. I told them that rather than have my passed out friends stay over one night like they asked, I told them it wasn't allowed and spent the night in Santa Teresa with them instead, since their landlords were cool about having people over, unlike themselves.

Luis took Exhibit A and explained what I just told him to his boss. Carlos said something to Luis, who translated it to me: "So how do you explain the bags?"

"Only two friends came on Saturday," I started. "My brother had to wait at the airport for a friend on a later flight from San Francisco, so they could sort out their apartment in Santa Teresa. The two guys came straight to Copacabana from the airport and dropped their bags off in the apartment so they didn't have to bring them to the afternoon soccer -- uh, football -- game. Don't you remember them? They got their bags when we met my brother at eleven and they all went to Santa Teresa." I continued to explain how we bought a new bag to store the costumes and reminded them that those guys came up to the office to help me.

Luis had my trust and had calmed down, but I wasn't so sure about Carlos. He said something to Luis for him to translate: "Okay, we trust you. But the doorman already write that people were staying there." Carlos said some more to be translated: "Instead of charging for the people that stayed over, we just need 32 reais for the gas."

"Gas? But they didn't stay over!" I argued. I told them that I wasn't bothered about paying the money, I just wanted to know why.

"I know it's hard for you to understand, but in Brazil, the people of the apartment building share the gas and don't want to pay more for the gas you used."

"But they never consumed gas! We were always in and out."

Carlos saw me getting riled up and said some more from his office chair, still never making eye contact with me. Luis calmly said, "Yes, we have a misunderstanding here. You can either pay the 32 reais, or we can go to the doorman to argue."

"Fine, let's go to the doorman -- all I have is the truth!"

As soon as I said it, I couldn't believe that such a cheesy line came out of my mouth.

Carlos and Luis spoke some more and in the end, told me that the money wasn't for them, but to the building and that they weren't trying to rip us off or anything. I left the back office still having to pay the 32 reais. Before I left the office door, I cut a deal with Luis. "Lara and I are leaving a day early, on Saturday instead of Sunday. Can't you just use the money for that one day towards the gas?"

Luis and Carlos were tired of arguing. "Okay."

KNOWING LARA THE WAY I DID, it was probably good that she wasn't at the office during the "trial." She would have had Luis and Carlos have hell to pay, before storming out in a rage. In the afternoon though, it was her turn to have a hissy fit -- it was only inflated by the fact that she was really hungover from the night before.

Lara's only goal of the day was to go to the post office to ship what she could of her Beija-Flor costume back to the U.K. I accompanied her and the duffel bag on a subway trip to the central post office. We managed to get a postal worker that spoke English, who told us that the costume couldn't be shipped in the duffel bag; we need either a box or some brown parcel paper to wrap it in.

Easy enough, huh?

The in-store postal supply store didn't have a big enough box or parcel paper even though the woman told us they would. Being moody and hungover, that wasn't the thing to hear about in Lara's ears. The store clerk gave us vague directions to a store that would wrap it for us. We followed the directions with the duffel bag to a stationery store a block away. They didn't have boxes big enough for us, nor paper either. Lara kept insisting that "there's a box right there!" pointing to a big box that something had been shipped in. The store employees wouldn't sell it and laughed at us as Lara stormed out.

We found a small post office and they directed us to another store. We couldn't find it of course, and I could tell Lara was really reaching her threshold.

"Let's just leave it. Forget it. I don't want it anymore. It's not worth it."

But I kept walking and found another stationery store where a nice woman helped us wrap the bag in brown parcel paper and string. Lara was a happy camper again and went back to the post office to send it off to Guernsey, while I went back to Copacabana to pick up our laundry.

We Lara came home, she told me about the tantrum she had after the post office, trying to get to the bus station so she could get a ticket to Campo Grande. No one was helpful -- later we learned that there were two bus stations and two Campo Grandes -- and Lara was just piss off the whole time, confused and frustrated that she didn't know enough Portuguese.

"You thought I was bad at the post office, you should have seen me at the bus station."

WE WERE BOTH LEVEL-HEADED FOR OUR FINAL NIGHT IN RIO, and we went out for a stroll along the beachfront to the night markets (picture above) for some last minute gifts and souvenirs. The masses of tourists were gone, leaving our temporary neighborhood to us again. We sat out at an outdoor table at a beach cafe for a snack as the ocean breeze blew around us.

"I'm sort of bored of Rio," Lara told me.

"Me too," I agreed. "I'm sort of bored of South America."

The two of us had been in Rio de Janiero for half a month -- the longest either of us had been in any one place on our journeys in South America -- and had seen and done most of the things already. Beaches, mountains -- been there, done that. Handgliding -- been there, done that. The shops and the parties -- been there, done that. Carnaval in the Sambadrome -- been there, won that.

"I'm really looking forward to moving on," she said.

We both had plans to leave the next day.

Bye, Bye Brazil

DAY 132: Lara was up all set for her last opportunity for our daily morning cheese, Gilmore Girls and Touched By An Angel. It being Saturday, The Warner Channel on our satellite TV was running cartoons instead, and so the only thing to do was pack our bags and clean out the apartment. Lara was still pretty angry that Luis yelled at us the morning before with false accusations instead of approaching it professionally -- especially after all the problems we had with them that we let slide -- and didn't want Angramar Turismo to get any more satisfaction out of us. She made sure she packed the fairly heavy bottle of tomato sauce in her bag instead of just leaving it behind for the owner to have.

"I know it's childish, but fuck them, I'm going to be childish."

OUR BAGS WERE PACKED BY NOON and we just hung around watching TV until Lara decided to gather her things and leave for the bus station. She didn't have a ticket to her destination of Campo Grande, near the Pantanal, but went off to see what she could find. This was the final goodbye for us, at least in South America, and I gave her a going-away gift: a signed and personalized copy of the travel anthology that I'm in, which she thanked me for. I walked her outside where, for a change, the weather was bright and sunny instead of the grey and rainy days of the past week.

"It's finally sunny and we're leaving," she said.

Knowing Murphy's Law, I said, "Yeah, it wouldn't happen any other way."

I escorted her to a taxi on the corner where we said our goodbyes. I helped her communicate to the driver where it was exactly she wanted to go so there would be no confusion.

"I'll talk to you on The Blog," Lara told me. The taxi door closed.

The last I saw of Lara, my South American partner-in-crime, was her hand waving back as she rode off. And thus ended her appearance on "The Trinidad Show" -- at least in South America.

TAKING ADVANTAGE OF THE NICE WEATHER, I rented a bike for a short ride along the beach. The sands weren't nearly as crowded as just a few days before when the influx of tourists were in town, and Rio had returned to a state of normalcy. No more spontaneous samba street parades, no more spray party foam. I went back to the apartment to clean up. In the end, the person who checked me out of the residence was Carlos' sister. Luis and/or Carlos were probably too ashamed with their false accusations to us that they didn't want to confront either of us one last time.

ORIGINALLY I WAS GOING TO TAKE A BUS OUT OF RIO and stop at destinations along the way to Buenos Aires, Argentina. When I applied for a visa to get into Brazil, I had to buy a proof-of-exit, so I had a ticket from Rio to Buenos Aires anyway that I intended on canceling. However, realizing that my visa was about to expire, I didn't have time for a 2-3 day journey overland, and just ate the money for the mere three hour flight. If I had gone the direct bus route, I would have been on a 45-hour journey, and that prospect wasn't too appealing to me.

A taxi took me to the international airport and I looked around for the check-in of my airline, Aerolineas Argentina. I asked an information desk for directions, only to be given one final test in Brazil.

"Voc falla ingles?" I asked in Portuguese to the man to see if he spoke English.

He reversed it with "Voce falla portugues?"

I managed to ask the simple question in his native tongue and he directed me down the hall to the red check-in section. I paid my airport tax, checked in my bag, went through security before waiting and waiting and waiting in the waiting room for my gate to be announced. I passed the time at the duty free shop and by continuing to catch up with "Blog."

Soon I was in my aisle seat on the 747 (picture above), still writing away, next to a guy that wasn't much for words. When he saw me look up a hostel in my Lonely Planet for my immigration form, it dawned on him that I wasn't latino and struck up a conversation with me. His name was David and was a Melbourne-native working in London as an engineer. "Working" was an understatement, because he bragged about the loads of time he had off to travel -- nine months here, seven months there, "I like to take my time." He had been in Buenos Aires before and talked up its nightlife.

"Buenos Aires shits on Rio."

He talked up this one party hostel called the Milhouse in Buenos Aires that I should definitely check out -- he had been there before for two weeks -- but told me he heard they were booked solid for the weekend. When we arrived in Buenos Aires, we made some calls to find another hostel since it was near midnight already. I found space at St. Nicholas, an Hostelling International hostel in the central city and so -- after confusion and running around looking for the correct one -- we hopped on a bus for the city. We split a cab from the bus station to the hostel about a mile away and checked in. I was rather impressed with the hostel -- TV lounge, roof terrace, beers, and a nice mix of people -- but David who was so convinced that the Milhouse was so much better, hated it. "You should definitely move out of this dump."

To suffice for the crazy, wild nights of the Milhouse, David was all amped to go to Pacha, some big raver club that everyone in our hostel was on their way out to. Refusing to pay the 45 pesos to go with the group, he opted to just call his friend in Buenos Aires to go with him. He made some calls and sent some emails, but in the end, after all his talk, he didn't go out at all. In fact, he was in bed before I was.

Party hostel or not, I was just glad to have moved on from Rio. After having settled down in one place for so long, I almost forgot was it was like to be a traveller again, and I needed to get back into the swing of things.

Flashbacks in Buenos Aires

DAY 133: In February 2002, I spent a day in Buenos Aires during a stopover en route to Antarctica. During that day, I wandered around the central part of the city, looking for a new camera to replace the one that had broken on me, seeing the main sights on the way. Just over two years later I was back in BA visiting the familiar sights, and everything came back to me -- including the familiar words of spoken Spanish I had been accustomed to hearing four weeks before. After being in Portuguese-speaking Brazil for a month, I had to revert back to my broken Spanish speaking ways, although I still kept on saying "obrigado" instead of "gracias" ("thank you") and had to correct myself all the time.

At the hostel's complimentary breakfast I met Aude, from the northwestern countryside of France. She told me about the tango lesson she attended the night before, but was off to a different one that night. She invited me to tag along, and told me that we were to leave from the hostel at five in the afternoon. This left me with most of the day to wander around and run errands, the first of which was to be a nerd and catch up on Blog duties.

By midday I was back out on the streets of Buenos Aires, the first time since that day-long layover in 2002. I was staying in the same area, near the Plaza de la Republica and its iconic obelisk (picture above), and went wandering around to the points of interest on my Lonely Planet map. It being a Sunday, the traffic and the crowds were minimal, the perfect scenario for a self-guided walking tour. I walked to the familiar sights of the Palacio del Congreso and the Casa Rosada, the pink residence of the president where Eva Peron -- and Madonna playing her in 1996's Evita -- stood on the balcony to speak to her people below. Next to the palace was the Plaza de Mayo, still full of pigeons the way I remembered from my last visit.

BUENOS AIRES HAS BEEN CALLED "THE PARIS OF THE SOUTH" for its charm, energetic vibe and European architecture. Walking amongst the classical buildings, I made my way to the Basilica de San Francisco where, just a block away, everyone was anxiously watching a car that had caught on fire, bellowing smoke for blocks. I continued my leisurely Sunday stroll through the city and eventually found the Citibank office that I went to two years prior -- I had a flashback in my mind of the time I unintentionally started a small riot in the vestibule. Walking through outdoor pedestrian malls and fancy indoor shopping malls, I eventually made it to the beautiful park known as the Plaza San Martin, where kids played on a playground not far from couples smooching under trees.

FIVE O'CLOCK WAS APPROACHING, so I started my return back towards the hostel to meet up with Aude. I walked along the ten-lane Avenida 9 de Julio, passed the towering obelisk again until I made it back to the St. Nicholas hostel with a little time to spare. Aude the French girl never showed up for tango -- in fact I never saw her again -- leaving me to talk to Katarina, a pretty Czechoslovakian girl that every hetero guy in the hostel drooled over. When she went off to take a nap, I befriended American girls Amy (Seattle) and Rachel (Syracuse, NY) over cups of coffee.

After making a run out for chocolate and Argentine empanadas, I killed time watching the familiar scene of backpackers scrambling around for buses and tickets on an episode of The Amazing Race shown in South America on Sony's AXN channel. Night had fallen and it was time for the nightly party up on the roof terrace, a good old-fashioned barbecue.

IF YOU ARE A VEGETARIAN, it might not be such a good idea to visit Argentina. Argentina is big steak country, with arguably the best beef in the world. In addition to beef, they cook a mean chicken and pork at any of the many parrillas, grilled meat restaurants.

When I heard the hostel was holding a barbecue, I flashed back to memories of American hamburger and hot dogs with the occasional hint of lighter fluid. (As a kid, I loved soaking the briquettes in fluid for MAXIMUM FIRE POWER!) Silly me, the hostel was run by Argentines, and so the roof had transformed into a parrilla, with a grill that sizzled up juicy steaks, cuts of pork, chicken and succulent sausages. Potato salad and green salad were served as well, but most of the time that stuff was just pushed to the side. We were in Steak Country, dammit!

Tasty cows aside, Argentina is also big wine country and at the table, the wine flowed like, well, wine. Amelia the fortysomething woman who managed the hostel made sure everyone's plastic glass was full. At a point, I reached my threshold for it and just wanted some water.

"[You are in Argentina, more wine!]" Amelia said.

"Oh... okay." She topped me off. I had to sneak another cup on the table for some water.

"[Hide the water, she'll get mad,]" the grillmaster told me.

THE STARS SHONE ABOVE OUR HEADS as we dined the night away. With David the Aussie (whom I met on the plane the night before) gone off on a bus to northern Argentina, I befriended guys other guys from Australia, the U.K. and a German guy named Sebastian from Stuttgart, who was absolutely happy to hear that I had family there. I told one English guy about all the sights I had seen in the day, and he told me that was more than he saw in the past ten days; he had only seen generic club after club after bar after pub, and spent most of his time away from that just drinking on the roof terrace. This was the opposite of Stefi, from Nuremberg, who loved Buenos Aires' unique charm so much, she decided to stay in the city for her entire two-month vacation so that she could be totally immersed in her favorite city a second time around.

From the stars above to the stars of Hollywood, I joined the two American girls Amy and Rachel down in the TV room to watch the Oscars on TNT. In the past, I'd seen the Academy Awards on TV in the States, always hearing that it was broadcast in other countries around the world, and had now confirmed it. The three of us, along with another English guy, stayed up until two in the morning to see Lord of the Rings clean house -- despite the fact that director Peter Jackson couldn't have looked any sloppier in his tuxedo.

With production of the trilogy complete, perhaps it was time for Mr. Jackson to leave New Zealand and come to Argentina. Seeing that belly of his bursting out of his suit, I thought maybe he would love a vacation away from Middle Earth with a visit to Steak Country.

It Takes Two to Tango, But Hundreds to Start A Revolution

DAY 134: Two days prior, I was in Rio de Janiero -- a city of samba -- but had flown to Buenos Aires, a city of a different dance: the tango. If there's one thing to be associated with Buenos Aires, it's the tango -- however, if there's another thing, it's political demonstrations.

Everyone at the St. Nicholas hostel -- two blocks away from the Plaza de Congres -- was woken up around ten in the morning by the same alarm clock: the insessent honking of car horns outside. The reason for the bumper-to-bumper chaos was the hundreds of Argentines with their blue and white flags and beating drums en route to congress for a huge rally (picture above).

From the Unitarists to the Federalists to the Peronists, Argentina has a long history of revolution, one made famous in a musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber. Demonstrations, I was told by a native Argentine woman later on, are so common that people often forget what the purpose of the demonstration was about on a particular day.

"Why were they demonstrating?" I asked.

"Oh, I don't know, it's Buenos Aires. We have demonstrations all the time."

Some people in the hostel thought a big parade was going on with all the drums and excitement in the air, but I knew better -- I had made that mistake once in Barcelona and knew that big group of people didn't necessarily translate to celebration. I went to the plaza to see what was up anyway. Proud Argentines took over the plaza, waving the national flag. Groups held banners in support of their cause. Dozens of guys with drums of all sizes kept a constant beat to keep the energy going. The sounds of firecrackers and M-80s cut through the air, sounding a lot like the cannons and gunfire of revolutions past. Every news van in town surrounded the perimeter with cameras pointing inwards in the event things got out of hand, so they could blare it on the evening news. Police stood at every street corner to keep the peace, and to react in case things got a little violent.

I worked in a nearby internet cafe along the parade route, waiting for something exciting to happen, but the demonstration was peaceful. Later I found out that it wasn't a protest rally at all; everyone had come out to support President Kirchner's decision to congress that he'd put the economy and people of Argentina first, instead of paying back the International Monetary Fund straight away for their loan from the economic collapse in 2001.

FROM THE RALLIES OF THE PRESENT, I went to visit an icon of rallys in the past: the tomb of Eva Duarte Peron, known more popularly as Evita. After stopping at the office of Malaysia Airlines to sort out my flight to Africa, I walked over to the neighborhood Recoleta, where Evita's cemetary was established. According to Lonely Planet, the Cemetaria de la Recoleta is "Buenos Aires' number one tourist destination... located in the plushest neighborhoods of Recoleta." Recoleta's affluence was evident when I walked down the streets full of chic boutiques and cafes -- that is, until I found the local Hooters. The restaurant known for its, ahem, wings was closed and so I indulged in an old staple from my New York lunch hour days: sushi at a nearby food court -- a temporary break from all the empanadas and steaks I'd been eating.

You would think that being such a tourist draw, Evita's tomb would be easy to find and behind a velvet rope. However, in respect for the dozens of other souls resting in the cemetary, this was not the case. The cemetary itself wasn't your run-of-the-mill plot of land with tombstones jutting out of the ground. It was more like a labyrinth of tombs, holding the dead of the aristocracy, easy to get lost in. However, it was easy to find the correct direction by just following the people with cameras.

Eva Duarte Peron's body was in the tomb of other members of the Duarte family, and was just one grave out of hundreds situated in a small alley with no special designation from the cemetary. The tomb was however, adorned with pictures, drawings and flowers from those visitors paying respect.

"You speak English?" a lost traveller asked me as I took some notes around the corner from Evita's alley. I replied with a "yes."

"Have you found the tomb of Evita?"

"Uh, yeah," I said, pointing around the corner with my pen. "That one. With the flowers."

He looked at me embarrassed as if to say, "Oh, duh."

THE WEATHER WAS WARM, the sky was blue, the sun was shining. I made my way out of the maze of the dead and walked across town, through the residential neighborhood Barrio Norte and the business area of Retiro, with its skyscrapers of Microsoft, IBM and Sun Microsystems amongst other tech corporations. Walking through the Plaza Roma, I made my way to the marina, where relaxed sidewalk cafes were juxtaposed to the banks of the canal. After walking around and over the canals via bridges, I stopped off for a beer to just chill out for a while. Past the Plazoleta 11 de Junio de 1580 -- with its statue of Juan Garay, founder of Buenos Aires -- and the Metropolitan Cathedral, I eventually made my way back to the hostel in time to meet up with Stefi, the German girl from Nuremberg I met at the barbecue the night before, for a night of tango.

MY TIMING OF BEING IN BUENOS AIRES COULDN'T BE MORE PERFECT; I was in town for the annual week-long tango festival. While it wasn't as nearly as high profile as Rio de Janiero's Carnaval, it was still a worthy cultural event to experience. With the tango festival, there are many opportunities to experience the sensual dance accompanied by the music of strings, piano and accordion. The mainstream way was to go to a theater for a tango show to watch professionals perform and dance for an audience, but the other way to go was to do the tango yourself at any one of the dozens of cultural centers around the city giving free lessons.

Stefi, who was so fluent in Spanish that I thought she was Chilean when I met her, was obsessed with the culture of Buenos Aires -- she had decided to stay put in the city for her entire two-month vacation to be totally immersed in it. She had a printout of all the small cultural centers in town with free tango lessons and chose one that started at eight o'clock in the working class residential area of Boedo, far away from the city center. Outisde, the El Zaguan cultural center was located on a quiet residential street in between houses. Inside was a simple space, similar to a ballroom in a youth rec center. Actually, it was more like a VFW or American Legion hall because we were the youngest students in there -- younger by a margin of at least twenty years.

Not including the young people working the bar on the side, the instructors Martin and Leila were the only other young people on the dancefloor. They conducted the class entirely in Spanish at a speed too fast for my brain to process since I had heard nothing but English and Portuguese for the past month. I tried to fake it by just understanding the context of the situation: I did the sweeping walk exercise when others did, and the backwards steps when they did. My initial walks weren't as smooth as they should have been and Martin clearly saw how uncool I looked. He tried to correct me, but I still pretty much walked around like Frankenstein.

"[Something, something,]" Leila said in Spanish to the entire class after all the exercises. She and her dance partner glanced over to me.

"[What?]" I asked. They said something else and I just said, "Si." Everyone started clapping.

Stefi translated for me. "That's for you," she said. "Because you are the lowest of the beginners here."

AS THEY SAY, "IT TAKES TWO TO TANGO," and when the class moved from exercises to dancing with a partner, I lucked out with Eliana, this fortysomething woman who, self-taught in English and French, volunteered to be my dance partner -- but more importantly, my translator for the night. She had been to the cultural center several times before and didn't mind showing me a couple of moves. I contined to be clumsy as the rhythm of the accordion coming from the speakers only made the others more graceful.

While the ten or so other couples practiced their moves, Martin and Leila gave me special attention so that I could catch up to the rest. Martin, who spoke a little English, told me that the tango is a very macho dance, and that as the man you have to take charge -- you have to feel the weight of your woman and then move her the way you want to and she will follow. With his advice to be more forceful in the upper body, I got a little too carried away when I accidentally slammed Eliana's back right into a pole. Leila's advice was that I had to really hold my partner securely; the dance's origin was about the woman being helpless and the man should really wrap his arm around her tightly. For the example, she had me wrap my arm around her body with my hand on her back. She held me closer so that her boobs just pushed up against me tightly and needless to say, for a moment there I was -- as Van Halen once sang -- "hot for teacher."

Eventually I learned the basic steps of the tango, and in just an hour, I had the hang of it, sweeping Eliana off her feet and occassionally stepping on them. I was actually pretty proud of what I learned in just a couple of hours, and celebrated after class at the bar talking with Stefi and Eliana over some drinks while others continued to tango on the dance floor. When I bid goodbye to Leila and Martin, I told them I wouldn't be back for another class because I was headed off to Africa.

"I'll bring the tango to Africa then," I told Martin.

Knowing how clumsy I could be, he replied, "Uh, please don't."

STEFI AND I BID ELIANA GOODBYE and hopped in a taxi back to the hostel in the city center. The cabbie struck up a conversation with us -- Stefi did most of the talking with her incredible fluency in Spanish. The driver interjected with questions to me, of which I replied, "Lo siento, no entiendo. Fue a Brasil por un mes and olvide todo mi español." ("I'm sorry, I don't understand. I went to Brazil for a month and forgot all my Spanish.")

Holy shit, I thought, I just said that in Spanish. My brain was finally reverting back to its old ways.

The taxi driver brought us to the corner of our hostel but kept on flirting with Stefi. I let them go at it while I waited nearby looking at the menu of a restaurant. Stefi finally got rid of the guy and he drove off.

"Thanks for waiting. That guy wanted to go out with him for a coffee," she told me. "Really, who goes out with their taxi driver in the middle of the night?"

"Uh, I know someone who went off with her taxi driver in the middle of the night," I said, referring to the escapade with Sharon in Rio de Janiero.

BEING THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT, both of us were hungry and decided to go out for food. Pepo, a Frenchman working in London as an accountant that had just arrived in Buenos Aires, tagged along and the three of us went out to a restaurant that everyone on their way in recommended to us.

As I said before, if there's anything to be associated with Buenos Aires, it's the tango, and if there's another thing it's political demonstrations. If there's room for one more association, you have to give that honor to steak. After a day of rallies and tango, nothing but the medium rare cut I had with a glass of Argentine wine and a side of fries provencial could have topped the day off any better.

Colors of Buenos Aires

DAY 135: Outside the window, the sky was grey with a light rain coming down from rain clouds above. A look up the skylight in the atrium of the hostel, I saw raindrops on the glass. The weather sort of put a damper on the plan I had for the day: to go on a bike tour of Palermo, the middle-class neighborhood northwest of the city, full of scenic parks.

I was telling Pepo, the industrious French accountant that I met the night before about my need for a change of plans. He replied with a saying he had heard from others about the temperamental weather: "If you don't like the weather, wait five minutes."

Five minutes later, the sun was out, the sky turned from the color of grey to the color of blue. I hopped on the subway bound for the Plaza San Martin, where the bike tours started from. The tour of the afternoon didn't go to Palermo like I had hoped, so I ditched the two-wheelers to go explore other areas on town on foot. I took the subway to the architecturally-impressive Constitution train station and walked the streets of new, but soon-to-be familiar neighborhoods.

THE FIRST OF THESE NEIGHBORHOODS was La Boca, a working-class area of town where Italian immigrants made their home away from home back in Buenos Aires' historical past. La Boca is now more known for its famous soccer team, the Boca Juniors, and there was no questioning their presence when I saw their big stadium and their fanatic paraphernalia stores covered in the team colors, gold and blue.

The other big draw to La Boca was even more colorful: the old-fashioned, outdoor pedestrian mall known as Caminito, with its old buildings sided with wood and corrugated metal paitned in bright primary colors (picture above) -- it was like being on the set of 1990's Dick Tracy. In addition to the colorful, yet crude architecture, kitschy cartoon statues were placed around, on balconies and at store fronts to accenturate the area's laid back -- and touristy -- atmosphere.

Inside one of these brightly-painted stores with the kitschy figures outside, I befriended an Argentine girl and was quite impressed with myself that I could sustain a conversation with her in Spanish with about an 80% fluency. Spanish had finally returned to my brain.

ON MY WAY TO THE OLD PORT, another woman in an apron stopped me on a street corner to give me a flyer for the cafe she worked for.

"Hola."

"Hola," I replied.

"De donde eres?"

"Soy de Nueva York," I answered as the Spanish 101 conversation continued.

"Oh, so you speak English?"

"Yes."

"Que parte de Nueva York? Brooklyn, Manhattan..."

"Acutally, Nueva Jersey. Jersey City cerca de Manhattan."

"Ah, Nueva Jersey. Bon Jovi!"

"Yes, Bon Jovi."

Before I could go into my karaeoke rendition of "Living On A Prayer," she led me to her sidewalk cafe nearby, overlooking the old port at the mouth of the Rio Riachuelo.

IN CELEBRATION OF THE 2004 TANGO FESTIVAL, a small stage was set up nearby where a man and woman entertained the crowd with the seductive dance of two. With the sexy dancing and the enticing sounds of the violin and accordion, the setting couldn't have been more romantic. Unfortunately for me, the only companion I had at the time was my long-lasting travel partner "Blog," my journal personified as my imaginary friend. The mood struck me to caress the pages of my notebook delicately, like a loser -- at least I didn't have sex with a warm apple pie.

The romantic mood was spoiled when I paid my bill with a ten peso note, only to have the waiter tell me it was fake -- I hadn't had this problem since I crossed the border from Ecuador into Peru. He pointed out the flaws of the counterfeit to me, and under scrutinization, the fake was an obvious printout from an Epson or HP color printer on double-sided matte paper, with its speckled dithering patterns of colored ink. The waiter was cool about it as long as I have him a real bill.

On my way out of the Caminito, a fireman in uniform stopped me and asked me for a donation in his department's drive for a new ambulance. I was iffy on giving any money, but then he played the Nine Eleven, Firemen Are Heroes Card and I decided to give him ten pesos -- a different note from the one that had been deemed false.

"Es falso," he told me, pointing out its lack of authenticity. "[This is dangerous to have. You'll be put in jail," he said, using the hand gesture of being handcuffed. He questioned me about the bill and where I got it from -- I told him it might have come from the sushi restaurant near the Cemetario de la Recoleta the day before.

Without knowing the Spanish vocabulary of such a situation, I had about a 5% Spanish fluency this time and ended up playing the Dumb Tourist Card -- which was advantageous when another fireman brought into the conversation called over a nearby police officer.

The armed cop, decked in a bulletproof vest, interrogated me about the fake ten peso note. Continuing to play the Dumb Tourist Card, I pleaded my ignorance and explained that I might have gotten it from that sushi restaurant. In my confusion, he believed me and let me go. Along with the two firemen, he took a look at the other peso notes in my wallet, only to find that I had 35 pesos (about twelve US dollars) in counterfeit bills.

"[What can I do?]" I asked, hoping they could help me with some retribution.

"[Nothing. Rip them up, they are dangerous to have,]" the fireman said as he did the international hand gesture of ripping.

WITH STILL ABOUT A HUNDRED REAL PESOS IN MY WALLET, I walked over to San Telmo, the quaint artists' quarter of Buenos Aires -- however, like Soho in New York City, the area seemed to be overtaken by yuppies and tourists instead of struggling artisans. I walked along its cobblestone streets lined with sidewalk cafes and settled down for a rest after my long day of walking at an outdoor cafe in the Plaza Dorrego. I drank glasses of vitamin-C-enriched orange juice to combat my mild cough, and ate a delicious Argentine steak sandwich while listening to the musical stylings of a nearby guitarist serenading all the patrons. I sat and dined with "Blog" as I watched a couple smooch at a nearby table -- the woman seemed a lot less interested than the man because she had her eyes wide open the whole time.

THAT NIGHT AT THE HOSTEL, Sebastian the German from Stuttgart invited me to go out clubbing with him and a couple of Brazilian guys. He told me they were going out around midnight and I told him I was interested since it was my last night in BA. Around nine I put my head down to take a short nap, but didn't wake up until the next morning. Later I learned they just went to a drum and bass club -- not characteristic of Buenos Aires at all -- and wasn't that bothered that I missed out. I saved the money I would have spent anyway, which was good because I was down 35 pesos in colorful fake bills.

Last Meals Before Africa

DAY 136: I woke up in time to meet up for the meeting of a bike tour at 9:30. However, realizing that I had many chores to take care of before leaving Buenos Aires (and South America for that matter) -- buying medicine for my irritated eyes and cough, doing laundry, checking out of my hostel and, of course, Blog duties -- I was glad that I blew it off. I did however make time to experience the characteristic cuisine of Buenos Aires one last time. Aside from the steaks, my other weakness was for empanadas -- a tasty treat found all over the city.

EMPANADAS, THE DELICIOUS PASTRY filled with either meat, fish or cheese surrounded by a baked crust, were all over Buenos Aires -- as common as hot dogs in New York City. The St. Nicholas Hostel was in a convenient location because down the block and around the corner was La Americana, the self proclaimed "La Reina de las Empanadas." A Buenos Aires culinary institution since 1935, La Americana had reason for its claim in being the best.

"I tried other empanadas at other places, and they just weren't as good," Amy the American from the hostel told me.

"[You can't come here and tease me with an empanada from La Americana,]" a woman at a newsstand joked when I bought a newspaper from her while holding a still steaming chicken empanada in my hand. She told me she'd rather have the empanada than the one peso twenty I owed her for the news -- but the chicken empanadas were just so good, I wasn't about to give it up.

So for one last time, I went to the famous empanada restaurant, which also did baked sweets and pizzas, although I never saw anyone go in for those. Empanadas were their speciality, set apart from the rest with their whatever-it-is they put in their dough, and whatever spices they used in their beef, chicken or ham & cheese fillings. I managed to arrive just as a fresh batch of chicken empanadas was coming out of the oven, and when it hit my taste buds, I knew that I'd have to return to Buenos Aires one day for another fix.

EMPANADAS ASIDE, I didn't neglect the fact that I was in Steak Country and paid a visit to Chiquilin, the somewhat fancy bistro with the perfect, fatless steaks that I went to the other night. This time around I landed in on the power lunch crowd, and dined amongst men apparently working out deals at their tables. Next to a side of mashed potatoes, I had my last steak (picture above) in this visit to the "Paris of the South," for just around five dollars with the exchange rate -- at a fraction of the cost of the same thing in a similar place in the States. Now if that's not reason to come back to Buenos Aires, I don't know what is.

I SPLIT A CAB TO THE INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT with Amy the American, yet another former dot com employee. (She actually quit her job from Amazon.com after tiring waiting for a lay off.) Amy was bound for Chile from Argentina via Air Canada, while I was bound for South Africa from Argentina via Malaysia Airlines, on a plane that would continue onto Kuala Lumpur.

After a final glass of fine Argentine wine in the airport bar, I did some Blog work until I boarded the 747. I sat next to two older guys that were more interested in their newspapers than coversation. They probably just buried their heads in the news because they were just as annoyed as I was at the boorish Argentine rugby team all over the cabin that treated coach like their own team clubhouse.

For my in-flight meal I chose the beef for a little closure to this entry. Although I'm usually not that fussy about airline food, I have to complain this time; there's no way the beef could even compare to the best steaks of Argentina.

Go Directly To Jail

DAY 137: After the seven-hour flight -- which included a screening of Intolerable Cruelty, some of Disney's The Haunted Mansion, some Super Nintendo and hardly any sleep with all the noise coming from the rowdy Argentine rugby team onboard -- I touched down in Cape Town, South Africa's international airport, five time zones ahead of Buenos Aires (seven from New York City). The weather was grey and rainy but I knew things would be looking up; for the first time ever in The Global Trip 2004, I was in an English-speaking country and didn't have to think so hard before speaking. However, little did I know that morning that I'd be in prison by that evening.

THE PASSPORT CONTROL LINE WAS PACKED, but there was no way around it. While waiting, the line attendant told me to get my passport and return ticket ready -- which was a problem because, planning to travel overland to Namibia out of South Africa, I didn't exactly have one. This requirement wasn't unheard of; I needed one to get into Ecuador and one to get into Brazil. Both these times, people warned me in advance so I could buy a refundable return ticket so I wouldn't be surprised at the customs line upon entering -- like I now was. Looking ahead at people at the counter ahead of me, the passport officer stamped their passport and their outbound ticket.

When it was my turn, I explained my situation with the only thing I had: a ticket from Windhoek, Namibia to Harare, Zimbabwe via Johanessburg. The woman interrogated me with my further travel plans, but in the end, stamped what I had and let me on my way.

I TOOK A SHUTTLE BUS INTO TOWN with a couple of Argentine girls, a couple of Swedish guys and a couple from Austria. Riding on the modern highway passed shantytowns and mountains, and through Cape Town's modern city center, I arrived at The Backpack, one of the better budget accommodations in town for about $15 (US) -- three times more than what I normally paid in South America, but still cheap for Cape Town. I got a dorm bed in the secure complex with a bar/cafe, living room, swimming pool, kitchen, courtyard, laundry and internet.

There was a group of Americans checking in before me, taking up a lot of time. Ingmar, the check-in guy of Dutch descent apologized for the delay.

"No problem, I have all day," I told him.

"That's a good attitude to have; you're in South Africa now."

SITTING AT THE BAR, I befriended Derek, an Englishman living in New Zealand on holiday who, like many others, had rented a car for his stay in South Africa. He offered me a lift to the waterfront on his way to a museum. I sat on the left side of the car, which rode on the left side of the road and was dropped off right by Victoria Wharf, an oceanfront pier and shopping/dining complex constructed in an old Dutch motif. Cape Town was founded by the Dutch in 1634 and much of its influence is still evident in modern day, from the physical features in some of the people to the language Afrikaans, the South African language heavily derived from Dutch. The African influence wasn't eradicated though, and I heard it right away when I encountered an African acapella group singing and dancing for a crowd. Hearing their spiritual melodies, it had really sunk in that South America was behind me and Africa had begun.

VICTORIA WHARF WAS THE EMBARKATION POINT for my first excursion on my first, and rainy day in Africa: Robben Island, the former concentration camp-like prison-turned-World Heritage Site and museum where political prisoners such as Nelson Mandela were once help captive during the racist age of apartheid. The Robben Island Museum at the ferry station had exhibits about the turbulent era in history, with phtographs, old anti-apartheid propaganda posters and touch screen video presentations.

A jet catamaran took me and about three dozen tourists to the site, about ten kilometers off shore through shark-infested waters -- convenient for the former wardens when threatening the prisoners with no chance of escape. Once on the island, we hopped on a bus where our tour guide Dan explained the stories of the different sites of interest.

Robben Island has an intriguing past, from being a waiting station for early explorers, a leper colony, a criminal prison, a political prisoner prison (and sometimes simultaneously both) and a military base. Dan told us the story of Robert Sobukwe, a political prisoner that was sentenced to four years in a small, fenced off house by himself without any privileges to talk to anyone -- not even the guards. It ultimately led him to throat problems and insanity. Four years without talking, man -- if only we could give that sentence to someone who deserves it, like Joan Rivers or Fran Drescher.

After a visit to the quarry, where prisoners were forced into hard manual labor, Dan asked, "Who wants to go to jail?"

Everyone replied positively.

"Before, people were forced into jail with handcuffs and now times have changed. People will pay up to one hundred fifty rand to go."

THE BUS BROUGHT US TO THE FORMER MAXIMUM SECURITY PRISON, where we were greeted by Pheneas Poho, a former prisoner-turned-tour guide who, now free, lived on the island in one of his former warden's big houses. The prison tour started in a big room where Pheneas was once held captive during his stay from 1985-1990. He slammed the door dramatically and began his tour lecture.

Pheneas explained how when he arrived in 1985, conditions were much worse than when he was freed. For example, in the beginning they had to sleep on hard cement floors and were only allowed to send out a letter once every two months. With protests and hunger strikes, they managed to get the privilege to send out a letter once a month and even received bunk beds -- they looked a lot like ones I had been in at backpacker hostels.

Pheneas ended his briefing by saying that we were stuck on the island with him and that, "The only way to your freedom is to ask me questions." Having experienced the life of the prison firsthand, he was full of stories and wanted us to tap into them. I wasn't sure if he was trying to be funny -- if so, his delivery sucked -- but he was locked up for five years in that hell hole, who knew just how bitter he was?

Someone beat me to the question I had in my head: "Why were you sent here?"

"I am from South Africa, and I love South Africa. I had to help liberate it. And for that, I was put in here."

DESPITE THE LACK OF MANY QUESTIONS, the walking tour continued around the prison grounds. Pheneas continued his stories about the horrors of Robben Island's prison days, including the time a man with a broken leg was still forced to work hard in the quarry -- ultimately his leg was amputated. Working in the quarry even without a broken leg was hard enough; the reflective glare of the limestone bouncing the intensity of the sun was so bright, it was the reason Nelson Mandela had to have eye surgery after his release.

Other stories spoke of the sadistic mindset of the prison wardens. During the time when violent criminals were mixed in with the peaceful political prisoners, the wardens gave rewards to the criminals for beating up on the innocent. In another story, two prisoners were forced to dug a big hole in the ground -- only to have the warden bury them alive in it with their heads above ground so that the wardens could piss on their heads, forcing them to drink their urine.

FROM SECTOR B, we entered the building of jail cells for those in solitary confinement. In Cell #5 remained a blanket, table and chamber pot -- the actual items used by Nelson Mandela as part of his long 27-year imprisonment. After everyone had their turn at a photo (picture above), Pheneas ended the tour down the hall -- but not without asking again for questions that would ensure our freedom.

"I have a question," I said, raising my hand. "Did you have any interaction with Mandela when you were here?" (Good question, huh?)

He said that although they were both in the prison at the same time, they were in different sectors and he didn't meet the soon-to-be-next-president until February 11, 1990 when then newly-elected president FW de Klerk freed all imprisoned for their anti-apartheid political ideals.

Having earned my freedom out of Robben Island prison, I was released -- only to have those who didn't ask anything follow right behind me.

WALKING PAST THE PENGUINS that often shored on the island, I was back on the wavy catamaran ride bound for the mainland -- many people got sick in seasick bags. I wandered the waterfront area until I took a taxi back to Long Street, the main strip in the backpacker district full of clubs and bars, including Mama Africa -- I assumed it was related to the backpacker bar of the same name that I had been to in Cusco, Peru.

The Backpack hostel's bar/cafe was just as lively as any of the ones on Long Street and that's where I hung out for the rest of the night with beers and a frikadel, the South African version of a hamburger with plenty of pepper mixed into the ground beef before grilling. I played pool with Amy, Clair and Graham from England until -- exhausted from jet lag -- I went to sleep in my dorm bunk.

The bunk beds in my dorm reminded me of the ones I had seen in that big prison room on Robben Island and as I laid my head in my pillow, I was glad I was a free man, finally travelling in a new continent.

Price Hike

DAY 138: Cape Town is flanked to the north by the geological marvel known as Table Mountain, a massive rock formation with a flat top like, well, a table -- but one that was sculpted by a blind man. It was my intention of the day to go on a hike to the top of Table Mountain, but due to high winds, the trail was too dangerous to do, and so thie Blog entry will concern a different type of hike: a price hike. (Hey, it was the only unifying thing of the day I could come up with for the angle of this story.)

As soon as I arrived in Cape Town, I immediately saw the inflation in costs from what I had been accustomed to paying in South America. For example, four nights accommodation in my Cape Town hostel runs about $60 (US), whereas in places like Bolivia, $60 could get you five nights accommodation and food, water and transportation around the famous salt flats and deserts of the southwest. You Americans may be thinking, "Fifteen measly bucks? Per night? That's cheaper than a Motel 6! Does the hostel even have lights for them to leave the light on for you?"

When I talk about South America being cheaper than Cape Town, I am of course excluding Brazil, which was a total budget breaker with an apartment sublet, costumes and entry into Carnaval in the Sambadrome -- I have no regrets because you only live once. But with my budget blown from partying in Sambaland, I needed to balance it out in Cape Town -- but that didn't look like it was going to happen without a little effort on my part.

LOOKING FOR CHEAP AND FREE THINGS TO DO IN TOWN, I consulted Mary, one of the "oracles" in the hostel's informative in-house tour office. Since it was such a blustery day -- so blustery that the wind knocked over a heavy sugar dispenser off a table and sent some pamphlets up on the roof from the courtyard -- she suggested staying indoors with visits to the Parliament building and some museums. She drew a little walking tour on a map of the city, and using it I walked down to the pedestrian walkway known as Government Avenue, which led me passed the National Gallery and to Iziko: The South African Museum. Admission was only about $1.50 (US), cheap enough for my tight budget of the day.

Founded in 1987, the modern museum had exhibits on tribal African rock art and tribal life in general with displays of the tools and warrior outfits used by one of the tribes -- how anyone could actually see their enemy through that straw helmet I don't know. Although there were other African cultural exhibits, such as a wall of childrens' art, most of the museum was dedicated to the natural history of South Africa, from fossils, astronomy, geology and animal life -- a preview of safaris to come. Like the American Museum of Natural History, which I visited before leaving New York City, Iziko had big whales hanging from the ceiling of a grand hall.

Passing through the botanical gardens, I made my way towards another cheap thrill: the Parliament House. Mary told me that if I just showed my passport I could sit in on a Parliament session from the stands. Unfortunately when I got there, the guard told me there was no session in progress, and thus my plan blew away with the high winds: to sit in the back and shout out lines from the South African diplomats in Lethal Weapon 2.

From Parliament, I walked passed another present day building of government, City Hall, proudly displaying banners celebrating "10 Years of Democracy." Democracy in South Africa is a fairly new idea, established for the first time only in 1994 -- coincidentally the year Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction came out. Whether or not the two things were related I don't know, although Samuel L. Jackson's forceful monologue of Ezekiel 25:17 was a pretty cold-blooded thing to say before free elections.

FROM THE GOVERNMENT BUILDINGS OF TODAY, I went to one of the past, the Castle of Good Hope (picture above), where the first governor lived in the Dutch colonial days. The castle was surrounded by five walls in the shape of a pentagon, like The Pentagon defense department in Washington, D.C. -- but without wars or Iraq or Donald Rumsfield's cheesy grins.

The oldest building in Cape Town, the Castle of Good Hope was also used as a military training base when the British sieged Cape Town from the Dutch in the 18th century. In fact, the swimming pool once used by the Dutch governor's family was filled up with sand to provide room so that more British could do jumping jacks. It was only until recently that the pool had been restored to its original splendor, so that more British could now take pictures of it.

The admission fee into the Castle of Good Hope was about $3 (US), which included a free walking tour. The guide Viwe led the 2:00 p.m. group around the castle grounds, now just a museum for tourism. She led us around on the still windy day, with updrafts that made some woman's moo-moo flap up like Marilyn Monroe's dress in The Seven Year Itch. Unfortunately, the woman wasn't as shapely as Marilyn Monroe; her shape was more like, well, the shape that required the wearing of a moo-moo in the first place.

Other than the cannons pointed out from the top of the fortification walls, the most interesting part of the tour was the old dungeon, formally used by the Dutch government to get medieval on their prisoners asses. While one waited for his torture, he was forced to stay in a damp, dark room so pitch-black that there was no difference if you opened or closed your eyes. If only I had access to a room like this as a kid when glow-in-the-dark stickers were all the rave, then I might not have locked myself in the closet just to see them glow.

HUNGRY, I ABANDONED MY BUDGET OF THE DAY for a short moment and ate at the museum's cafe which served entrees and snacks traditional to South Africa. I had the delicacy known as the vetkoek, which is this fried dough pastry thing usually filled with sweet or fruity fillings. Vetkoeks can also be filled with curried meat fillings, which was how I had it -- although the cafe prepared it less like a fried dough pastry and more like a fried dough sandwich. It was essentially, just a fried dough sloppy joe, just with lots of curry in it.

BACK IN MY BUDGET CONSCIOUSNESS, I ignored the touristy prices of the vending stalls in the Greenmarket and bought a new fleece at the discount clothing store appropriately named "Mr. Price" for just $14. (I had a fleece originally but had foolishly passed it onto my brother in Rio to bring back to New York, thinking "Africa? I won't need it there" -- only to be in Cape Town on a cold, windy day.) Walking down the touristy Long Street, I stopped in at the Virtual Turtle, an internet cafe where I posted the last entry. In the two hours I spent typing, downloading drivers and sorting through photos, I spent a whopping $15 (US) -- the most I've ever spent on a single session in cyberspace. Shocked by the expensive cost of my duties as The Blogwriter for the day, I went to the supermarket and spent the $2 (US) on five packs of ramen noodles.

Later I found a cheaper internet place at about half the cost of the Virtual Turtle and realized that turtles are not only slow, they can also rip you off.

FROM THE DELICIOUS CURRY SPICES OF LUNCH to the delicious powdered flavor packed labeled "Oriental" of dinner, I sat in the dining room with my cheap noodles, reading a Dave Barry book. Luckily for me, a guy who was packing up to leave the next day was donating his extra groceries to whoever wanted them, and I got a free loaf of bread and four eggs. (Score!) An egg was perfect to add to my "Oriental" feast and the bread was perfect for spreading the hostel's free supply of Marmite onto the next morning.

While eating an apple I had bought at the grocery for some sort of nutritional value (flavor pack not included), I watched L.A. Confidential on Channel 3 with two American guys who offered me a lift the next day in their rental car since we were all headed to Table Mountain. Perhaps they felt charitable to me, seeing me eating the noodles like a poor college student.

AS I LAY IN MY BED THAT NIGHT in my dorm room, I heard the orgasmic moans of a girl coming from one of the top bunks. Peeking through the sheer fabric of my sleep sheet, I noticed that in that top bunk a couple was attempting to have some sort of hand sex in the cheaper 10-person dorm instead of in a more private double room.

Get a room you two, I thought, but perhaps they were trying to cut corners in Cape Town like I was.

American Vacation

DAY 139: Adam and Brett, the two Americans I met the night before in the hostel's living room had pretty much the same plans that I had for the day: to trek up Table Mountain and to see the big rugby match. The two guys were in a five-way car rental share with three other Americans and so I became the sixth one to pack in. Although it was a tight squeeze, I appreciated the fact that with a carful of Americans, I could freely say I was "on vacation" instead of saying "on holiday" -- as every non-American English-speaker calls it.

The other three in the little Toyota were Mae, Gaylon and Vicky who were all in their last year of medical school, with the exception of Vicky who was already a practicing pediatrician. Adam drove in the unfamiliar side of the car on the unfamiliar side of the road and brought all the doctors, doctors-to-be and the one guy who went to art school to the trail head of Table Mountain, the towering rock formation that dominated the city to the north, just about fifteen minutes from the hostel.

THE TRAIL WE DECIDED TO DO was the Platteklip Gorge trail, which I found out too late was "the hard way," as opposed to the longer, but easier trails that brought one gradually up the mountain. I didn't know this at the time and just trekked up with my fellow Americans up the the steep steps made from boulders that brought hikers up about 1,200 ft in altitude.

At first we pretty much trekked together as a group until I became one of the out-of-shape stragglers in the back with Mae. The two of us were out of breath going up, so much that a dog hiking up with his owner was always ahead of us. Both Mae and I foolishly didn't bring enough water and had to ration it out with little sips. We thought that since the trail would only take "a little over an hour" we had brought enough, not knowing that the "hour" would actually feel like the time needed for the entire Lewis and Clark Expedition.

During a "shade break" in the gorge's shadows, away from the intense heat of the sun, we befriended a solo traveller from Bristol, U.K. named Charlie (short for Charlotte) who mistook us for being Indonesian. (Mae is Taiwanese-American.) British Charlie offered us Americans "biscuits," which we gladly accepted and thanked her for, despite the fact that in America we call them "cookies." This resurged a recurring question in my head: If the Brits call what Americans call "cookies" "biscuits," what do they call the pieces of bread that come with an order of KFC?

As the three of us trekked up the exhausting, but final leg of the trail, I asked people on the way down, "How much longer to the top?"

Person #1: "About twenty minutes."
Person #2 (10 minutes later): "Half an hour."
Person #3 (5 minutes later): "A quarter hour."
Person #4 (10 minutes later): "You're almost there."
Dog Hiking Up With His Owner: "Woof!"

After the trek in the Inconsistent Time Zone, we finally made it to the top of the "table." With the the satisfaction of having climbed up the gorge, we felt good enough to say, "Oh, that was nothing; I could do it again!" but figured fuck that, no one cares if we did the trail again, up or down -- a cable car would do fine.

The top of the "table" wasn't so much of aview from the end of the trail, but walking laterally along a pathway, I finally saw what all the fuss was about: the beautiful view of Cape Town below on one side, and on the other, the view of the Atlantic ocean. It was great to have earned the privilege to see such sights with hard work and determination, as opposed to the obvious people who came up in the cable car with their untarnished fancy shoes and purses.

Reaching the top of Table Mountain called for a celebration -- and rehydration -- so Mae and I went to the bar in the cable car station for some drinks.

"What do you recommend for someone who's just hiked up the mountain?" I asked the bartender.

"Sex on the mountain."

I slammed my palm on the bar. "I'll have some of that."

Sex On The Mountain, which didn't involve the protection of condoms or carabiners, was just one of the several corny drink names that a teenaged kid might have rolled his/her eyes at if his/her father said them at a party. Other cocktails included the Long Mountain Iced Tea and the Table Mountain Dew. Having been dehydrated, the schnapps and Southern Comfort concoction went straight to my head for a quick buzz -- I thought the cable car was spinning on its way down until the conductor announced that it was in fact spinning so that everyone got a fair chance to see the view.

DOCTORS VICKY AND GAYLON STAYED UP AT THE TOP, leaving me with doctors Adam, Brett and Mae -- I was allowed to call the med students "doctors" because, having circumnavigated red tape at the University of Pittsburgh, they had self-volunteered to work as actual doctors in Lesotho for some extra credit. The hospital they worked in welcomed them in with open arms as they could have used all the help they could get. Having finished their "residency," the doctors were on holiday -- ugh, I mean, vacation -- before heading back for their final semester.

Doctor Mae was to continue her vacation in Mozambique for a while and left me to travel with just Doctor Adam and Doctor Brett. She had a final lunch with the three of us at a wrap place that recommended their Thai Chicken Wrap and then went on her way.

And then there were three.

RUGBY, THE ENGLISH-BORN SPORT where men knock each other into near unconsciousness for the sake of getting an oblong-shaped ball to the other end of a big field, is a popular sport in many countries around the world -- except for the U.S.A. of course, which prefers American football, the sport where men knock each other into near unconsciousness for the sake of getting an oblong-shaped ball to the other end of a big field so that one can -- this is the major difference -- do a funky robotic chicken dance. Whereas American football has protective padding, helmets and spectacular halftime shows were Janet Jackson can get her boob flashed on national television, rugby has nothing but shirts, shorts and corny-looking knee-high socks that make players permanent fashion victims of the 1980s.

I am an American and therefore I don't know the first thing about the rules of rugby, nor did Adam or Brett. We drove to the Newlands Stadium outside the city anyway, and paid the 65 rand (about 11 American bucks) for seats, instead of the 250 rand (about 45 bucks) charged by a hostel associate that prefaced the match with a tailgating braai (Afrikaans for "barbecue"). Passing by the fans in body paint, we made our way to the stands and I was impressed with our seats -- conveniently under shade -- until I found out that beer wasn't allowed to be consumed in the stands. The pub downstairs was the only place drinking was allowed, and so Adam and I went down for a couple of rounds before game time.

It might be pertinent to mention that the teams playing were both Super 12 Rugby teams: the Stormers, South Africa's home team with two guys with the last name Rossouw that seemed to do all the scoring; and the Wellington Hurricanes from New Zealand, with their powerhouse center Ma'a Nonu. These bits of sports trivia I looked up on the internet just as I was typing up this Blog entry -- during the actual game, we just referred to the teams as "The Black Team" and "The Yellow Team."

Like American football, the two teams powered their way to get their ball to the opposite side of the field, but unlike American football, the game was very fast-paced with barely any timeouts or substitutions. In fact, the only time players had a chance to do some quick stretches were in the short moments in between a ball going offsides and when the ball went back into play shortly thereafter. Like American football, players jumped up to catch a pass, but unlike American football, players were allowed to lift their teammates to jump higher to receive the pass, giving the jumper a slow-motion hang time longer than Michael Jordan. And speaking of Air Jordan, like American basketball, the half-time contest involved a member of the audience with a chance to win something if he/she performed a goal. Unlike American basketball, where some of these bumpkins from the audience try to win by shooting the ball "grandma style," people in the rugby audience actually make the goal and win.

FOR THE ENTIRE GAME of two 40-minute halves, Adam, Brett and I tried to figure out the rules, but never really got it. We didn't know why sometimes, one team suddenly had five more points. Brett, being a med student, couldn't help but comment on the physical strength and endurance needed to play.

"There must be a lot of injuries in this game," he said.

The abundance of brutality balanced out the lack of enthusiasm from the crowd. Well, there was cheering and flag-waving, but it wasn't nearly as crazy as a soccer match in Brazil. In fact, it took four times for some guy to get the crowds to do The Wave continuously down the stands. Perhaps the lack of audience craziness could be blamed on the lack of motivation from the players; after a fast break, Stormer Rossouw merely put the ball politely on the gournd in the end zone and quietly walked away.

In the end, the Hurricanes beat the Stormers 25-19, leaving the home crowd leave without anything to celebrate about. Adam, Brett and I left the Newlands exhilarated anyway, but still clueless as to what we had actually seen.

THE SUN WAS SETTING about the time we were on our way back to the city, and taking advantage of the last day of the car rental -- and the last day in Cape Town for that matter -- Adam drove up to the other massive rock formation other than Table Mountain that overlooked the city: Lion's Head. Racing the fast setting sun in the little Toyota, we made it to a lookout point near the base of Lion's Head -- an area that was located about where the lion's ass would be. From this secluded spot, we watched (picture above) the sunset turning the sky into amazing colors. When Nature's show was over, we made our way out, only to find out that just across the road on the other side of the peninsula, another Nature show had started shortly thereafter: the spectacular rising of the full moon over the city (of which my photograph does no justice). It was a perfect ending for Adam and Brett's vacation in Cape Town.

AFTER MY NUTRITIOUS "SHRIMP" PACKET-FLAVORED DINNER of ramen noodles, I met up with my two fellow Americans at the hostel bar. Adam told me stories of his time in the Lesotho hospital: for every a hundred patients or so admitted (most for malnutrition), twenty would die, sometimes in his arms -- a first for the young doctor. He probably got used to all that since he told me this story while casually eating his pizza.

Eventually the pair of Americans left to pack their backs since they were leaving early the next morning to continue their vacation in Johanessburg, leaving me to chat with non-Americans: Dave, the Botswanan-born bartender and aspiring travel writer who, like me, had taken a travel writing course and was disgusted that most of his classmates were Conde Nast wannabes that thought enough "travel" was a package holiday at a fancy hotel or resort; Peter, an elderly Irishman who to me looked like a vintage surfer dude although he never set foot on a surfboard in his life; Ari, a Bahamian-born artist looking for fulfillment and inspiration in Africa; and Conrad, a German mechanical engineer from Stuttgart who, hearing about my long global trip, was so envious of me that he tried to figure a way to go on a similar trip -- and keep his girlfriend at the same time. (He was stumped.)

Surrounded by Botswanan, Irish, Bahamian and German -- instead of American -- it was time for me to finally end my "vacation," and continue my "holiday" around the world again.

Just Relax

DAY 140: To recall a conversation I had when I first arrived at my Cape Town hostel, the guy who checked me in, Ingmar, said that it's good to have a relaxed attitude in South Africa because things may take all day. Patience I've learned, is an important virtue on the backpacker trail, especially when waiting for your bus, your boat, your train, or your Carnaval costume. Patience is also good to have when you're eagerly watching the timer count down, waiting for your microwave popcorn to finish popping.

The first tour I was going to book for the afternoon was full and so I had to wait for the next day. My back-up plan to rent a bike fell through too since it was Sunday and all the stores and rental shops were closed. Realizing I had no choice but to just chill out of the day (not so bad a choice), I decided to go to the one place known for relaxation: the beach.

Using the suggestion of Joanne working the hostel tour desk, I avoided the R45 taxi fare and took a publicly shared minivan for just R3.50. It took me to the nearest beach, Camp's Bay, on the other side of Table Mountain and Lion's Head. Locals got on and off along the way while the driver played his CD of African reggae.

CAMP'S BAY, WHICH LIES ABOUT 4 KM SOUTHWEST of the city center, had a beautiful beach on the Atlantic. It was the sort of place to be on a Sunday afternoon for families, couples and solo travellers going around the world. Specifically, the beach was the place to be; offshore the water was at near hypothermic temperatures due to the Benguela current bringing water up from the Antarctic.

Feeling this frigid water, I just camped out on the rocks of the south side of the bay, conveniently not too far away from a really hot blonde chick laying out topless on one of the boulders. Unfortunately for me -- and all you heterosexual males out there -- she put her top on and left before I could sneak a photo.

With the striptease over, I left and walked along the entire beach, consisting of a blend of coarse and fine sand. On top of the sand was the blend of the many types of people that make up South Africa's multi-ethnic population: 76% black, 11% white, 3% of Indian descent and the remaining percentage a group classified as "coloureds," which is anyone else, including people with mixed backgrounds of any of the above. The bodies on the beach ranged from fat, hairy white guys, to dark, ebony princesses, to fit brown-skinned guys and girls, to hot blonde chicks that put their tops on before I could take a photo.

I sat by the rocks on the north end of the bay, laying out with a book and my journal and just chilled out to the sounds of the ocean waves, near others with the same idea (picture above). Now I'm not a super big beach person. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate the beach -- I think it's great -- but I'm not one of those people obsessed with laying out in the sun to "get some color." I am of Filipino-descent and have plenty of melanin in my skin, which starts to darken as soon as sunlight hits it. Seriously, if I go out of my house and walk over to the mailbox on a bright, sunny day, I turn a least one additional setting on a toaster. Whereas most people who come back to the office with a tan are asked, "Oh, did you just get back from the Caribbean or something?" I get "Hey Erik, did you just go out and get the mail?"

With my four-months-in-South America-made brown skin, I probably blended in as one of the coloureds -- except whenever I stood near a Japanese guy, causing people to think I was one of them.

I have to admit that after settling with my feet in the sand for a while without a care in the world, I really did appreciate just relaxing out at the beach. I laid out until sunset, when I sat and watched the colors of the sky above and the ocean waves crashing into the rocks below. That afternoon I advanced yet another toaster setting and was content that no one spelled "KICK ME" on my back with sunblock lotion. (Don't you even think of doing that should you see me laying out on a beach -- write something nicer like "KISS ME.")

BEING ON THE OCEAN, Cape Town is a big seafood town and I figured no trip to the shore would be complete without sampling some fruits from the sea. Postponing another night of ramen noodle goodness -- even if it did come in "shrimp" flavor -- I went into one of the beachfront restaurant/cafes across the main road. On the menu was an item called "Seafood Potjie," described in its caption as "something different, served in a cauldron." Continuing my tradition of ordering stuff on the menu blindly without knowing exactly what it is, I ordered it, hoping the cauldron wouldn't contain eye of newt, and toe of frog, wool of bat, and tongue of dog.

When the order came, I lucked out with a cauldron full of seafood stew containing mussels, fish, calamari, shrimp and crab leb meat, all blended together in a rich, creamy sauce. It went well with the side orders of rice, creamed spinach, sauteed whole baby onions and candied yams. I complemented it with a refreshing glass of the house "dry red" wine, which concluded my relaxing day at the beach.

A TAXI BROUGHT ME BACK INTO TOWN. After an internet blogging session, I headed back to The Backpack and lay in bed, totally rested and relaxed, although I was still a little upset that I didn't sneak in a photo of that hot, topless blonde chick.

School Trips

DAY 141: Since the age of three, I was raised in Teaneck, New Jersey, U.S.A., a proudly multi-cultural suburb of New York City. Teaneck has some roots in the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1950 and 60s -- in fact, my middle school science teacher, Mrs. Lacey, was a good friend of the King family (as in Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.). When I was in the first grade, I was selected to be in a small group of students to go on a school trip to another school on the other side of town to meet Rosa Parks, the heroine of the Civil Rights Movement that refused to give up her "White Only" seat on a bus in segregated Montgomery, Alabama in 1955.

As much as it was an honor to meet Rosa Parks, I was only in the first grade and assumed that anyone spoken of in history lessons was dead, and so I didn't even believe it was her -- just an actress playing her. I couldn't wait to get leave that trip so I could go home and watch Josie and the Pussycats.

LEGAL SEGREGATIONS IN THE UNITED STATES ended in 1963 under the order of President John F. Kennedy, eleven years before my time. While I appreciate the end of segregation, I was not alive for it and its struggle, and sort of took it for granted growing up with friends of many different races and creeds.

You really feel a movement when you're alive to see it, and you really feel it when you're in the actual country where it happened. The end of apartheid in South Africa was only declared in 1990, when I was in high school -- coincidentally the year civil rights activist Rev. Jesse Jackson took a trip to our school to do a speech. (I was a bit more attentive that time.)

The stories of apartheid, its end and its aftermath are best explained with "Sam's Township Tour," a popular half-day look into the lives of the people affected by apartheid and their futures. Some people don't like the idea of such a tour -- Why would I pay money to look at poor people? -- but most highly recommend it; in fact, Lonely Planet called it "the most knowledgable and informative tour." Besides, part of that that money used "to look at poor people" actually goes to their benefit.

Including myself, there was a group of six of us from the hostel picked up in a minivan not by Sam, but his associate Albert that conducted the tour. Like a school field trip, we started things off at a museum, the District Six Museum.

Founded in 1994, the District Six Museum was created to preserve the memories of District Six, a once vibrant sector of Cape Town in the late 19th century inhabited by merchants, freed slaves, artists and musicians, all with an ecclectic blend of culture, food and jazz. However, starting in 1901, these people were forcibly removed from the area -- but not without resistance -- until 1966, when the area was offically declared a "whites only" area. On February 11, 1966, bulldozers arrived and demolished all the houses to make way for a new white suburb, forcing its residents out into the slums, or "townships," outside of town. It wasn't until the end of apartheid in 1990 that the surviving original residents of District Six were allowed back to their former home. Land was given back freely to those who had claims.

The museum was a genuinely fascinating place, with photographs, anecdotes and paraphernalia from District Six's golden age. A duo played old jazz standards in the corner as I wandered the two-level building with its reconstruction of a typical apartment in the past, artifacts from the age of apartheid and a continually-stitched hope cloth with messages from the residents eager to return. The most noticable exhibit in the museum was a tower made up of the original street signs, which the bulldozer operator saved for all the years, hoping that one day freedom would prevail and that they'd be worth something.

THE DISTRICT SIX MUSEUM WAS JUST THE STARTING POINT of the tour to give prerequisite to the next destination: Langa, one of the townships that the blacks were forced into the Day the Bulldozers Came. Langa, like the other townships in the area, was still in its gradually rebuilding phase, a rebuilding of thought. A trip to the Tsoga Environmental Research Center showed us how the people were learning to use their resources for the environment with recycling and community gardening.

The rebuilding of the township also involved the actual rebuilding of houses. Albert took us to an area not completely revived; some buildings were still in their conditions of the old days and residents still lived there awaiting their house makeover. We were taken to a hostel where whole families shared tiny rooms near a communal kitchen and bathroom. It was in fact awkward to walk in on people's lives in poverty, but Albert explained that they all knew of the tour and that it was just business that benefited them. It was permitted to take photos of anyone or anything as long as their door was open as an invitation.

Down the dirt path from the hostel, passed people going about their daily chores, Albert brought us to the local pub, or social club, inside a little shack with a tin roof and a dirt floor. The members of the social club made room for us and sat in on Albert's explanation of the umgombothi they all drank (to pronounce it, you have to make a clucking noise with your tongue on the first syllable), a foamy milk-looking drink made from fermented maize and wheat. With a taste of a sweet light beer, it was to be consumed out of a shared tin bucket, which was passed arond to all of us, giving the townsmen an opportunity to observe us for a change. They all thought I was with the two Japanese guys until I spoke American English, making me look like I was with Alex, an American from Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts and John from Bridgewater, New Jersey. Although John didn't go to Rutgers, New Jersey's state university, he knew of the locally-famous "grease trucks" that served greasy sandwiches for those hungry times after a night of drinking. Grease trucks might have been handy in Langa's social club because after our sips of umgombothi, the bucket was passed over to the usual barflies who all drank nice, big hearty portions.

Passing the newly rebuilt houses, we stopped off at the local herbalist, Ndaba, who only put on traditionl garb for tourist photos. He traditionally cured patients with natural plant derivatives and potions sometimes made with animal hides donated from the university after research, but ran out of medicine for my nasal congestion. The herbalist was the last stop showing us the current state of affairs in Langa -- things would be looking up for them soon. I mean, they already had cell phone stores set up.

THE FUTURE OF THE TOWNSHIPS was seen in the township of Khayelitsha, home of the Masikhule Home Creche. "Masikhule" means "let us grow" and it was the appropriate name for the kindergarten school inside. About thirty kids peeked out the window when our minivan showed up, and they were absolutely ecstatic when we came inside. The six of us were assaulted by the cute little kids, jumping at us and pulling our arms for attention. Boys and girls greeted us with smiling faces and I never felt so welcome for just being a stranger, whether or not they thought I was Japanese or not. Some kids were fascinated by my little digital spy camera and loved seeing themselves on the little screen right afterwards. And everyone absolutely loved us when we picked him/her up in the air above our heads -- except for the shy little boy in the corner (picture above).

The last stop of the tour was the Philani Nutrition Center, which aimed to nourish the community through craftmaking. Women wove tapestries and carpets for sale in town or at their in-house store. While the women worked, their children played outside in a day care center and as soon as I walked over by myself, every kid jumped (literally) at the opportunity to hang off my arm.

The trip ended there and Albert brought us back to our hostel in the city. We arrived with a new understanding of the people's lives in the area, their struggle and their schools full of cute, arm-pulling children.

TAKING THE SUGGESTION OF BLOGREADER AFREEKACHIK I had a quick lunch at Nando's, the Portuguese-themed rotisserie chicken chain found all over Cape Town that prided themselves on peri-peri sauce derived from African chili peppers "discovered" by Portuguese explorers. After lunch, I took the suggestion of Blogreader Rob by taking a trip to a different type of school other than the one I had been to that morning.

"Excuse me, can you tell me where the harbormaster's office is?" I asked a woman at the waterfront who was looking quite bored at her information booth near her boat. She waved over to a sailor on the ship to find out, but he was busy fixing something.

"Actually maybe you can help me," I said. "I'm looking for the Picton Castle."

"Oh, I saw the Picton this morning," she answered. "It's over the walking bridge over there, towards the Cape Grace hotel."

"Thanks."

The Picton Castle wasn't a castle, but a ship: a big trawler built in Wales in 1928 originally as a fishing vessel, but ended up serving as a minesweeper in World War II for the British Royal Navy. In the early 1990s it was converted to a square-rigger, having spent some years at New York City's South Street Seaport, but was transformed into a unique sailing school for aspiring sailors in 1996. For a fee, anyone can join the ship's crew to learn the trade of old-fashioned sailing, as they journey around the world over the course of a year.

The gangway gate was open and I just walked on board, not realizing it wasn't exactly open for public tours. A woman stopped me -- she turned out to be one of the ship's officers.

"How did you hear about us?"

"I got an email from someone who said the ship was in Cape Town and that I should check it out," I answered.

"What's his name?"

"Rob. I don't know his last name, but--"

"Oh, Rob! Hey Paulina, this is Erik, he knows Rob. He said that he should come over and check the ship out. Would you mind showing him around?"

"Okay."

Paulina, one of the students of the ship, was the Bermudan mother of a 19-year-old son who had also served on the ship as a trainee. She was on her year-long "semester at sea" to learn the ropes (literally) of sailing along with twenty-seven other students from around the world -- most from Canada. The Picton Castle embarks from Nova Scotia, Canada every year with twelve professionals a new class, although some students just do a three-month stint in between two major ports. The sailing school was docked in Cape Town after a voyage from Madagascar, and was to be in town for two weeks for repairs and maintenance.

Paulina took me around the vintage sailing vessel and I interviewed her like a travel show host without a cameraman, from the living quarters to the galley, which still had its original stove, to the helm where the captain steered the ship in accordance with the behaviors of the winds and the waves. I was introduced to a few of the students and some officers, but they were all too busy working on the ship for a chat; even docked in harbor, the responsibilities of a sailor don't end. Responsibilities are an important thing on the sea; each student eventually finds a nitch with their individual talents and is assigned that task -- Paulina was a sailmaker.

My private tour was brief but very eye-opening. It has always been a dream of mine and many others to "just sail around the world" and learn the art of sailing -- the Picton Castle program made that all a reality. As much as I wanted to sail the seven seas like a pirate with them, I figured one trip around the world at a time.

THE REST OF THE DAY I just chilled out at the waterfront, watching the free jazz performance on the docks. That night I just hung around the hostel where John, my New Jersey "friend for the day" (if you've noticed, people come and go quickly) was getting his things ready since he was leaving the next morning.

"Good luck on your world trip," he wished me.

"Thanks. I'll see you at the grease trucks."

"Yeah, at like three thirty, four in the morning."

Greasy after-drink sandwiches weren't needed that night; the bar was surprisingly empty and everyone in my dorm room was in bed by ten. Perhaps they figured, like the students of Masikhule Home Creche and the Picton Castle, it was a school night.


Yearning to quit your job and just "sail around the world?" Check out the Picton Castle's website at: www.picton-castle.com

The Ride of Good Hope

DAY 142: If you haven't figured out already, I'm a pretty big cycling enthusiast. I'm no Lance Armstrong or Dave Mirra (nor do I aspire to be), but I do enjoy the feeling of being on the top of a bicycle, riding through the landscape without motors or windshields, until my thighs burn like crazy and my groin feels like it might need some sort of surgery.

THE "CAPE" IN CAPE TOWN comes from the fact that it is nearby many capes that jut out into the ocean from the mainland, the most famous being the Cape of Good Hope on the Cape Peninsula, where the first European settlement, a supply station, was established by the Dutch East India Company in 1652. The southern part of Cape Peninsula holds a national reserve park and a lighthouse (at Cape Point, the southernmost tip) with an outlook of where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet for tea and gossip about the Pacific and Arctic.

The most common ways to get to the Cape Point, about 70 kilometers from Cape Town, are via rental car or tour group. Without a rental car of my own, Ingmar at the hostel suggested that I go with one of the bus tours that included some downhill bicycle time. I told him that I might just go the cheaper route and rent a bike on my own since I was into cycling in the first place.

"It's better to go with a tour," the Dutchman said. "Because they tell you things that you wouldn't know on your own."

"Like what?"

"For example, did you know that the reserve has over 250 species of birds?"

"Well, now I do."

"I'll shut up now."

My plan was to ride the entire seventy kilometers back and forth, but everyone I asked if it could be done discouraged me.

"There are so many hills," Irene the German girl in my dorm room told me. She and her friend Julia drove the cape the day before and felt sorry for the two bikers they saw struggling.

Sylvia and Eve who worked at the tour desk told me that a direct route to the park entrance was near impossible for a bicycle; it was all major highways with no scenic route. They suggested that I take a train to the southernmost seaside suburb of Simon's Town, twelve kilometers north of the national park entrance, and ride down from there. So that's what I did.

AFTER AN HOUR AND A QUARTER in second class on the MetroRail watching the candy and cigarette vendors come on and off calling "Sweeties, sweeties, sweeties," I found myself at Simon's Town train station. With the help of a nice old woman at the nearby Simon's Town Museum, I located a bike rental place and rented a heavy two-wheeler with mountain treads.

As I rode out of Simon's Town, I already started to see the hills that Irene warned me about. The twelve kilometers of road to the park entrance was a lot harder than my stubborn self thought it would be; I had to pedal against a strong headwind and all uphill. At times I'd try to downshift to lessen my pain, only to realize that I was already in the lowest gear. Tour buses -- the ones I could have taken instead -- passed me by with sympathetic faces in the windows. Occassionally they would stop, not for me, but to take photos of the occasional pack of baboons crossing the road. On the bright side, at least the scenery was beautiful -- reminiscent of California's Pacific Coast Highway -- despite the overcast grey skies.

AFTER FULFILLING A CHILDHOOD FANTASY of going through a toll plaza with a bicycle amidst a line of cars, I was in the Cape of Good Hope Nature Reserve. This meant that not only did I have to struggle up hills against a headwind, I had to pedal another twelve kilometers of hills in wilderness where wildlife could roam around at their leisure and have their way with me. Of the 250 species of birds that Ingmar accidentally told me about, one of them was the ostrich, which I was on the look out for since Irene and Julia saw them the day before. However, I saw no such ostrich, nor a zebra like I was told I might see too. I only saw another baboon on the side of the road like a hitchhiker.

The road to Cape Point Lighthouse (picture above) seemed to go on forever. A stop at the Buffelsfontein Visitor's Centre revealed a map that told me I was more than halfway there, and I recharged my will to move on. I continued up hills and against the wind with only one thought in my head: at least it's all downhill on the way back. After the three-hour ride more intense than a spin class, I rounded a curve and finally saw the parking lot of cars and tour buses at the base of the rocky hill where the lighthouse stood.

There was no rack to lock up a bike like the bike shop guy said, so I asked a woman at the funicular ticket office who told me to just leave it there, by the office door. "It will be fine there," she told me.

"You sure it will be fine?"

"Yes, just leave it there."

I was skeptical parking the bike out there in the open since I traded it for my passport as a security deposit, but she assured me it was safe. I locked the front wheel to the frame so it wouldn't spin, just in case, not remembering that anyone could simply just pick up the bike anyway.

WITH MOST OF MY BODY SORE -- particularly my groin region from sitting on the hard seat for three hours -- I still had to hike up the steep pathway up to the lighthouse. I was feeling good with having made it thus far and had an adrenaline rush to ascend the hill rather quickly, passing all the tourists who had just arrived via car or bus. The view from the lighthouse was worth the trip and I felt good that I "earned" the privilege to see it. I'm sure the tourists around me wouldn't have cared if I told them; they probably laughed at me from the comfort of their bus.

From the lighthouse vantage point I saw another lookout area even more south, Diaz Point. The trail of high winds that took one there required one and a half hours round-trip according to a posted sign, but I did it in about half an hour -- still making time to take in the view of the dramatic towering cliff beneath the lighthouse, the view of the two oceans blending together and the obligatory "I was here" photo, taken by a solo German guy there. The reason for my haste was that I didn't want to leave the rented bike unattended too long. Call me paranoid, but it wasn't exactly secure and my passport was hanging in the balance.

After a race down the path, I found that the bike was totally fine like the woman had told me. I should have known that leaving it there could be done in good faith -- or in this case, good hope.

The ride back to Simon's town was a lot easier, most of it downhill and with a wind that worked for me instead of against me. The sun also finally decided to come out, giving me brighter views of the scenic coastal road that was a tad dreary on the way south. I made it back to Simon's Town limits in about an hour and forty minutes, swapped the bike for my passport at the bike rental place and walked to the train station before the last train to Cape Town departed.

I HADN'T SEEN ANY OSTRICHES during my ride through the national park, but I found some when I got back to the hostel: ostrich kebabs, a favorite meat dish in The Backpack's weekly Tuesday all-you-can-eat braai, or barbecue. I hung out with the crew manning the grill as they turned over the skewered ostrich cubes and brushed the big fillets of snoek, a popular fish that one guy described as "the tastiest fish you could have."

The guy that told this to me was one of the guides of Daytrippers, one of the tour companies that did the Cape Peninsula. I told him about the events of my day.

"Oh, so that was you!" he said excitedly.

"Yeah, I was the only bike out there."

"I told my group to check out that crazy Asian-looking character riding up the hill. You were struggling, but you just kept on going."

Despite his poking fun of me, he was really rather envious; he too was a cycling enthusiast that loved the peninsula route, but spent most of his time behind the wheel of a minivan following his clients on their short, downhill bike rides instead of being on a bicycle himself.

"It's a great ride, isn't it?"

"Yeah, it was worth it," I said.

My groin disagreed.

Reading is FUNdamental

DAY 143: Every now and then I need a day to just chill out, catch up on Blog duties, do a little freelance design work and -- one of the favorite pasttimes of the backpacker set -- read a book. Reading sure does stimulate the mind when your body is still sore from a bike ride the day before to do anything else.

I did managed to move my body outside and walk around for a while. It was a beautiful sunny day, the kind like in Ferris Bueller's Day Off where Ferris says, "How could I possibly be expected to go to school on a day like this?" I walked down Long Street and the outdoor esplanade known as St. George's Mall. On the way, I ran into two film shoots, one for some South African television cop drama (I missed all the action), and the other for a commercial for France. Crew members were simulating street steam with dry ice.

"Too cold [to shoot] up there?" I asked a crew hand.

"No, it's just cheaper here," he answered.

FOR A CHEAP LUNCH, I stopped at one of the many shops that sold the popular snack found all around town, pies filled with various meat fillings: minced curry, pepper steak, chicken, peri-peri chicken or the one I had, steak & kidney beans. After that and an iced coffee at a sidewalk cafe, I walked up Government Avenue, passed the Scandinavian(?) tourists in awe of seeing squirrels for the first time, and parked myself on a bench with a book.

Before I never understood why travellers "wasted" time on reading while away from home. On all of my previously rushed, two-week corporate American vacations, I'd see readers and wonder, "Don't you guys want to see stuff?! Do things?! My God, we're not gettin' any younger here folks!"

But now with time to just chill out, I just sat there on the park bench next to a classical-looking building with the international edition of Michael Moore's Dude, Where's My Country?. (Michael Moore books are huge on the backpacker trail I've noticed.) Coincidentally, when I finished a couple of chapters and went to investigate what the nearby classical-looking building actually was, I discovered it was the Centre of The Book, a really ornate and beautifully constructed literacy center that promoted reading (picture above).

I WASN'T A TOTAL BOOKWORM ALL DAY. C'mon, that's crazy talk. Later on, I enjoyed the other favorite pasttime of the backpacker set: drinking beer! The bar at The Backpack was in full-swing and it was there I sat over rounds of Castle Lager with Richard, a paleontologist studying at the museum; Jason, a British Airways employee from Rhode Island that got airfare at an amazing 94% discount(!!!); and others that I don't remember for obvious reasons. Drinking beer is just like reading because it also stimpulates the brian... stiumpulsates... sitmeu stimulates FUCK I mean, the braaiinnnnnn... the MIND...... al;akjf;alk
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................................................wlkejqa

NOTE TO SELF: Don't drink and blog.

Alumni Day

DAY 144: It may be interesting to point out that I attended Teaneck High School, five miles from New York City, from 1988-1992, and Rutgers University, the state university of New Jersey, from 1993-1997. While this information isn't exactly exciting enough to tattoo on your ass, I mention it because I ran into people from both schools before the day was over.

It wasn't my intent to do so that morning. I was supposed to leave Cape Town with the German girls from my dorm in their rental car, but opted to stay in town since Matt and Vicky, a couple I had met in Antarctica two years prior, had contacted me to catch up since they had moved from Oxford, U.K. to Hout Bay, outside of Cape Town. Meanwhile, Blogreader Steph, my brother's girlfriend's younger sister, was also arriving in Cape Town on a school trip with my alma mater, Rutgers.

Trying to contact Matt and Vicky was an ordeal because Matt's voice mail kept on cutting me off when I called from a pay phone:

"Hey Matt, it's Erik, the penguin guy. I got your email and I'm here in--" CLICK!

"Hey Matt, it's Erik the penguin guy. I'm in Cape Town staying at The Back--" CLICK!

"Hey, it's Erik again. I think you're voicemail keeps cutting me--" CLICK!

I emailed him some complete sentences and then called back for a quick message:

"Hey, it's Erik. I just sent you an email since I keep on getting--" CLICK!

Eventually, we got in contact and planned to meet for lunch the following day. Contacting Steph was easier; I just left a message at her hotel desk that I'd meet up with her later that evening.

SO AS NOT TO WASTE THE DAY waiting around for people to get back to me, I decided to trek up the other massive rock formation that overlooked the city: Lion's Head, "the mountain that looks like a giant boob" (as Blogreader Liz described it). Jason at the hostel had done it the day before and told me the trail head was within walking distance, so I headed over through the streets of Cape Town. At one corner, I saw a vaguely familiar face from twelve years prior.

"Excuse me, is your name Juanita?"

"Yeah."

"From Teaneck?"

"Yeah."

I took my sunglasses off dramatically, like a state trooper that had just pulled over a car. "Erik Trinidad."

Juanita was in the grade above me at Teaneck High School, so we weren't super close. We had once worked on a project together in our school's "Simulated Office Environment," a sort of in-school internship in the workings of business with one of my favorite teachers, Mrs. Olzewski. Just like a real office, you could goof off, photocopy your face on the copier and sometimes take double lunches -- like I used to do with Blogreader Duaine. Anyway, I always remembered Juanita because she was my one example I always cited of an Irish-American with a Spanish name.

Juanita (last name, Foley) was with her friend Natasha from Mozambique and were waiting for their transport to the trail head of Table Mountain. The taxi came in about two minutes and so they rushed off.

"Leave me a message at the hostel," Juanita said.

"Alright."

I CONTINUED MY WAY towards Lion's Head, up the somewhat steep hills to the trail head. A couple that had just descended the mountain recommended that I take the other trail up as they did -- there were two near the parking lot.

Some parts of the trail weren't really marked clearly -- I just had to follow the clearing where it looked like someone else had been. The trail I soon realized, wasn't the official trail at all, but perhaps someone's short cut to the top, despite the warnings that "shortcuts cause erosion." I came to this conclusion when I got to a point where the path led me to the edge of a cliff of a Road Runner cartoon. I might have slipped on loose rocks and pulled a Wile E. Coyote if I hadn't grabbed onto branches to keep my balance.

Hanging out on a limb, I managed to find the obvious real path below, which I took all the way up to the summit. The rocky parts near the peak had chains and grips to climb up the bigger boulders, and suddenly my trips to indoor rock gyms back home with Blogreaders Cheryl and da Rzz paid off.

The view at the top of Lion's Head was pretty amazing. I sat for a while to rest and soak it all in (picture above): Camp's Bay, the Atlantic, Cape Town and Table Mountain, which was covered in clouds or, as some call it, the "table cloth." I wondered if Juanita and Natasha could even see anything from the top.

AFTER MY HIKE, I went to Juanita's hostel to find out. They hadn't arrived yet, but I waited around with their friends and dormmates, two guys they met in Mozambique in a diving instructor class. The guys were all excited when I told them Juanita and I were both alumni of the same high school, hoping to get some dirt from me, but were disappointed that I really didn't have any since she was in the grade above mine.

Juanita and Natasha eventually came back and we chatted for a bit -- they could barely see anything through the "table cloth" -- before I dashed off to meet Steph. I was to call Juanita on her cell phone to meet up with them later that night.

THERE WAS A GROUP OF TWENTYSOMETHINGS all wearing embarrassing "Rutgers" badges around their necks when I got to the Park Inn Hotel lobby, and I knew I had found the right place. They had just gotten back from a tour of the Cape Peninsula, which they went on straight from the airport since their flight was delayed. I found Steph and she introduced me to the Rutgers crew, including her professors. They all welcomed me into their group; I was alumni anyway.

Being with the Rutgers crew was like being on the first episode of any season of MTV's The Real World. Most of the students were from different classes and didn't know each other prior to the trip -- and most of them were traveling outside the U.S. for the first time. They were all fresh and naive about this new world -- this "real" world -- where just like on MTV, they got to stay in a really fancy place.

I joined them all for dinner, drinks and dancing on the waterfront and it continued to be just like that first episode of The Real World, when they all go out on the town their first night and look like a big group that obviously isn't from around those parts. I called Juanita and she told me that her group was going to postpone their night out until the next day, and so I remained in "The Real World: Cape Town."

The Rutgers cast, fresh off the plane, was already rambunctious -- boozing, calling their parents at home, mingling with locals, posing for photos, waking up the seals sleeping on the docks -- not necessarily in that order. Instead of a confessional room, they just came to me, the alumni, with their comments:

"I can't believe I'm in Africa."

"I can see that there's still some division in the races here."

"When I dance with my hands in the air, that means I want to fuck 'em!"

And so, my past lives of schools in New Jersey, U.S.A. had resurfaced in South Africa. As they say in Sopranoland, "Badda Bing!" but as they say in Disneyland, "It's a small world after all."

Zombie

DAY 145: Amongst the things that I hate about the way my body operates -- other than the odor it produces in my crotch when I wear polypropelene long johns on a day of snowboarding -- is the fact that it decides to wake up whenever the sun rises, regardless of how late I went to bed the night before. My body is a morning person, but my mind just wants to hit the snooze button.

After my night out with my alma mater, I didn't get to sleep until about 3:30 a.m., only to be woken up by the sun around 6:30. I couldn't even cover my eyes with my blanket or pillow to block out the sunlight because once my body knows it's daytime, it knows. As much as I tried to get some more shut eye, it didn't work; my bed was in between two windows with sun rays invading my slumber. I lay there, jealous of the three other guys in my room sleeping peacefully in their beds.

There was no use trying to get back to sleep, so I just had a shower and started the day -- but not without feeling like a zombie the entire duration of it. Coffee and energy drinks kept my stamina up since, as much as I tried, I couldn't take a nap. Cape Town is one sunny city.

Caffeine gave me the kick in the ass to get out to Camp's Bay to meet Matt and Vicky, a couple I had met on an Antarctic expedition cruise in 2002. Matt and Vicky were no longer "Matt and Vicky," but "Matt, Vicky, Kai and Finn," a family unit (picture above), now living in the sunny seaside community of Hout's Bay, outside of the city center -- away from the cold weather of Oxford, U.K. We met up at Cafe Caprice, a place that Matt described as, "a place where all the beautiful people go to look beautiful, so let's meet there and be beautiful too." They arrived with their friend Jeff who was visiting from the U.K.

It's no surprise that the British were in Camp's Bay -- they practically owned most of it. Circa 2002, there was a real estate boom in the seaside areas of Cape Town, where one could get a really good deal on a house, which could be fixed up or demolished to make room for a new fancier one. Matt himself was a builder, playing this South African real estate game. In fact, he often left the cafe to make a call outside since he was on the verge of a deal where he'd buy one house and tear it down to make four. This was a pretty lucrative business deal for a guy who I remembered had once got really drunk and wore a full woman's bikini when rushing into the waters of Antarctica.

The six of us lounged out on the cafe sofa for the afternoon amidst all the beautiful people. I kept awake with French Bulls (Red Bull and champagne) and caught up on the happenings of our lives since Antarctica two years prior -- the most noticable one, Vicky giving birth to Finn, the cute blue-eyed baby boy with a hunger for cheese doodles and the backgammon pieces his half-brother Kai and Jeff were playing with. Matt hadn't changed much at all, except perhaps a bit more responsible, still writing songs and playing in a band. The entire family lived in Hout Bay with a maid that sometimes drank a bit too much of their whiskey.

Vicky and the kids went home early, leaving me to chat with Matt and Jeff. Jeff wrote down some notes in my notepad with suggestions about what to see in Tanzania. Eventually the guys left, but invited me to a gig their band was doing the following night.

With the Red Bull in my body, I felt I had enough energy to walking up Signal Hill, which divided Camp's Bay and central Cape Town. About halfway up the hill, the Red Bull wore off and I realized what a crazy idea walking really was since I had nothing but some ramen noodles in my stomach from earlier that morning. When I got to a point where I was so exhausted I felt like fainting, I did the right thing: walked down the hill and hopped in a taxi.

IN NEED OF NOURISHMENT, I made a sandwich and curried green beans over noodles and ate them in front of the television. I was all set to take a power nap before going out with the fellow high school alumni I bumped into the day before, Juanita -- only to get the message that Juanita & Co. were coming to pick me up in fifteen minutes. I would continue to be a zombie like in Night of The Living Dead.

We went to the loungey club called Buddha Bar in the Greenpoint neighborhood, one of those places that could be in a cosmopolitan city near you, where it's sort of too loud to have a conversation without having to repeat yourself and without having to repeat yourself. I lounged out with Juanita and her two guy friends that she met in scuba diving instructor certification classes in Mozambique, until Natasha, the belated birthday celebrant who worked in Mozambique, arrived with her friend Charles.

Despite the Coke and Red Bull cocktails I had, I was still exhausted from my Signal Hill walk-up attempt and a total party pooper. I really didn't clique with Juanita and her scuba friends anyway. Natasha (at left, Juanita at right), who at times also looked tired or bored, told me I wasn't the only outsider of the scuba gang.

"It's a pretty strange culture," she said.

"American culture?"

"No, scuba diving culture. They're so closely knit."

I clearly saw this; a lot of times the two guys were so touchy feeling with each other that I thought they were perhaps a gay couple. (They weren't).

Way before the scuba gang left Budda Bar, I just left with Natasha and Charles and went off with them to another bar which was more conducive to conversation and bad jokes, one of which I remembered from a rafting trip I did in West Virginia with Blogreader nikkij:

So there's this 89-year-old man who's about to turn 90, and his son and grandson and great-grandson decide to throw him a big birthday party -- a nice rowdy bachelor-type party to get the old man excited one more time in life. They go out and decide to get him a stripper.

The old man thinks for a minute, looks at the stripper and says, "I'll have the soup."

(Say the joke out loud if you don't get it, and make sure your delivery is good.)

REGARDLESS OF THE BAD JOKES, I was still just as much a zombie that night as I was in the daytime. Of course, when all the caffeine and energy drinks, when I finally went to bed around 3 a.m., I couldn't get to sleep.

Irish Telepathy and The Next Generation

DAY 146: So I was sitting in the kitchen with my roll and Marmite for breakfast. At the table was one of my dormmates, Farhad, a fortysomething South African from Ladismith in town to do the famous Cape Argus bike race the next day. Farhad, a second-generation South African of Indian descent -- one of the bigger ethnic groups in South Africa -- was a teacher and taught me a few things about the days of apartheid.

"In 1987, I worked in an Indian school. There was the Indian school and the African school and they were always separated," he said. The Indian professor continued by telling me that although apartheid is officially over, the mentality is still the same; the Indians have been conditioned to hate the blacks, the blacks to hate the whites, and the white to hate them all. But it wasn't like they chose to think this way; it was all because of the legal system before 1990.

"It was the same thing in the States," I started, feeling all historian-like. "It really won't change until the next generation is born. It will happen over time."

As Jason the traveller in my hostel said, "Some people don't Afrikaans. Hmm... could it be because it's the language of the oppressors?"

It was interesting being an American in South Africa because both countries have a similar history of racial segregation -- the U.S.A. was just thirty years ahead of the game, and even now, things aren't totally perfect in racial equality. It's a slow process of mentality change that can only happen as the younger generations get older and weed out the old ideas.

AFTER READING A BOOK AT POOLSIDE, I managed to take a nap in the daytime by wrapping my fleece around my head. Refreshed, I got myself ready to go out that night, the first stop being the bar at the hostel, the perfect place to see those of the young generation. Ingmar the Dutchman was tending bar, chatting with me and his off-duty co-worker Eve, from France, and Anna, a local girl born and raised in Cape Town. As soon as she told me where she was from, I had one thing to say to her:

"I have a friend who's unemployed in New York, and he wants to buy you a drink," I said to Anna at the request and expense of Blogreader matto.

"Seriously?"

"Yeah, he sent me money to buy drinks for local African girls."

"I'll have an Amstel then," she requested. Ingmar served it up.

"His name is Matt O'Grady," I said. "He's Irish, but he doesn't drink beer."

Anna told me that she too had roots in Ireland -- she even had an Irish passport so that she could travel more freely than a South African. With this Irish connection, she toasted her beer up to matto. "Tell him that I will fondle him telepathically."

"Fondle him telepathically?"

"Yeah."

Anna finished her Amstel and went off with her African friend -- it was great to see the two races of the next generation go off together -- whether she was busy fondling matto in her mind through telepathy or not.

SPEAKING OF PEOPLE NAMED "MATT," I rememberd that another Matt, Matt from Hout Bay, invited me to his band's gig at a bar called Rafiki's that night. I ventured off to the Park Inn Hotel to tell Steph that they would be playing she should come out with the Rutgers crew. Steph was on her way out to the try and get rugby tickets when I got there. I gave her the directions.

JASON, THE TEXAS EX-PATRIATE that now lived in Rhode Island, U.S.A. and worked for British Airways, had made reservations at Mama Africa, a fancy restaurant that required reservations for their famous traditional African cuisine. I joined him, English paleontologist Richard and DJ Verne that did weddings and bar mitzahs. As an African reggae band played (picture above), we dined on fine cape wines and African fare -- I stuck to seafood being in a seafood-kind of town, with snoek pate and linefish with coconut sauce.

At the table next to us, there were about a dozen Irish nurses of different age groups. I chatted up one of my generation, Claire, who complimented me on my teeth of all things before telling me to sit in her lap for a photo -- meanwhile, my all-guys table had already finished dinner and were about to head out. It was only about eleven and I was about two hours late from Matt's gig at Rafiki's.

"Come and meet me at Rafiki's," I told Claire.

"Spell that?"

"Rafiki. Like the baboon in The Lion King."

"Oh, 'no need to worry about it, it's in the past' Rafiki?"

"Yeah."

I dashed off to the bar with the name of an animated baboon, hoping to see her later. Richard, Verne and Jason weren't too keen on seeing the band and went their own ways.

RAFIKI'S WAS ABOUT EIGHT BLOCKS AWAY and when I got there there was not much going on but people drinking and shooting pool. There was no live music -- or even a trace of it -- and the bartender even told me that they had no bands perform that night. I didn't know what the reason was for Matt's absence, but I ran off to tell the others not to go there anymore.

Claire and The Irish Nurses were still at Mama Africa drinking wine. I told them that Rafiki's was off and that I'd be right back to hang out -- I just had to walk over to the Park Inn Hotel and leave a message for Steph not to go to see the band. As I was writing the note to her at the front desk, I bumped into her professor, Dr. Banerjee, coincidentally another teacher of Indian descent like Farhad. "Hey Erik, can I buy you a drink?"

My brain automatically responds to this question with "Yes," like a reflex. Never turn down a free beer.

I sat at the hotel bar for a quick drink with Dr. Banerjee, or Dr. B as they all called him. I figured Claire and The Irish Nurses would still be drinking at Mama Africa and could contact them right after a quickie.

Dr. B and I got to talking about politics and race relations in America and South Africa. One by one, the Rutgers students came back to the hotel and found us. They were all gathering together to go out dancing again -- this time, they even asked Dr. B to come along. After they told me where the club was located, I ran back to Mama Africa to ask out Claire. But alas, The Irish Nurses were gone.

NO MATTER, I went back to hanging out with the Rutgers cast at a club called Baseline, a club that locals raved about, away from the backpacker district. The dance floors were full of locals of the young generation, and for the most part, the groups of races were integrated on the two floors of the club with the bass of the music uniting them all. There were still little groups of one particular race, and so the Rutgers cast set the example for integration on the dance floor -- Rutgers is the state university of New Jersey, one of the real melting pots of different races in the United States, and it is seen very much so in its younger generation. (Plus, who else but New Jersey would set the example to grinding and spanking and the exposure of nipples?)

The night went on and we danced and hung out on the terrace amidst the next generation of Cape Town. I paid back Dr. B for his beer with a round of shots for him and the gang. I also offered three local African girls drinks courtesy of a certain unemployed dude in New York City, but all three declined it.

In the end, it was a pretty good night out, although it was a shame I couldn't find Claire or any of The Irish Nurses.

I suppose I'll just have to fondle them telepathically.

Finishing in Cape Town

DAY 147: Named after its two major sponsors, The Cape Argus Pick 'N Pay Cycle Tour is a 108-kilometer race, which takes willing participants up and down the hills, neighborhoods and beaches in and around Cape Town. With about 35,000 participants, it is the largest individually-timed sporting event in the world -- and one of these 35,000 just so happened to be in my dorm room.

Farhad, the Indian-South African teacher from Ladismith, was up by seven to get his bike ready to go. "I thought you started at six," I asked him, waking up with the noise and the sun. He told me that they split up the racers into groups depending on skill level. While the group with all the major contenders started at six, Farhad's group -- one comprised of participants who simply wanted to finish the race in any time possible -- started later on so that there wouldn't be many bottlenecks of traffic.

Farhad, in his biking shorts and jersey, got his energy drinks and gear all set to go in the hallway, looking a bit tired. He sighed and said, "Well, this is what I came to do."

"You forgot this," I said to him, passing him his helmet that he left on his bed in the room. "Good luck."

AFTER DOING A HANDWASH and having some breakfast, I walked over to the starting line downtown, just in time to see the last two groups get ready, on their marks, get set and go. As the countdown to their launch ticked closer, the race committee psyched the crowd up with a powered up version of The Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby," looping the dramatic orchestral strings part over and over. The emcee motivated the masses on the loudspeaker. "Alright, let me hear you say, "Hohpaah!"

"HOHPAAH!"

"Let me hear another!"

"HOHPAAHHH!!!"

"Okay, almost there. Seven, six, five, four, three, two, one!"

A gun fired in the air and the cyclists were off. The music looped on the part of "Eleanor Rigby" when the Fab Four sing, "Ah, look at all the lonely people... Oh, look at all the lonely people..." Fans and family on the sidewalks rooted for their heroes on so they wouldn't feel so lonely.

The 108-kilometer race route took the cyclists all over the cape, up hills and by the beach (picture above), to a finish line just about four kilometers from the starting line if you just walked over directly. It was an unbearably hot and sunny day with no breeze at all -- I was exhausted just going on foot the short way.

While the top athletes arrived in glory in about two and a half hours, the rest of the racers were just happy to see the end whether it took four or eight hours. Bleachers were set up by the finish line for spectators to root for their loved ones. It was here that the drama of cycle racing came to be; some cyclists fell over with exhaustion, while others couldn't make it without a little motivational push on the back from their fellow cyclists. Later, I learned some guy actually had a heart attack.

For the most part, the cyclists were happy to make it in one piece with smiles on their faces. Some teams even had little distiguishing costumes, like foam shark fins on their helmets or body paint, or, like one pair riding a tandem two-seater, costumes of the two dreadlock albinos from 2003's The Matrix Reloaded. Each biker was equiped with a sensor so there time could simply be recorded by passing through a gate. After the gate, the route continued slowly to the after carnival. Volunteers with megaphones kept up the energy up for the final leg in their African accents:

"Well done, well done, you are all champions, well done! I know you are tired but just two more minutes and you can get your medal. Well done, well done! Thank you, thank you, thank you! Without you there would be no cycle tour. You are a champion! Well done, well done, well done everybody!!!"

I swear this woman continued on like this non-stop for at least an hour without a pause -- to the point of annoyance -- and I'm sure it really wanted the cyclists to get out of there.

I HUNG AROUND THE FINISHING AREA hoping to spot Farhad, but after two hours looking for his group class and number under the hot sun, I just gave up. I didn't know what possessed me to think I'd find him -- he wasn't looking for me -- and it was a one in 35,000 chance. So instead, I wandered around the post-race carnival without any real purpose but to have some fried calarmari and chips from one of the several food vendors.

THE DAY WENT BY FASTER THAN I THOUGHT, and before I knew it, it was seven -- when the Rutgers cast usually got its free time from their hectic day schedules. It was their last night in Cape Town and I needed Steph to carry some books back to the States for me and so I had to contact her. The Park Inn Hotel, as fancy a place it was, wasn't listed in any phone book or with information on the phone. So I got cleaned up to walk over the eight or so blocks down the road -- but not before noticing that Natasha and Charles (whom I had met through my fellow high school alumni Juanita) had left me a note at the front desk, asking if I wanted to hang out. It was Natasha's last night in town as well, and perhaps she wanted to finish things off in Cape Town with people other than the tightly knit scuba clique she would just see back home in Mozambique anyway.

I called Charles' cell phone and no one answered, so I left a voice mail and walked over to meet Steph. She and the other Rutgers cast were off to eat dinner for their last night in Cape Town and I tagged along. Most of the restaurants were closed for Sunday, but one fancy Indian place took in our party of nine students, professors and their spouses. For the last supper, most of us had familiar spices with a regional meat: ostrich tikka.

Dinner ran until about midnight and I called Charles back to tell him that I would call it a night -- he and Natasha already had. I escorted Steph and the Rutgers cast back to their hotel for a final goodbye.

"Oh, it's sad," Chris the half Portuguese, half Greek-American student said. "It's like we're losing one of our own," he said before telling me that I better not patent "When I dance with my hands in the air, that means I wanna fuck 'em" before he did.

SLEEPY AND EXHAUSTED FROM ANOTHER SLEEPLESS NIGHT of only about four hours the night before, I stumbled into a 24-hour internet cafe to post a couple more entries before I entered the NIZ for five days. As tired as I was, I spent until 2:30 in the morning writing -- sometimes not even realizing what was appearing on the screen. But I knew, just like the cyclists of the Cape Argus Pick 'N Pay Cycle Tour, that if you just stick to it, you can make it to the finish line.

The Little Green Van

DAY 148: In travel culture, there are two kinds of people away from home: "travelers" and "tourists." From the pages of National Geographic Traveler to internet bulletin boards, people usually agree that the term "traveler" refers to those who see foreign countries independently, outside of a tour package, usually during a fair amount of time, without the fancy resorts or the fuzzy slippers you get in first class. "Tourists" are those that travel on limited time, usually with a package tour, with the purpose of getting away from life at home to live it up, with or without those fuzzy slippers.

THE GARDEN ROUTE, the area about four hours east of Cape Town, is the most popular destination of the Western Cape province after Cape Town according to the Frommer's Guide to South Africa, and a must-see if you have the time, so I was told. With forest trails and beaches to walk, caves to explore, ostriches to ride, and game reserves to drive through, the amount of things to do was a bit overwhelming. My head was spinning with all the brochures out there fighting for my tourist dollar and I thought to myself, I wish there was just someone who could figure it all out for me. Then I realized that duh, the whole tourism industry was built by people figuring it out for you. As one traveler in the hostel told me, "You can knock [tours] all you want, but they do a good job."

As much as I wanted to do the Garden Route independently -- either through a rental car or the hop-on/hop-off Baz Bus service -- the best way for me to go was a comprise of the two: the Bok Bus, a small tour company that catered to the independent traveler that went to all the major spots that I wanted to see. It wasn't a big fancy tour bus; it was a little green Volkswagen minivan with a Toyota engine that would continue to run for two more minutes after you turned the van off (picture above). At the wheel was Tom, a Namibian of German ancestry, born and raised in Swakomund. He picked me up at The Backpack, along with two British girls Sarah and Kate, at 8 a.m. promptly.

Already in the little green Bok Bus was Chris, an English out-of-work archaelogist; Andy, a German painter working in a factory outside of Munich; and Sonja, a German student that had just finished a Business English course in Cape Town. We picked up two other Germans, Verona and Birgit, and then head out of the city, east towards the Garden Route on the N2 highway.

After stopping for morning tea at an overlook at Sir Lowry's Pass, we continued the three hours along N2 towards Mossel Bay, the seaside town at the start of the Garden Route. Along the way we stopped at the Gouritz River Bridge to watch people bungy jump for the first time. Tom tried to get us to jump the 68-meter drop, but everyone was just happy watching. Having done a bigger jump at Victoria Falls in 2000, I wasn't exactly rushing to do an inferior one.

"Erik and I have an excuse," Chris said. "We've already done higher ones. We've been initiated into the club already."

We stood at the bridge and watched others get initiated while screaming their heads off.

MOSSEL BAY, THE SITE OF THE FIRST EUROPEAN LANDING on the South African coast by the Portuguese in 1488 by Bartholomieu Dias, is in the Guiness Book of World Records as one of places with the mildest all-year climate -- only second to Hawaii -- making it a great beach town. Conveniently enough, the beach was where we stayed for the night. The Bok Bus pulled into the parking lot of the Santos Express, a novel concept in budget accommodations: an old train of sleeping coaches permanently set up on the unused railroad track along the shore. What the quarters lacked in space (and the lack of fuzzy slippers), they made up in the view of the ocean out the window.

After dropping our bags off on the train, we all hit the beach to relax after the long drive in the morning. Unlike the beach at Camp's Bay, with frigid waters brought up from the Antarctic, Mossel Bay was along the warm waters of the Indian Ocean and had a much bearable temperature to swim in. Compared to the New Jersey shore, it had a much bearable cleanliness to swim in; I could actually see my feet immersed three feet below.

FOR THE AFTERNOON EXCURSION, Tom drove us to the Garden Route Game Lodge, a posh safari lodge inside a private game reserve. We went on a safari game drive in a 4x4 driven by Jana, a native South African who pointed out all the animals the private reserve could afford to have. The Reserve encompassed 12,000 hectares of land, fenced with 6,000 to 8,000 volts of electricity, which kept the elephants with the elephants, the zebras with the zebras, the springbok with the springbok -- and all of them away from the guys drinking gin and tonics while wearing fuzzy slippers in the fancy lodge just over the hill.

Even with acres and acres of land, the reserve had a sort of zoo feel to it and, having done a proper safari in Botswana in 2000, I wasn't too impressed. Don't get me wrong; it wasn't like an old-fashioned zoo with cages, but here the animals were fed and didn't really interact with each other in the great "circle of life." Instead of letting the lions hunt for their food instinctively, they were merely fed cows from the nearby farms and drank out of a man-made watering hole. Without proper exercise, The Lion King here was in desperate need of Weight Watchers.

Everyone else in my group hadn't been on safari before and seeing the animals -- even in an "unnatural" habitat and in limited quantity -- was still a thrill. Inside I felt a little embarrassed that I had already become a "safari snob," but I will have to say that I was impressed with finally getting to see rhinos -- in Botswana in 2000, they had been poached out of existence.

AFTER COCKTAILS AT SUNSET, a delicious African buffet was served in the lodge dining hall, where we ate chicken, lamb and springbok, the game antelope meat of the evening. Afterwards, I soaked in the natural spring jacuzzi with Kate and Sarah under big African sky. The stars shined above us while a distant lightning storm thrilled us from the northeast.

After our fill in luxury, we headed back to our little humble train accommodation on the beach, where I fell asleep nicely to the relaxing sounds of the ocean waves just a couple dozen feet away.

Fine cuisine, jacuzzi under the stars, sleeping by the beach. That guy at the hostel was right; knock tours all you want, but they do a good job.

Now about those fuzzy slippers...

Big Cats, Big Birds and Telephones

DAY 149: The Cango region just north of the mountains of the Garden Route has many attractions, each with its own brochure fighting for the tourist dollar. Sorting through the options was a bit daunting, but luckily the Bok Bus people figured out three main highlights.

After breakfast on the deck overlooking the beach, we hopped in the minivan and headed to our first highlight: the Cango Caves. We drove over the mountains and through the Little Karoo semi-desert, passed ostrich herders moving their flock along, to the natural wonder found under a very developed tourist complex with restaurants and shops. There were two ways to see the caves: via the Standard Tour or, as me and the Germans Birgit, Verona, Andy and Sonja saw it, via the Adventure Tour.

The Adventure Tour included a walk around the Standard's major caverns, but then added a walk, climb, crawl and slide through narrow passages in the back end of the cave network. Our guide Ilse, a Belgian of South African heritage, started us off in the first chamber, a huge cavern of stalactites, such as the famous "Organ Pipes," and stalagmites, such as the famous "Cleopatra's Needle." With its great acoustics, the first chamber was once used for concerts until too many people used to sneak in the back and break off pieces of the rock to take home. In fact, there is still a reward up for any information leading to the conviction of cave vandals.

The second chamber was just as impressive as the first, with all of the lime rock formations dramatically lit with lamps from the network of electrical cables along the edge of the walls. It was a tourist photographer's smorgasbord and everyone went to town -- some panned around the room with camcorders, some spent lots of time setting up their tripods for the perfect shot. Meanwhile, amidst all the natural underground beauty, my mind was somewhere else.

"Hey, did you notice there's a telephone down here?" I pointed out to Sonja. There was one on the light switchbox.

"I use that to call for food," Ilse said. "It's only to be used for emergencies, but sometimes food is an emergency," she joked.

Ilse led the twenty-two of us up and down steps and through small tunnels, pointing out the crystals in the ceiling, the rimstone jutting out of the walls and the pools of calcium-rich water on the floor. She taught us the history of how each chamber was discovered at different times, and spoke of how Richard Chamberlain and Sharon Stone were in one cavern during the filming of 1985's King Solomon's Mines. Interesting stuff indeed; I pointed out another telephone in the corner.

THE "ADVENTURE" PART OF THE ADVENTURE TOUR invovled contorting one's body through hot, humid and narrow passageways only about 50 centimeters wide -- all with less oxygen too since it only came from the main entrance hundreds of meters away -- but at least the tunnels were lit to keep the spiders away, which made the arachnophobic Sonja really happy.

All of us walked through the "Tunnel of Love," which wasn't such a romantic thing because you had to walk in single file with your head and back lowered. But the worst of these passageways was the "Devil's Chimney," a skinny chute that could only be done one at a time, where you really had to swing your legs around to catch the holds in the rock. Some actually chickened out on it and and one woman even slipped on the damp rocks and nearly broke her ribs. When it was my turn to go up the chimney, I couldn't really get the hang of it either. Ilse was at the top guiding everyone with advice. She saw me struggling.

"Swing your right leg up there and then put your foot there."

I couldn't get it.

"Um, you have to know your left from your right first."

"Oh, right."

(To this day, I still have to think about left and right.)

I managed to squeeze myself up the fifteen-foot 80° climb, only to be alone in a cave. Where the others had gone I didn't know, but the trail led to a tiny slit in the rocks known as the "Post Box." With a height of just 25 cm., I thought this can't be the way, but people had already slipped through to the other side. I slid on through with Sonja behind and eventually all the mails (and femails) had been delivered.

AFTER AN OSTRICH FILLET BURGER at the Cango Caves cafe, we drove to the source of such a meal: the Cango Ostrich Farm, one of the 400 farms in the area where ostriches were bred for meat, leather and feathers. The nearby city of Oudtshoorn used to be the capital in the hey day of ostrich farming in the 1880s. Back then, the elite of the world turned to Oudtshoorn for ostrich products, particularly feathers for ladies' dresses, hats and boas.

Due to a lack of good marketing in a World War I era, this "feather boom" in Oudtshoorn declined in the late 1910's. In addition to those factors, the car had gone public by that time, and women stopped buying ostrich feather hats because they would just blow away while riding in an open-roof vehicle.

Although the hey day of Oudtshoorn has been over for a long time, the elite still turn to the nearby ostrich farms for ostrich products: feathers (for dusters); leather (Ferrari interiors are upholstered with it); and ostrich meat, which although technically fowl, is a red meat similar to beef but with just three grams of fat per serving and no cholesterol. On the flipside, one ostrich egg, a so-called "cholesterol bomb," has the cholesterol of twenty-four chicken eggs.

"Eat three and you will die," Christopher our ostrich farm guide told us, who was also responsible for all the ostrich historical trivia you just read.

Christopher was an energetic one, who led us from the history room to the incubation room where newly-hatched ostrich chicks sat in incubators to keep warm -- until the occassional tourist came along for photo opps. From the babies of the infirmary, we met the adults outside, the first being a female named Linda who, if you put a food pellet between your lips, would "kiss" you. Let me tell you, it was more frightening than romantic to be kissed by a big bird, it staring you in the face with its big bug eyes before lunging at you with its beak (244k Quicktime MOVie).

"That's the first kiss I've had in months," Chris said. Luckily for him, he didn't kiss the older and more aggressive Eve who would have probably ripped his lips off with her beak.

From the pens, we went to the place where, as Christopher said, "all your dreams come true:" the ostrich rodeo, where willing participants could actually ride an ostrich.

HOW TO RIDE AN OSTRICH

• Step 1: Round up an ostrich. First, find an ostrich. You may find this easy if you go to an ostrich farm outside of Oudtshoorn, South Africa. Have two ostrich wranglers chase one of the big, flightless birds -- one to hook its neck with that big hook thing they used to pull bad vaudeville acts off stage; and the other to put a canvas bag over the ostrich's head.

  "Ostriches are stupid birds," according to guide Christopher. "They think if they can't see you, you can't see them." (This is why ostriches put their heads in the ground to "hide" from predators.) With the bag over the bird's head, have the two wranglers simply escort the bird to a mounting area.
  
  

• Step 2: Mount your ostrich. When your guide asks the audience in the stands, "Okay, who wants to go first?" and everyone is quiet and wishy-washy, raise your hand and say, "Alright, let's go." Stand up and walk down to the mounting area. This will be accompanied with applause and people cheering, "Go Erik!" (assuming your name is "Erik").

  Using the V-shaped fence where the ostrich is in, climb the first rung and swing your right leg around the bird's back. (You have to know your left from your right first.) Tuck your feet under the bird's front and cross your legs as best you can. Hold onto the elbows of the wings to keep yourself from falling when you lean back, back straight towards the bird's tail.
  
  

• Step 3: Ride the ostrich. (picture above) When the guide removes the canvas bag from the ostrich's head, it will soon realize that not only is it not invisible, but there is some guy sitting on its back. This will cause the bird to run around the rodeo like a three-year-old that has had way too much sugar. Hang on for your life -- the ride will only last for about ten seconds. To transcribe the words coming out of this author's mouth:

  "Oh Jesus! Whoa! Hahahahahaaa! Woooo! Hahahahahaha! Okay, falling off, falling off, falling off..."

  Hopefully the two ostrich wranglers have been running behind the ostrich the whole time and will help you dismount the bird. Walk back to the bleachers and receive your applause.
  

(Click here for the 424k Quicktime MOVie.)

AFTER FEEDING THE BIG BIRDS, we went to a feeding of big reptiles and big cats at the Cango Wildlife Park. The Bok Bus arrived just in time for the feedings of the American alligators and the Nile crocodiles on ostrich wing tips. On the other side of the zoo were big cats: pumas, leopards and tigers, all feeding on antelope or, if you were in the "royal" lion family, calves' heads. The park looked like your run-of-the-mill zoo -- reptile house, cute mammals in little pens, kids with sloppy ice cream mouths -- but the main thing that distiguished them from others was that the park's mission was to breed the almost extinct cheetah back into existance, which they had been doing for several years.

FROM THE CHEETAHS BRED IN CAPTIVITY, we drove 69 kilometers into the wilderness -- Wilderness the town that is, for our accommodations of the night: The Fairy Knowe Backpackers. (The term "backpackers" is a noun in South Africa which means "(youth) hostel." Set in the lush greenland between the mountains and the beach, the backpackers was the former summer home of a farmer and the oldest existing building in Wilderness. The place was run by Elmerie who not only had to single-handedly manage, cook, clean and bartend for our group and a handful of pairs, but for a whole busful of French students on an English language school trip.

The Frenchies kept amongst themselves at the pool table as the Bok Bus group dined outside near a fireplace with bowls of lamb potjie (stew) and rice. Elmerie served up beers, local ciders and Nordic Ices while Tom went out for a marshmellow run.

While roasting marshmellows on the fire that I volunteered to tend to, I met a couple from Seattle working and studying medicine in Johannesburg, on vacation for a couple of weeks. They were doing the Garden Route in a rental car in the reverse direction as we were and were planning to see the ostrich farms the following day. Having been there earlier that day, I could have given them directions, but then again, it was probably better if I knew my left from my right first.

Superlatives

DAY 150: An electronic alarm clock went off at 6:30 in the morning. I knew I didn't set mine and just lay in the dorm room along with Chris, Andy, Sonja and two other English guys. (The four other girls paid extra for private rooms.) The alarm wouldn't stop. I heard Chris rustling through his bag and I thought to myself, 'Hey, Chris has the same alarm clock as me!' but the incessant beeping continued and I realized that it was coming from my bag. I leaped off the top bunk and shut it off -- I had forgotten to turn the alarm setting off from the day before. I hopped back into bed.

Half an hour later, Andy's alarm went off.

WITH EVERYONE AWAKE, we had two options for the morning excursion: go canoeing up the nearby Touw River, or take the scenic train ride on the historical Choo-Tjoe steam train along the coast. After long durations in the Bok Bus with hardly any time to exercise, Sarah, Kate, Sonja and I opted for the canoes -- besides, the train had derailed some weeks before.

Tom dropped the four canoers at Eden Adventures near the mouth of the Touw River, where he rented two two-man canoes for us. He told us we only had two hours to canoe before having to pick up the others at the end of the Choo-Tjoe line, so we shouldn't go farther than an hour away before returning back to base. On the map was the icon of a waterfall that the four of us wanted to check out, even if it was "45 minutes to an hour by canoe, and then 30-40 minutes on foot" according to Tom.

"If we go really fast, we can make it," I told the others. We decided to go for it.

The two canoes went upstream on the black waters of the River Touw. Although the black and dark brown water looked like something out of a sludge processing plant, it was actually clean and drinkable -- the color was just due to plant oxides -- but I wasn't about to find out what happened if I ingested it. Sonja and I led the way with Sarah and Kate just behind. We were on the lookout for the fork in the river to see how far we had gotten, until we pulled out the map from our watertight bucket -- we were already at the trail head, and in just thirty minutes. Being ahead of schedule, the four of us decided to trek the three kilometers to the waterfall.

The trail was a lot longer than we expected; it winded up and down hills and even required walking along pipelines at the edge of narrow cliffs. The trail wasn't too bad though; it was easy enough for the group of senior citizens that were hiking the trail as well, just one-fourth the speed of us. One of them told us that she had done the trail before and that the waterfall was "beautiful."

The path seemed to go on forever. For Sarah, it ended only a third of the way because she slammed her head into a tree branch, bruising it almost black and blue. Her expensive sunglasses flew off so she and Kate stayed behind to look for it. Later, they found it with one lens popped out, crushed by another hiker.

Sonja and I trekked on and it seemed time was accelerated because it was running out with no waterfall in sight. We ultimately jogged to the end of the trail, only to discover that what the old woman called "beautiful" was actually pretty anti-climatic. In fact, after all that, it was quite a pathetic waterfall.

"Is this it?" I asked.

"I don't know," Sonja answered.

"Does the trail continue?"

"I don't know, but we have to go back anyway."

"Yeah."

The two of us ran back triple-time to the where we had parked the canoe. Sonja's sandal ripped, which made things worse, but she was a trooper and continued in spite of it. We ran up and down the stairs, passed the old folks and made it back to the river head with twenty-five minutes left to paddle back to base. We thought that it would be easier going downstream, but we neglected to factor in the winds that worked against us. We paddled with all our might over the black water and made it back to base in time, give or take ten minutes. (I'll take ten.)

Why we rushed back I didn't know -- Tom said he wanted to be at the train station 40 km. away to get the others on time since "it was a bit boring," but when we got there, they were casually relaxing outside with drinks. Oh well, as they say, "No Pain, No Gain" -- although I'm not quite sure if I gained anything but sore arms.

IN 2000, WHEN I BUNGY JUMPED OFF THE VICTORIA FALLS BRIDGE -- conveniently in "No Man's Land" between Zimbabwe and Zambia so no government could be blamed for any unfortunate incidents, i.e. papercuts from the bungy registration form -- I was told it was the "World's Highest Commercial Bungy Jump." Of course, this bit of trivia escaped my mind when I freefalled off the bridge and screamed like a bee-atch.

Our next stop, the Bloukrans River Bridge, also claimed to be the "World's Highest Commercial Bungy Jump," but I wasn't so sure. I thought Vic Falls' jump was the highest! In adventure sports, people are obsessed with superlatives: "World's Highest Peak," "World's Most Dangerous Road," "World's Fiercest Papercut Caused By A Registration Form." Whether these claims are true, no one really looks up, unless you just sit all day in front of a computer bored with lots of downtime. (I can hear some of your mouses clicking to Google from here.)

Throughout the complex, the Bloukrans Bungy Jump wasn't shy about their claim and backed it up with framed blow-ups of their entry in the Guinness Book of World Records. However, I noticed the fine print at the bottom:

If you noticed on the photo of the certificate, it clearly states, "...which is operated on a daily basis by Face Adrenalin." This made me think, 'Maybe it's the World's Highest Bungy that's Open Seven Days A Week like their signs in the parking lot say!' Whether or not their claim used a loophole or not -- they must have a really good lawyer -- it was still pretty high.

World's highest or not, it didn't stop James, a guy we met along the way, from doing his first jump. He was escorted to the center of the bridge, cheered on by the honks of vehicles driving by, where he was harnessed under the road. After the obligatory countdown of "Five, four, three, two, one... BUNGY!" he jumped into the canyon with the big string of rubber attached to his ankles. From our vantage point at the overlook we really couldn't hear him, but I think it's safe to say that he too screamed like a bee-atch.

SKIPPING OUT ON THE "WORLD'S HIGHEST" BUNGY JUMP (say it with air quotes) to save money for other superlatives, I continued my tour with the Bok Bus group to Tsitsikamma National Park, the "Garden of the Garden Route," in an area called "the place of sparkling waters" by the local San tribe. The national park, on the border of the Western Cape and Eastern Cape states had walking trails along the shore, in between the green Tsitsikamma Mountains to the north and the blue waters of the Indian Ocean to the south. We walked the Mouth Trail, a built-up trail with a boardwalk and stairs that overlooked the ocean where a school of dolphins swam not too far away. The trail took all of us to the Strandloper Cave and a suspension bridge over Dryfhout Bay and, for some of us, up a steep hill to a lookout point. Kate and Sarah only made it up halfway to a bench that we thought was the end of the line, until I came back with news that there was a higher lookout, which took me another twenty minutes to get to by myself.

Having gone farther than the others, I had to rush back double time like I did that morning. "You're a real stickler for punishment, aren't you?" Kate said to me. As they say, "No Pain, No Gain," -- although I'm not quite sure if I gained anything but sore legs.

I CAUGHT UP WITH THE REST and hopped in the little green van. Tom drove us to a dock at Plattenberg Bay where we were just sittin' at the dock of the bay (picture above), waiting for a boat to pick us up to our accommodation for the night: The Stanley Island Lodge, a bed & breakfast built on an island that was once part of the nearby farmland until coastal flooding separated it from the mainland. The island was converted to a holiday resort by its original owner, who sold it to a couple who maintained it until they got divorced in the 1980s. The wife got the island in the settlement, and rented it to its current owners, Barbara and Barry, who maintained it for close to twenty years.

Recently, they put it on the market, which is why it wasn't advertised anymore -- you just had to know about it, like the Bok Bus people. It was a shame too, because the island was a great place to stay, a little village of colonial-looking houses connected by pathways through woodsy areas. The interiors of the houses were exceptional as well; for the price of a "dorm," I actually stayed in the loft of a house with comfy beds and blankets, a living room, a bar area, fireplace, living room and a terrace. Finally relaxed from all "gain" of paddling and hiking of the day, I sat out on the terrace with my journal until it was time for supper in the cozy, but classy dining hall.

The food was also something to write home about: the staff prepared a delectable buffet of seafood including Cape Malay fish, Thai curry fish, mussel stew, broiled snoek and hake fish, and an assortment of side dishes. We dined on the culinary feast with James, the bungy jumper from the Bloukrans River Bridge, who had also luckily stumbled upon the Stanley Island Lodge. We were the only guests on the island and toasted with bottles of champagne and shots of a drink called the "Springbok" -- mint liquor topped with amarula -- while having a conversation about slang terms between British English and American English. Kate mentioned "shithead" and "fuck face."

"I like 'douche bag,'" I said.

"Oh, we don't really say 'douche bag,' that's an American term."

"What's a douche bag?" Sonja asked. She had been taking English courses in Cape Town, but didn't know everything there is to know about the language.

"Um, well, a douche is... a vaginal wash," I blatantly explained. Sarah, a refined woman from a world of boarding schools and wealth, almost spit out her drink.

"A feminine wash," I corrected myself.

As crass a conversation it was for such a classy place, I knew it was no contender for the "World's Most Uncouth Conversation" in the Guinness Book of World Records -- although if you have nothing better to do, you're probably going to look it up on Google anyway.

Up In The Air and Down The Funnel

DAY 151: I don't know who said that video games deteriorate a youth's mind, but whoever said it obviously never got to fly an airplane. Having flown virtual planes growing up on computer flight simulators and Zaxxon on my 1980s ColecoVision, I was all prepared for when I was handed over the controls in a real plane 7,000 ft. in the stratosphere.

"ARE YOU BARRY?" I asked the old man having breakfast in the main lodge, baffled at an impossible jigsaw puzzle which, when completed, would form the blown-up picture of popcorn.

"Yes, are you Erik?"

"Yeah, I'll be your first co-pilot this morning."

We met at the hangar just a ways from the main house on Stanley Island. Barry got his glider ready while I waited at the runway with Sonja and Chris who were next in line. Soon, we heard what sounded like a gas-powered lawnmower and around the bend the glider appeared with Barry inside. I entered the tiny two-man cockpit, strapped into the three safety belts held together by a latch that a three-year-old could dislodge with a little elbow grease, and put on my headset so I could communicate with Barry while the engine was running.

Barry flicked a switch and the propeller started spinning. He held control of the joystick in front and soon the plane accelerated down the grassy runway the entire length of the island. Before we reached the end, we had lifted off the ground and climbed to about 2,000 ft. (picture below).

ONE OF THE PERKS OF STAYING at the no-longer advertised Stanley Island Lodge was the fact that its manager Barry just so happened to be a glider pilot. For $50 (USD), he took people individually on a scenic flight up the coast, above the mountains and the ocean to observe the tree tops and the marine life below. I was fortunate enough to see a group of dolphins jumping in and out of the water -- Chris actually saw a massive school of hammerhead sharks.

"Is it easy to fly?" I asked Barry through my headset.

"You'll find out," he answered. "You're going to drive back."

Barry flew the plan up to Dryfhout Bay and then turned the plane around. He explained to me how to read the velocity gauge and the altimeter and then let go of the controls so I could take over. It was my task to gradually bring the plane up to 7,000 ft. without burning out the engine.

"Keep the needle here at about eighty-five [km/h]," he instructed. Using slight motions of the joystick, I maintained the needle in its zone to prevent burn out.

"Don't concentrate on the gauges," Barry said. "Look out the window." Out the window, I had managed to get the plane in a really crooked angle out to sea.

Eventually I got the hang of flying the glider, turning it gracefully like I had done years ago in a computer flight simulator, piloting it without any turbulence. I repeated in my mind the mantra that I had from my childhood days playing the game Looping on my ColecoVision: Up is down, and down is up.

Speaking of "looping," once we got around 7,000 ft., Barry took the controls to have a little fun. He cut the engine off so we could just glide on the ocean winds without the sounds of the motor or propellor -- and loop the plane upside down and around twice in a row (536k Quicktime MOVie). For his next trick, Barry did a couple of stall turns, in which he flew the plane straight up at a 90° angle without the engine on, and let it hang there for gravity to take its toll.

"It's like a bungy [jump]," he said. We freefell once facing straight down in a nosedive and other going straight backwards like in a really good roller coaster, leveling out smoothly on both occasions. I couldn't stop laughing the entire time.

While gliding down towards the ground with the engine still off, we flew straight down towards the earth where it looked like we might crash into the lagoon. My eyes bulged out as it was something out of a movie, but then Barry turned the engine on at the last second and lifted the plane up to safety (236k Quicktime MOVie). Eventually we came down to earth on the grassy runway so Sonja could go up next.

"It's so fun!" I raved. She excitedly got into the cockpit and took off. I ran to the dining hall where the others were having breakfast to share my enthusiasm.

"You are smiling from ear to ear," Verona commented.

"It was so good!" I exclaimed. "You have to go," I told Andy who wasn't so sure if he wanted to spend the extra money without hearing about it first. He rushed off to register.

"So it was good?" Tom asked me at the hot beverage dispenser.

"Yeah, I don't even need coffee this morning!"

I continued to rave about the flying, looping and freefalling like a kid who had just gotten the new high score in an arcade game.

AFTER SONJA, CHRIS AND ANDY ALL HAD EAR-TO-EAR SMILES, we left Stanley Island and hopped back in the little green Bok Bus, westbound back towards Cape Town. Tom drove us to the seaside town of Knysna, a former hippy haven-turned-yuppieland voted the "Best City in South Africa" in 2001 -- by who I don't know, but it was probably the people of Knysna, South Africa.

The coastal town, full of chic shops and coffeehouses, was known for two things: the spectacular sandstone rock formations known as the Knysna Heads, which we saw from above, and the Knysna oysters, harvested from the wild in Knysna Lagoon. Knysna hosts an annual oyster festival where people from all over can sample the town's tasty contribution to the international culinary scene.

The festival wasn't until July, so to sample the famous oysters myself, we visited the Knysna Oyster Tavern, one of the first places that began harvesting Knysna oysters commercially. Smaller than the standard cultivated ocean oyster, the wild Knysna oyster had a bit more of a robust taste to it. Of course I was the only one that noticed this; Sonja was the only other person who was "brave" enough to try them, and she had no previous oyster tasting experience. The rest couldn't stand the thought of slurping what looked like snot out of a half-shell, even if it was splashed with lemon and hot sauce.

AFTER SOME BEACH TIME at Wilderness National Park where Andy and I played with the strong ocean waves, and a visit to the Alcare aloe ferox factory, where I sampled a natural energy drink made from aloe ferox (it tastes like bitter body lotion), we ended up at the Somerset Gift Farm in Sparrebosch Valley, our accommodation for the night. The farm, set up to be a retreat destination, was less than a year old, solely run by Deon, an young Englishman who had renovated every one of its cottages to modern standards with new beds, electricity and kitchen facilities. Deon stayed in the main lodge near the main gate with his dog Punch, who often started fights with a local peacock -- the peacock always won.

It was at this main lodge that Deon made us a delicious chicken braai for supper as he played tunes out of the digital music channels on the satellite TV behind the bar. He tended the bar after cooking, which wasn't much of a bar since we practically drank it dry of everything available in celebration of Kate's 28th birthday the next day. When midnight struck, Deon pulled out a beer funnel from under the bar and let the festivities go down the mouth of the funnel and into our mouths. Once it hit the lips, it was so good -- especially for Andy who was getting really happy-drunk.

Inebriated on brandys and Coke (South Africa's "national drink"), wine, beer, and gin and tonics, Sonja, Chris, Andy and I walked back to our cottage down the dirt road. I was feeling sober enough to make us all some two-minute ramen noodles that I had with me in the kitchen. Andy the German, who was usually pretty quiet in conversations since he wasn't too good with English, suddenly couldn't stop rambling incoherently about his escapades in Southeast Asia when I told him I was of Filipino descent.

Apparently, he himself didn't know what he was talking about because the next morning, he had no recollection of his words -- or having any ramen noodles for that matter.

I don't know who said that video games deteriorate one's mind, but whoever said it was obviously trying to shift the blame away from alcohol.

Foofie To The Very End

DAY 152: Amongst the differences between American English and South African English are certain words and phrases -- in South Africa, a "backpackers" is a "hostel," a "braai" is a "barbecue," and a "foofie slide" is a phrase that just sounds so silly, you can't help but giggle when you say it out loud.

A "foofie slide" (hee hee hee) is actually a South African phrase for a ride down a zip line, where one hangs onto handlebars connected to a wheel that travels along a steel cable suspended high in the air. How the line is set up depends on where you are, but for us, the nearest foofie slide (hee hee), about a mile away from the Somerset Gift Farm, started at the top of a hill and went 200 meters down into the waters of Buffeljachts Dam.

It wasn't our original plan to go foofie sliding that morning. According to the itinerary, we were to wake up at 5:30 a.m. to drive the two hours to Kleinsbaai for the optional great white shark dive. Since I was the only one planning to do it -- and Chris threatened mutiny if everyone had to wake up so early just for little ol' me -- I decided the night before to save it for my own time since either way it would have cost me extra. "Happy Birthday," I told Kate.

Sometimes three hours extra sleep can be the greatest gift of all.

AFTER SUNRISE, we all chowed down on a greasy hangover breakfast of bacon, eggs and tomatoes that Deon prepared for us, Tom drove us to the foofie slide (hee hee) people, who biker guys of the Route 62 Riders group who were about to leave on a road trip until we arrived. We hopped in the back of their pick-up truck and rode up the dirt road to the starting point. Sonja, Andy and I harnessed up into straps that Kate said made us look like gimps, and then we were instructed on how to position our legs on the slide in preparation for impact with the water.

The three of us foofie slide one at a time, first Sonja, then Andy (picture above), then me -- the others weren't as adventurous. I didn't quite get my legs in the proper position because when I impacted the water at the bottom at such a high speed, I got a pretty tight wedgie up my ass crack. (How's that for curing a hangover?)

After giggling at the foofie slide all morning, we drove to the seaside town of Hermanus for a lunch break. I had fish and chips at a local seafood place with Chris and then explored a couple of small fishing museums. While waiting for the group to reconvene at the Bok Bus, some of us encountered little dassies, which Kate dubbed "bush pigs." The little rodent-looking things -- which are actually more closely related to elephants -- were a little aggressive with their teeth and so we got out of there pretty fast.

ONE OF THE THINGS THE CAPE REGION is known for is its wines. Cape wines are known to wine connoisseurs as some of the finest in the world. While most of the Cape wines come from the more well-known vineyards of Stellenbosch, about 30 km. directly east of Cape Town, we visited the more southernly Hamilton Russell Vineyards.

Established in 1975, the vineyard was the answer to wine critics that argued that Cape wines might be a bit more perfect if their vineyards were a tad more south. With the cool southern ocean winds and the unique mountain terrain, the grapes of Hamilton Russell Vineyards have a longer growing and ripening period, which produces "concentrated wines of great individuality and finesse" according to their brochure. The vineyard prides itself on not making the boldest wine there is, but the most elegant to reflect the relaxed attitude of the region.

The vineyard only produced two wines, the Estate Pinot noir and the Estate Chardonnay, which we both sampled in the tasting room. Although the Chardonnay was a bit too light for my tastes, we all secretly chipped in to get a bottle of it for Tom for being such a great guide.

We presented the bottle to Tom after our stop at the Stony Point Nature Reserve in Betty's Bay, the home of a colony of African penguins. Formerly known as the "jackass penguin" for their donkey/jackass-like honking, the African penguins nested at the bay in the nooks and crannies of the rocks and shrubs protected by the government. We watched the little birds in tuxedos waddle around and build their nests until we hopped back in the van for the final leg that took us back to Cape Town.

After checking back into The Backpack with the familiar faces Eve and Ingmar, I went out for the last supper with the Bok Bus crew (minus Chris). We agreed on going out for Tahi and ended up at Yindi's, the only Thai place in the area. We dined on spicy coconut, curry and basil dishes over fine Cape wines and reminisced about our past five days together.

Out of all the things we did -- ostrich riding, canoeing and hiking, looping in an airplane, wine tasting -- it was still the foofie sliding that made me giggle.

Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Go Into A Protective Steel Cage...

DAY 153: Ever since a particular Steven Spielberg movie was released in 1975 about shark attacks -- I won't mention any names -- sharks have been engraved in the mainstream human consciousness as vicious man-eating fish that can split you in two if you're swimming in the ocean with a ridiculous 1970s hairstyle. In actuality, sharks, the top of the ocean food chain, are actually quite peaceful marine creatures that would split you in two even if you had a ridiculous 2004 hairstyle.

Seriously, sharks are fascinating creatures and have been admired and feared by men throughout history -- particularly the great white variety. One of the few places in the world with the highest concentrations of great white sharks is "Shark Alley," in between Gansbaai, South Africa and Dyer Island, where many fur seals lounge about the rocks not knowing that they are actually in an all-you-can-eat buffet for the sharks below.

GREAT WHITE SHARK DIVING is one of the things to do when visiting the Cape Town area. For about $200 (USD), willing participants go out on a boat and enter a steel cage that is lowered into the ocean so that he/she can see the sharks face to teeth. However, there is a controversy concerning shark diving; some believe it negatively impacts the behavior of the sharks. In order to lure a shark near a boat, it was common practice to chum the waters with chunks of fish. This, over time, makes sharks associate man with food, which is why shark attacks on the beaches have risen in recent years.

Unfortunately there is no sure-fire way to lure sharks without disrupting their normal swimming patterns. The best that can be done is to dive with an eco-friendly diving company that complies with the shark diving regulations set forth by the government, the main rule being: DO NOT FEED THE SHARKS!

MY WHITE SHARK DIVING COMPANY -- appropriately named "White Shark Diving Company" -- sent a transport for me at 5:30 a.m., which brought me from Cape Town to their boat in Kleinsbaai (near Gansbaai), two hours away. The reason for such an early departure was that the divemaster Kuni wanted to be the first boat out on the water before other companies scared away the sharks with their boats.

After a quick complimentary breakfast, I signed my life away on a really detailed indemnity form that protected the company from anything that might go wrong, from sharks not appearing to being eaten by a shark. I swear the form was so long that somewhere in the fine print, I was not allowed to sue the company, the company's family, business associates, neighbors, babysitters, paperboys, or barbers for anything.

Having signed my life away for an extreme activity yet again, I hopped on the 30-ft. deep see cabin cruiser with two other clients, Sarah and Grant from Scotland. The skipper quickly took us out to sea -- we were in fact the first boat out there -- to a site where they suspected sharks would come to, although Kuni repeated again and again that there was no guarantee we'd see anything.

I thought there would be time to make smart-alecky quotes from that particular 1975 Spielberg movie (whose name I still won't mention), but Kuni had us alert at all times as sometimes a shark sighting would only last a couple of seconds. Using tuna pieces packed in mesh bags submerged in the water off the edge of the boat, a scent was dispersed to lure the great whites over. It actually lured lots of little fish, which also attracted the sharks. Since one of the environmental regulations was not to use mammals as bait, Kuni used a piece of rubber cut in the shape of a baby seal for an additional lure.

The steel cage was lowered off the starboard side of the cruiser, and it was in there that Sarah, Grant and I rotated turns, two at a time, wearing full wet suits -- including hoods to hide our hairstyles (although it probably wouldn't have mattered in the sharks' eyes). Since sharks in the summer season were afraid of bubbles, we weren't given any air tanks or regulators. Instead, whenever Kuni spotted a shark off the deck, we'd have to hold our breath and submerge with our masks on for as long as we could.

Within the first half hour, our first great white shark arrived, an 11-footer.

"Divers DOWN! Straight ahead!"

I held my breath, dove in and took my glimpse of the great white marine beast swimming by.

This continued for a while, Kuni shouting "Divers DOWN!" followed by a direction to look towards. Maneuvering myself in the cage without a proper air supply was a little tricky. Often times I'd get a little disoriented with the lack of buoyancy when climbing down the cage fencing and slip my arm or leg through the mesh out into a vulnerable eating zone -- not a good idea. I was lucky though; I kept all my limbs attached and, although shooting blindly most of the time, got at least one semi-decent photo.

THE WATER GOT A BIT TOO COLD -- and my disposable underwater camera ran out of film -- so we just observed the big fish from the deck (picture above). Kuni used the rubber seal to lure them near and soon the dorsal fins of the sharks approached like in that certain 1975 Spielberg movie that I need not mention. We ultimately had five sharks around our boat and took photos of them swimming around before leaving them alone to go about their sharky ways. Where they went no one could know for sure, but I think some of them went to where we went next; the rocks of Dyer Island where all the fur seals lounged out. I figured the sharks would be around for a quick bite after we had wet their appetites, but we saw nothing more.

THE REST OF THE DAY was pretty lazy. I caught up on sleep since I had waken up so early that morning, both in the van on the way back to Cape Town and out in the back patio of the backpackers. I appreciated the early awakening though; I heard that other boats that left at a later time didn't get any shark action at all.

Later that evening I ran into Kate and Sarah from the Bok Bus Garden Route tour and filled them in on my escapades with the great whites -- I managed to do this without ever mentioning that particular 1975 Spielberg movie.

If you don't know what it is, I'm still not going to say; there are no jaws that say I am obligated to. Oops, that's a typo, did I write "jaws?" I meant "laws". There are no laws that say I am obligated to.

Cute Baby Animals At Knifepoint

DAY 154: If you've read the comments of Day 149, you probably know that I got mugged at knifepoint at dusk on Sunday, March 21st. Since my little Sony digital spy camera was violently cut off its strap by my assailant's blade, there are no pictures for this Blog entry. Therefore, in lieu of the photos I would have shown you from this violent day, I have posted tranquil pictures of cute baby animals that I found on the internet.

Before I knew that any sort of mugging was going to happen, my day was fairly boring. As the day was progressing, my angle for this entry was going to involve New York City things appearing in Cape Town, the first being the decent bagel I had with cream cheese and lox at the nearby Mugg & Bean coffeehouse (South Africa's Starbucks). After breakfast I just lounged around the hostel backyard with my laptop to catch up on Blog duties. Unbeknownst to me at the time, it was a good idea that I backed up all my digital photos from my camera up until that day -- which is why you've seen photos for the past four entries.

I took a break and decided to walk to the waterfront for one last visit. It was there that my Cape Town adventure began and I thought it'd be poetic for me to end it there since it was to supposed to be my last day in town. The V&A Waterfront was packed with people; it was the only place open for shopping and dining on a Sunday. Street performers sang, danced and played their music instruments.

In the Victoria Wharf shopping mall, I stopped in a J&M location, which stood for Joubert and Monty's, the Purveyors of Fine Biltong. What the bagel is to New York City, biltong is to Cape Town. Essentially it is jerky made from a variety of meats. The wors (sausage) form of it looks like dried up intestines, but what it lacks in appearance it makes up in taste. I opted for the ostrich.

WITH SUNSET APPROACHING, I decided to walk back to the hostel to continue my Blog duties. I walked past the famous uncompleted Capetonian highway overpass that, due to an error in urban planning, won't be finished, and the famous African statue in St. George's pedestrian mall with Bart Simpson heads all over it to represent the westernization of Africa. In Greenmarket Square there was a film shoot for a New Balance sneaker commercial, where the crew tried to fake the New York City marathon with fake "5th Ave. / Museum Mile" signs. I managed to sneak on as an extra, cheering on the runners at the sidelines. Whether or not my face made it into the shot, I don't know.

Long Street was its usual Sunday ghost town with its shady characters that I'd always walk past with my guard up and lack of eye contact. There were many shady peddlers around of whom I just ignored or said a simple "sorry" without stopping my stride. The usual drug dealers followed me for a couple of steps hoping for a transaction, but left me alone after a simple "no."

Long Street was a breeze.

I WAS HALF A BLOCK from my hostel, walking up Park Road, the little residential side street on a hill that linked my hostel with the nearby strip mall with internet, coffeehouses, shops, a theater and a grocery store. It was around seven o'clock, dusk. The sun wasn't completely set yet, but on Park Road it was a bit shadowy with all the buildings around.

No biggie, I'd walked up this road many times before with no problem.

I was about half way up the hill on the sidewalk. An old woamn with groceries was walking up too, just in the middle of the road. Two other women across the street were getting ready to go somewhere in their BMW. A man and a boy were casually walking down the hill on the sidewalk as if on their way to get something to eat.

Suddenly, when the man and boy were about twenty feet in front of me, they bum rushed me with heavy footsteps. As they got closer, I saw that the man, perhaps 6'3", had a knife.

Now this was my first real mugging in my life. I had always wondered how I would react in such a situation or what I would do -- would I try and reason with the mugger or make a joke to get him off his violent high? But everything happened so fast, there was no time for such thoughts.

The man made it very known to me that he had a knife in his hand and pointed it near my stomach. The boy, perhaps only seven or eight years old, emptied my front pockets. He took all my loose change, my notepad with my Blog notes, and my little Sony digital spy camera, which hung off my belt loop with a key latch. The man didn't bother with the latch and just cut the camera straight off its strap with his blade before frisking my back pockets. Although my wallet was in my right (and only) back pocket, he only felt my left side, where my hidden pocket pouch was attached behind. He saw that there was no entry to the contents on my left side. (It is only accessible if you flip it out from inside my trousers.)

"WHERE IS YOUR MONEY?!" he demanded, brandishing the knife in front of me, face covered in the shadows.

"Okay, wait," I said, unzipping my back pocket to hand over my wallet. "Here."

I sacrificed the wallet, hoping it would distract his attention away from the contents of my "hidden" pocket (which had my passport and credit cards) -- or killing me for that matter. It worked, because as soon as he had the wallet in his hands, he and the boy dashed away from the scene of the crime, up the hill, around the corner and out of sight.

When it was all over, hanging off my belt loop was a nylon camera strap with nothing hanging off the end. On my back was my backpack that they ignored entirely. In my "hidden" pocket remained my passport, credit card, driver's license and an emergency $100 American dollar bill.

My assailants had gotten away with just my camera (with memory stick) and my wallet, which had about $250 worth (USD) in currency, a $50 American Express travelers check, my ATM/debit card, my diver certification card, some notes and business cards -- all of which were replaceable. On the ground near my feet, the boy had left my irreplaceable Blog notepad, which I probably would have fought for if they had taken it.

Say it in a Braveheart-esque way with blue war face paint on:

"They can take away our money, but they can't take away... OUR BLOG!!!"

THE OLD WOMAN WALKING UP with her groceries who had seen the whole thing, sighed and just shook her head in shame of her country's youth. The two women across the street were getting into their car as I continued my way up the hill to the hostel.

"Were you just robbed?" one of them asked me.

I smirked and sort of chuckled with the absurdity of it all. "Yeah, I was just mugged."

"It looked like you just dropped something or something like that," she said. True, from afar, the whole scene probably didn't look like a mugging at all until the two ran off like madmen.

The two women offered me a ride in their Beamer up the hill and around the corner back to The Backpack. "It's good you just gave them the wallet," the older woman said. "They don't value life here at all."

"Welcome to South Africa," the other said. Funny, I was just about to leave.

LIKE A CHARACTER ON A SITCOM, I entered the backpackers office where Eve and Ingmar were helping out two guests.

"Hey, I've just been mugged!" (Cue laugh track here.)

In actuality it was no laughing matter. Word of my incident spread around the hostel and suddenly people thought twice about walking around at night, even nearby. Personally, I wasn't about to leave myself for the rest of the evening, Besides, I had to begin the long, arduous task of cancelling my things and getting replacements.

Eve the French girl helped me out with phone calls to American Express and Citibank. It was quite an ordeal trying to call collect overseas with a million different operators handling different situations. After a couple of hours on the phone, I finally managed to get a refund for my $50 Amex check and a cancellation of my bank card with a new one to arrive in 2-3 business days. I managed to keep a clear head and positive smart-alecky attitude through the whole thing.

"It is possible for me to start a tab?" I asked Eve. "So that, maybe, I could have beer?"

"Yes."

THAT NIGHT I MET OTHERS in the television lounge who had decided to stay in rather than go out after hearing about my story. Well, that and the fact that Return of the Jedi was on one of the broadcast channels.

I introduced myself and recollected the whole story one more time, making light of it and laughing it off. Kate, an Irish-American from Long Island, New York was confused at my behavior. "You seem to be the least bothered by this," she said, speaking for the others in the room worried about their own safeties.

Well of course I was in a good mood; the Death Star had just been destroyed and Darth Vader had just denounced the Dark Side by throwing the evil Emperor Palpatine down a shaft!

As I lay in bed that night counting my blessings, I knew that things could have been worse. A lot worse. On the bright side, at least I got away unharmed, for the sake of myself, my family, The Fellowship of The Blog and, of course, all the cute baby animals out there.

The Positive Poster Child

DAY 155: I was ready by nine in the morning to walk downtown to the police department to report my mugging at knifepoint the night before. Word of my story got to Sylvia, The Backpack's "gran" ("grandmother") and she totally flipped out when she heard that all that could have been done for me by the staff wasn't done.

"How come you didn't call the police straight away?" she asked.

"They said I could just go in the morning so I wouldn't have to walk at night," I said.

"That's how we do it in Holland," Ingmar said in his defense.

"No no no, you should have called the police immediately," Sylvia said. "They might have gone and caught the man."

I wasn't crying over spilled milk, but Sylvia went on a scolding spree. She blamed Ingmar and Eve for not colling the police or the backpackers' private security company. She blamed Gino the night watchman for not doing anything.

"Looks like I'm getting people in trouble," I told Sean the Californian from San Diego I met the night before. To be fair to the staff, it wasn't like I made a big freaked out scene coming in after the incident. Like I said, it was more like me coming in as a character on a sitcom episode.

Sylvia called the police department and explained the whole thing. She had two officers come to the hostel so I wouldn't have to walk downtown. "We don't want to have him leave South Africa with bad memories now," she said to the cop on the other line.

I got complimentary coffee and toast that morning while I waited for the cops to arrive. Sylvia explained to the staff the process of what to do next time such an incident would occur -- I was the example, the poster child for crime emergencies.

SERGEANT LAWSON AND INSPECTOR NELL of the Cape Town Police Department came to interview me by mid-morning. We sat at a table in the courtyard to discuss the details of my attack over cups of coffee. "Do you get these things often?" I asked to break the ice.

"Unfortunately, yes," answered the sergeant.

I maintained a positive attitude as I went into the whole story yet again, with details of the events that occurred and the items that were stolen. Sergeant Lawson wrote up an affidavit for me to sign, which he grouped with the police report that Inspector Nell wrote up. The inspector told me I was quite lucky; usually the mugger starts with a quick stab to put the victim in shock so he could just "have his way."

I tried to think of a positive spin on his statement, but nothing came to mind.

IT WAS FREEDOM DAY IN SOUTH AFRICA, a national holiday, so most of the city was as dead as it was on a Sunday. I didn't bother going out at all -- I was still a little anxious about doing so. The Backpack wasn't a bad place to be in all day anyway, with TV, kitchen, internet, pool, pool table and a bar. I spent most of the day writing in the backyard (picture above, taken with my video camcorder's mediocre still photo capabilities) and playing the time zone game on the phone when trying to contact my travel insurance company's claims department. They told me I couldn't make a claim until I was back home in the States -- eleven months away(!) -- which sort of defeated the purpose of it being travel insurance.

I sent some e-mails out to try and get a replacement camera from the States -- actually cheaper than buying one locally -- and I contacted the White Shark Diving Company for my diver certication number since I had written it on their indemnity form, so I could try and get my card replaced as well.

The ball was in motion towards a state of normalcy -- and what's more normal than sitting out in the courtyard with fellow travelers drinking all afternoon? I sat out with Kate the Irish-American from Long Island, New York on an 18-month round-the-world trip (going the other way around); Sean from Ireland, in town for a couple of weeks; George and Ed on vacation from Buenos Aires; Jed on holiday from the U.K.; Danit and Assaf away from their homes in Israel; and Dave the Botswanan who worked at The Backpack but was off-duty. Ingmar and Joann who were on duty, stopped by every now and then. My tale of the night before had everyone back on guard again -- until they just got too drunk to leave the hostel like they had planned, regardless of any mugging paranoia.

When the courtyard bar scene got to be a bit too much for me, I just chilled out in the lounge with the other Sean, from San Diego, California and talked about favorite Lonely Planet television episodes amongst other things. I informed him that PBS had actually bought out the series in the States and renamed it "Globe Trekker" and that I had one of my stories on their official website. Sean was intrigued about my life as a freelance travel writer.

"I'd give you my card, but they were stolen!" I joked. "I'm here all week."

I suppose that the only thing to do the day after a mugging at knifepoint is to look on the bright side and joke about it, even if your insurance company is giving you the run around.

Back On The Streets

DAY 156: I hadn't left the confines of the hostel since the mugging at knifepoint two days prior, and it was about time I got over my fear and ventured out on the streets of Cape Town again. However, my fear was merely replaced by paranoia.

Most of the day I spent finishing up the last five entries, out in the backyard or in my bed, which had become quite sloppy (picture above) over the past couple of days. One thing's for sure; when I'm waiting around for my replacement bank cards to arrive, I really do make myself at home.

It was about two in the afternoon when I decided to finally venture out into the world, to go to the internet cafe and the supermarket. I went down Park Road, the same road I was robbed on, and it was a lot different with the sun brightly shining and groups of people walking around. However, it didn't completely keep me from being as edgy as if I just had a dozen shots of espresso.

Walking down the streets I was a nervous wreck, flinching at the slightest movements of people, watching my back as if danger was following me like a stray dog and I had a steak duct taped to my back. It was a pretty strange and heightened emotion to have; up until the mugging, I was really confident about walking around. Before, despite warnings, I had no problem walking back to the hostel at 2:30 in the morning, or walking to and up Lion's Head all by myself.

But now I was like a fish inside a blender, nervously hoping no one would push "purée." I was envious of the other people walking around without any apparent paranoia at all and wished to one of them again.

I think it was John Lennon who once said, "Time heals all wounds."

THROUGHOUT THE DAY, I got different reactions from people I had told my tale to.

"Was it your first mugging?" the guy working at the internet cafe asked me.

"Yeah."

"Oh, that's why," he said, speaking from experience. "Next time, you'll have this quick thought in your head, 'Oh, not again,' and within those couple of seconds, you'll actually think about your options." He told me that the mugger is probably just as nervous as you are, because anything can go wrong, and you have to analyze the situation and take advantage of that.

Sean from Ireland told me he probably would have done what I did. "He had a knife?" he asked me.

"Yeah, plus he was about six foot three, four. He had about a foot on me."

"If he had a knife, I don't care if he was two-foot tall," he said before noticing the huge machete someone was holding by the grill in preparation for the weekly Tuesday night ostrich and fish braai. "Oh, you should have a knife like that and pull a Crocodile Dundee on him."

Vivek, a British-Canadian working in Kenya and vacationing in Cape Town, told me about the time he got mugged in Nairobi when he had no money or anything of value on him. He emptied his pockets and opened up his empty wallet to prove it. "'Next time, make sure you have money so I can take it from you!'" Vivek quoted his attacker.

AFTER DINING ON OSTRICH KEBABS, grilled snoek, dates wrapped in bacon, corn on the cobs, salads and a variety of African squash in the courtyard with my friends for the day, Irish Sean and Long Island Kate suggested we go out for a couple of rounds out on Long Street, where all the bars were. It was Kate's last night, plus the last nights for Ed and George from Buenos Aires and Danit from Israel -- a farewell outing was in order. I was still wary about going out at night.

"Oh, I don't know," I said. "I think I'll just chill out here."

"Oh, come on," Irish Sean persuaded.

"We'll have safety in numbers," Kate added.

"Okay, fine. Pull my arm," I said. It really didn't take much to convince me to go out drinking.

San Diego Sean and Israeli Assaf joined six of us and we all walked down the road in a big group. Kate joked that we were like a herd of gazelle just waiting for a lion to attack us.

No lions came though. Nothing happened. Just like every other night I'd been out -- other than that one night -- everything was fine. Sure it was a little shady sometimes, but nothing to worry about if you just kept your wits about you. My wits were coming back.

We sat out on the balcony of Cool Runnings, a decent bar with Becks and Windhoek on draught. We sat and talked over beers and Cape ciders until closing time at midnight -- it was a Tuesday and most of the Long Street scene was tame. In the safety of numbers, we walked back up the hill to The Backpack. With a couple of drinks in me, my nerves had been calmed down.

I think it was John Lennon who once said, "Time heals all wounds" -- but a couple of drinks doesn't hurt either.

The Changing Of The Group

DAY 157: I always wondered about Eve, Ingmar, Joanne, Dave and Karen, the young twentysomething employees of The Backpack. They'd make good friends with travelers -- only to have them leave 2-3 days later. How tiring it must be for the regular employees to go through transient friends so rapidly I thought -- that is, until I became a regular myself (waiting for my bank card) and realized that it's just something you get used to.

The Argentines Eduardo and George left for the airport even before I woke up. Kate the Irish Long Islander left for Buenos Aires as well soon after. Later on that day, Danit left on a flight for Jo'burg, en route to Israel. For about the fourth time since I arrived in Cape Town, another group had been disbanded.

I WAS FEELING CONFIDENT to go it alone and walk the streets of Cape Town again. I strolled crosstown to the waterfront to stretch my legs and get my hair cut at an old-fashioned barber shop. I went price shopping for a new camera to replace the one that had been taken from me at knifepoint. In the end, I ended up getting a similar little Sony digital spy camera and memory stick for about $450 (USD) at Cameraland, the store that everyone seemed to recommend to me.

The rest of the day was another lazy one as I continued to wait for my replacement bank cards to arrive. Despite the fact that it was a bright sunny day clear enough to see the top of Table Mountain from the back courtyard (picture above), I had limited cash to spend and just spent the afternoon in and around the backpackers and the nearby strip mall, mailing stuff home, Blogging and sorting out my insurance claims. I bumped into Eve, San Diego Sean and Jed throughout the day -- they all seemed to be having way more productive days than I was having. I finished reading Dude, Where's My Country? by the pool and then made curried mushrooms over ramen noodles for dinner.

Exciting stuff, huh?

An elderly man named David from Manchester, U.K. noticed my Michael Moore book on the table -- it served as an ice breaker for conversation. From us two chatting in the living room, a new social group emerged to fill the void from earlier that day: Veevek, the British-Canadian who, at age 25, had been more places and done more things (i.e. married and divorced) than the average person; Irish Sean, who was still around for the week; and newcomer Lisa from Leeds, U.K. There was also some other girl who had just arrived, but she was more interested in watching Sex and the City on SABC3 than what we were saying. Irish Sean, Lisa and I moved onto the hostel bar where Sean was generous enough to buy drinks for us. That's where I ended the night, just one night after I had been there with different social circle.

My bank said my replacement card would arrive in about three days; that was just enough time for another group of friends to come and go.

A Day At The Office

DAY 158: If there was one thing worse than being mugged at knifepoint, it was the long arduous task of getting back on track after the fact. With plenty of telephone calls to make (picture below), e-mails to send and forms to fill out, the whole ordeal was more work than at a corporate office job. I swear at some point I had to submit a T.P.S. report somewhere. If I had known beforehand that I was going to be mugged, I would have tried to pencil in the assailant two weeks prior when the office wasn't so busy and there was a bit of downtime.

It was the fourth day since my replacement bank card was sent from the States. Citibank said up to three days, and I was optimistic it'd arrive at the backpackers that day. I called Citibank to track my package and the guy told me that it already had arrived in the city of Cape Town via DHL.

For maximum production efficiency, I multitasked all day like the guy in the office who normally meets all his deadlines. First, I checked e-mails to find out the bad news that my travel insurance didn't cover any of my lost items because it wasn't the fault of an airline carrier. (I would have had to shown proof that I went through all the channels at the airline first before making a claim.) I went downtown to cash some travelers' checks since I was low on funds, and tried to reorganize my flights out of Namibia since, being in Cape Town an extra week waiting for my bank card to arrive totally fucked my entire schedule. The travel agency I went to called British Airways and told me the tickets were issued in a way that only the original agent could change them. My agent at Airtreks.com was in San Francisco -- ten inconvenient time zones behind -- so I had no immediate recourse but to just send him an e-mail.

With negotiations in the works to get out of Namibia by plane, I still had to figure out how to get to Namibia. With a new wallet in my pocket, I was back at The Backpack to sort out my bus to Windhoek, Namibia's capital. Since my bank card hadn't yet arrived and I was scheduled to leave Cape Town via bus the next day, Mary the Oracle at the tour desk suggested to be on the safe side and rescheudle the bus for the next avialable on Sunday, so I wouldn't be out R395 if I missed the Friday morning one. Chances are, she said, if I got my card in time, I could possibly still change back to the Friday bus.

IF YOU'VE EVER WORKED IN A CORPROATE ENVIRONMENT, you know that there are just those days when you are so overwhelmed (or bored) with work that you just say, "Fuck it, I'm talking a 2-3 hour lunch." I was feeling that way on my "work day" and walked down to the Two Oceans Aquarium to unwind and at least do something cool on my mid-day break. I had arrived just in time for lunchtime in the big predator tank, where pieces of tuna and squid were dropped from above in the pool of manta rays, ragged-tooth sharks, turtles and other marine beings.

My visit to the aquarium was just okay for an extended lunch; I wasn't too enthralled with the sharks, jellyfish, penguins and seals in their pools and tanks since I had already seen them in their natural habitats. However, the one thing that did put a smile on my face was the clownfish and sea anenome tank, reminiscent of 2003's Finding Nemo. I was so enthralled by the cute little sea environment that immediately after I went out for sushi.

Feasting on the characters of the Disney/Pixar computer-animated feature, I felt optimistic that it was my last seafood dish in seafood-a-plenty Cape Town. I had a good feeling that I'd go right back to the hostel, receive my bank card, call the bus company to reschedule my bus back to the following morning and finally get out of Cape Town. Other than the feeling of being there way too long, I really wanted to leave when, after bumping into Verona and Birgit (from the Bok Bus Garden Route Adventure tour), I heard that Birgit was mugged with a knife to her back just a couple hours prior in broad daylight when she was at a bank's outdoor ATM machine -- in front of a security guard no less!

BACK AT THE OFFICE, my bank card still hadn't arrived from DHL. I called DHL's Cape Town division to try and track it down with the number Citibank gave me that morning. It was nowhere to be found, even with sweeping the DHL system by my names. Basel, the friendly DHL agent on the phone, asked me to double-check with Citibank on the tracking number because it didn't seem to be one of theirs.

"This is Citibank customer service, Dana speaking. How can I help you today?"

"Hi. How are you. I've called this number many times before. Can you just transfer me over to the banking department?" (I didn't want to explain my whole story to the wrong person yet another time.)

"Please hold on, while I try and get them for you."

I finally got a hold of a customer service rep that could help me and brought her up to date on the past events. She did a search on the card for me.

"Let's see... 74 New Castle Street... " she said, typing on her computer.

"No, 74 New Church Street."

"New Church Street?"

"Yeah, I don't even know if there is a New Castle Street."

With the mistake in the address, she told me the only thing she could do was issue another card to the correct address -- and with the weekend in the middle, it would take a whole week to arrive in Cape Town.

My heart sank. I explained, trying not to sound too whiny, that I had already been stuck waiting for it a week. "The guy this morning said it was already in Cape Town," I said. "Surely there must be a way I can get to it."

"What's the tracking number you have?"

"One nine four nine oh six..."

"No, nine one four nine oh six..." she corrected me. She double-checked and confirmed that it was in fact a DHL tracking number.

I CALLED BACK BASEL at DHL with the correct number and he found it right away. However, it was past delivery times for the day. Basel tried to get a supervisor to possibly run it over on his way home, but -- yeah, right -- what underpaid DHL employee would want to do that? The package was scheduled to be delivered in the morning, but from my experience, that meant a window of 9:00 a.m. to 6 p.m., and I was trying to get on a 9:30 a.m. bus.

"What time does the office open in the morning?"

"Seven thirty."

"If I can commit to being there at 7:30, can you make sure it doesn't end up on a truck?"

Basel made it so and I made a reservation for a taxi the next morning at 7:15.

LIKE MANY OFFICE EMPLOYEES AROUND THE WORLD feeling burned out after a hard day's work, I went off to the local bar "for one," which everyone in corporate America knows is at least three. At least. Sitting at the bar with Irish Sean and newcomer Finnish girl Pilvi, I was feeling confident that everything would work out: I'd get to DHL and get the card at 7:30, be back at the hostel at 8:30, pay my bill, change my Sunday bus to that morning and hop on that bus bound to my next adventure by 10 a.m. Others weren't so sure.

"So I'll see you tomorrow," David from Manchester joked.

"I think you're going to make it," San Diego Sean said.

"Place your bets everybody!" I said.

That night I didn't stay at the bar too late for I knew that I had to get up early the next morning and go to work all over again.

Mugged Again

DAY 159: When I started the day, I felt confident that everything would go according to plan and I'd be on my way out of South Africa already. Little did I know at the time that I'd be mugged again and stuck in Cape Town yet another day.

The plan was to get to DHL and pick up my replacement bank card at 7:30, be back at the hostel at 8:30, pay my bill, change my Sunday bus to that morning and hop on that bus bound to Windhoek, Namibia by 10 a.m. I was up by 7:00 and in a taxi by 7:15 with Marnie at the wheel, one of the cabbie friends of The Backpack. He drove me on the highway to the nearby suburbs where the DHL station was. We got there at 7:35, but the office was closed. I recalled Ingmar telling me that everything ran on "South Africa Time," which was always later than stated.

I waited for a while until a security guard told me there was an office in the back. When I got there, I was already expected and the guy there gave me a yellow envelope like I had just finished a task on The Amazing Race. I ripped open the tab like they do on the show and lo and behold, my replacement bank card was inside. While the letter inside informed me about PIN numbers, I read, "Get to the pitstop in Windhoek, Namibia. The last team to arrive will be eliminated from the race."

As much as my adrenaline was pumping to rush on from that point, we hit heavy Friday morning rush hour traffic on the way back to Cape Town.

AFTER A STOP AT A CASH MACHINE ("You have 1000 rand for this leg of the race"), I was back in the backpackers by 8:40 a.m. with less than an hour before I was to be at the bus station. Mary was at the tour desk waiting for my arrival and called the bus company right away to get me on that bus. I settled my bill with Ingmar and was about to hand over the cash when I heard Mary say to the person on the other line, "Oh, is that right? Okay then." I knew the bad news was coming: the bus was booked full and I had no choice but to take the Sunday one. The Amazing Race was over, at least for the day.

WITH YET ANOTHER TWO DAYS STUCK IN CAPE TOWN, I had time to finish sorting out my flights out of Namibia to Malawi; everything had been pushed back a week due to the mugging and I had to reschedule my flights accordingly. Glenn, my travel agent at AirTreks.com in San Francisco set up the journey the cheapest way, in three flights, one day after another: Windhoek, Namibia to Johannesburg, South Africa (on British Airways); Johannesburg to Harare, Zimbabwe (also British Airways); and Harare to Lilongwe, Malawi (on Air Zimbabwe). An e-mail from Glenn said that I'd have to call British Airways directly to change the first two flights. When I called them, they changed it in the computer and said I had to validate the ticket in person at their office. The only Cape Town office was at the airport. Luckily, Lisa (from Leeds, U.K.) had to do a flight change as well and split the taxi cost with me, when we finally got a taxi after finding out there were no cheap shuttles or buses on a Friday.

The problem with connecting flights is that they have to jive with each other if one of them is changed. British Airways switched my first two flights one week after with no problem; I only had to get the third Air Zimbabwe flight to fall into place. Unfortunately, there was no Air Zimbabwe office in Cape Town -- the closest was in Johannesburg on the other side of the country. In the meantime, I could call them with the change so it could be entered in the computer. I spoke to Lynn at Air Zimbabwe over the phone back at The Backpack. She couldn't find a flight that jived with my British Airways change, but said she'd call me back after investigating all the options. I felt optimistic.

WITH MY PLANS TO GET IN AND OUT OF NAMIBIA on the back burner, I still had to figure out what to do while I was there on such a limited time. The easiest thing to do to see and experience as much as possible was to just go one of the several camping tours available. When figuring out my options with Mary at the tour desk, I found out that with specific days of departure, I had only three options. Two were booked solid, leaving me with one: a week-long tour of Southern Namibia, which I booked straight away before I had no options.

Lynn from Air Zimbabwe called back and told me that there were no flights that I could reschedule to. My only option was to cancel the second British Airways flight, try and get a refund for it, and book a new flight with her: Johannesburg to Lilongwe direct. A call to British Airways informed me that I could only get a refund from my original agent at AirTreks. I sent off another e-mail to San Francisco.

WHILE WAITING AROUND, I sat out poolside with Pilvi, the Finnish girl in my dorm room. She was totally hungover from the night before and was still recuperating at sunset. While I was busy trying to get my life organized with all the paperwork and telephone calls after a mugging, she was trying to figure a way to break up with her boyfriend when she got back to London in a couple of weeks. We went out for dinner at the bar and Pilvi passed right out soon after. I went off to work again.

It was late enough to call Glenn at AirTreks in San Francisco, and he told me over the phone that the tickets were set up in a way that I wouldn't be able to get a refund unless I canceled both British Airways flights, meaning in the end, I'd have to cancel all three flights with a total penalty of $185 (USD). Bummed, I sat at a table in the dining room with John to work out the math.

"You're never going to leave here," he joked.

After working out my options, spending even more money on internet to do more research, I ultimately came to the conclusion that I should have never locked myself into any flights mid-way through Africa, and should have just gotten them on the way if needed. Why I decided not to totally overland Africa like I did in South America I don't know. I was faced with two options from the airlines: lose $360 or lose $185. It was a lose-lose situation literally. Irish Sean suggested that I might get coverage for trip delays from my insurance, but that turned out to be another thing embedded in the fine print that I wasn't covered for, at least not without a family-member death certificate. Between the airlines and my insurance, I was a victim yet again.

"I'm being mugged again," I told Sean and John.

In the end, I made the conscious decision to just take the smaller loss and start over with a clean slate. The original flights were a day apart from each other with hostel stayovers in between and instead, I could just go from Namibia to Malawa via overnight buses or car shares through Botswana and Zambia for cheaper and reduce my losses even more -- with this new plan, I was out another $40 in tax refunds for tourists (for my new camera) which, with all the rules, I couldn't do until I arrived until Johannesburg (a city that I was forsaking now to make up for lost time).

The corporate bureaucratic mugging was long and painful and tiring on my brain. I almost preferred the mugging at knifepoint on Park Road (picture above); at least it was quick and to the point.

The Biggest Let Down in Cape Town

DAY 160: Originally I was only supposed to be in Cape Town for a week; my mental capacity for any one place while traveling can only handle so much with my overstimulated, MTV-generation short attention span. It was supposed to be my "final day" in Cape Town before I hitched a ride with the two German girls in my room, but hanging out with alumni kept me in town another half a week longer. It was my next "final day" in Cape Town before I did my Garden Route Tour, but it really wasn't because I came back six days later. The following day was to be my real "final day" in Cape Town, but then I was mugged at knifepoint half a block from my hostel, which caused a corporate and bureacratic chain reaction that kept me another week.

After multiple "final impressions" of Cape Town and all my issues finally settled, it was finally time for my final "final day" (at least that's what I hoped that morning). However, my "final day" in Cape Town had the biggest let down of all.

"WE ALWAYS LET YOU DOWN!" went the catchy slogan of Abseil Africa, the company that brought the extreme activity of abseiling to Cape Town. Since 1994, they have been letting the "slightly insane" (as they call it) down a rope to rappel down the side of Table Moutnain at a height of 1000 meters (3,281 ft.) -- the "World's Highest Commercial Abseil" (although you can never really tell how they twisted language to make this statement, like every other extreme sport company claiming superlatives). The actual distance one rappels down is 112 meters (368 ft., about the height of a 36-story building), which is still pretty friggin' high if you ask me. In fact, it was high enough to be an obstacle for The Amazing Race in their second season.

I BID MY FAREWELLS to San Diego Sean earlier that morning and ran into Irish Sean later on. He was on his way to the top of Table Mountain via taxi and so I joined and split the cost with him. We journeyed to the top via cablecar on a perfectly clear day with not much wind at all. From my three-week experience in the Cape, I knew that perfect conditions didn't last forever and went to sign up for the abseil right away. It wasn't hard to find the location; I just had to follow the crowd of spectators looking off the edge of the cliff at a lookout point.

Ahead of me was a Swedish girl and Colombian guy on vacation from their home in Japan and a German girl named Eva from Cologne, working abroad for a semester in Cape Town. Peter the abseil instructor gave us a briefing on how to use the friction device that would keep you from falling off the cliff and pulling a Wile E. Coyote, and demonstrated how to lower yourself simply by loosening and tightening the amount of friction in the line with your arm.

Peter took the Swede and Colombian to the drop point off the edge of a cliff while Sean, Eva, some curious dassies, a crowd of spectating tourists and I watched them disappear down the ledge. The Swede went down without much hestitation (picture above), unlike her Colombian partner who probably had built up more anxiety than needed with all his waiting around on the ledge.

"Do you mind if I go first?" Eva asked me.

"Sure. Ladies first."

Sean, who had dodgy knees from an accident, skipped out on the abseil to do one of the low-impact walking trails on the top of the mountain, while Eva and I strapped into our safety harnesses. We signed our lives away (again) and Peter led us down to the ledge where we met Evo who manned the emergency safety ropes. He attached Eva to the main line and guided her to the edge. Feeling the support of the friction device, she wasn't as nervous as she thought she would be and soon disappeared with her walk backwards down the cliff face.

"You wouldn't believe how many people ask if they're going the right way," Peter told me as we waited at the ledge. "There only one way: down."

When the top got radio confirmation that Eva had reached the bottom about ten minutes later, I was connected to the main line. I passed my camera off to Peter who took my photo on the way down, including the obligatory "Hey Ma, No Hands" photo that he had everyone do. The friction felt pretty secure -- it better; it kept me from freefalling as I started my approach downward.

As everyone had been telling me, once you get over the hump and passed the first fifteen feet, the rest is cake. Sure, that was true as I made my way down the cliff wall for the first 165 feet, but then suddenly there was no wall -- what I was rappelling down was merely an overhang -- and below me was a straight 197-foot drop (60 meters, about 20 stories).

Um... yeah... They never told me about this part. I soon realized that it was probably the big secret that everyone on the mountain kept so they could see the stupid looks on newbies' faces when they discovered it. You should have seen the stupid look on my face. Talk about a "let down."

The only thing between me and a pretty nasty demise on sharp rocks was the mere rope I was attached to, tied above to a rock -- coincidentally where curious little dassies lingered with their curious little sharp teeth. Having no other option but to just do it, I carefully lowered myself down with my right arm. It got pretty strenuous for my arm muscles (I'm out of shape), holding the rope in the tight friction position to keep from falling. Plus the glove I was wearing was getting pretty hot with all the rope burn. I managed to make it down with that stupid look on my face in just under ten minutes.

"Uh, no one said anything about that part," I told Eva who was waiting for me at the bottom.

"Yeah, I was surprised."

We knew without anyone having to tell us that it was a secret to be kept from the newbies -- although whoops, I've just blurted it out right here on The Blog.

EVA AND I HIKED the thirty minutes up the rocky trail back to the top where Peter greeted us with our cameras and a smirk on his face -- the same kind he probably gave everyone who had just discovered The Secret of Table Mountain. Eva continued on her way to hike the two-hour trail down the mountain while I waited around for Sean to come around. Peter had no clients at the time, and entertained me with his tale of the day The Amazing Race was on the mountain. "They closed it down to the public and we had to wait here all day, and these random people would just rush in," he said, speaking from the spot where the yellow and red route marker once stood.

Sean arrived and we were both starving, so we took the cablecar back down and a taxi back to town. He checked into a single room in another hostel, the Ashanti Lodge, where he wanted to have privacy for his last night before taking off early the next morning. We went off to one of the several Spur Steak Ranches chain restaurants in town, where we chatted over beers and good (and very inexpensive) steak meals.

We planned on meeting up at a pub on Long Street later that night, but when I went, Sean was a no show. It wasn't so much a let down because instead I just sat and had a couple of rounds with some locals. But I headed back to the hostel pretty early, while people were still out and about, for fear of getting mugged again. It wasn't so much the mugging I was worried about, it was being stuck in Cape Town for longer than I wanted to be. This must be my last day here!, I thought. I had already been let down on Table Mountain earlier that day and I didn't want to be let down again.

Escape From The Cape

DAY 161: "Erik, you're still here?" Joan from housekeeping asked me. She had bid me farewell four days before during her last shift at The Backpack since she expected me to be gone by next shift.

"Yeah, I'm still here. But I'm leaving right now."

David from Manchester walked in on me in the kitchen with a smug stare which said, "Ha ha, you're still here."

"I'm finally leaving this time," I told him.

"Ready to go?" Eve the Frenchie at the tour desk asked me.

"No, I think I'm going to hang out another week," I joked with her before having her call me a taxi.

IT COULDN'T HAVE BEEN A MORE PERFECT DAY to leave Cape Town. Unlike the day before -- the perfect day for abseiling down Table Mountain -- it was cold and cloudy with a prediction of rain. Table Mountain was covered in a thick fog. I supposed it was poetic justice: I left Cape Town just the way I found it.

My ticket out of Cape Town was stolen but that was okay because I still had a reference number. That reference number got me on the Intercape bus -- even if my name on the roster was misspelled "E. Qrinidad" -- bound for Windhoek (pronounced vindhook), capital city of Namibia, twenty and a half hours away by road north of Cape Town. I had received mixed reviews of the Intercape bus experience. Some said the ride was bumpy with no chance of sleep; others said it was a comfortable ride. Either way, it was my cheapest option to get to my destination -- plus it covered the cost of an accommodation since it rode through the night.

THE BUS RIDE WASN'T TOO THRILLING nor as bumpy as some predicted; it was merely a twenty and a half hour ride in a luxury double-decker (picture above) with reclining seats (but with no leg room) and video screenings (which blacked out every time the tracking was bad). The conducter Justin was a friendly guy on the P.A. system who served us tea and coffee and played Bean and The Legend of Bagger Vance on the monitors. (I figured the latter movie was played for all the South African Charlize Theron fans since she was on about every magazine cover in the newsstands since her Best Lead Actress Oscar.) The bus stopped in small towns en route to pick up scheduled passengers and let the current passengers stretch their legs and buy snacks, meat pies and samoosas (deep fried, triangle-shaped meat and vegetable dumplings) from gas station shops. In between stops and video screenings I either slept, had small talk with my Namibian row-mate Dave or read Artemis Fowl trilogy author Eoin Colfer's latest book The Wish List, which I started and finished before I checked into my Windhoek hostel.

The border crossing was timely -- we hit South Africa's exit post at exactly 8:00 and Namibia's entrance at 9:00 -- but not too exciting. The only thing worth mentioning was putting up with the non-stop chatter at the border and on the bus ride from the South African and Namibian college students who read poetry out loud and spent hours trying to figure out the name of "that movie with Antonio Banderas and Angelina Jolie in it." (The answer was Original Sin, which I never really saw except for its awesome unrated sex scene.)

We drove through the Namibian and northwestern South African desert hills all day and all night, and by 6:30 a.m. the next morning we arrived in Windhoek in some big parking lot in the center of town where all the buses, car pick-ups and taxis drivers looking for early morning fares convened. The hostel I made a reservation at, Chameleon Backpackers, already had a transport waiting for me and three others, which took us to our new accommodations.

Exciting day, yes -- about as exciting as watching a baseball game sober, I know. But at least I finally got the hell out of Cape Town before I started to lose my mind. Man, nothing could have been more exciting that day than that.

Influencing Windhoek

DAY 162: Windhoek, capital city of Namibia, like Cape Town, South Africa, is a modern city which reflects its historical past. During the late nineteenth century, when all the European nations were scrambling for colonial territories in Africa the way last-minute shoppers scramble for gifts on Christmas Eve, the territory which was later known as Namibia became a German colony. Despite the rebellions from the indigenous Herero and Nama tribes, the Germans conquered with their big guns -- that is, until after WWI when they were conquered by the South African army. (They probably had bigger guns.)

The territory was then known as South West Africa and South Africa desperately wanted to annex it as a part of them. When the United Nations refused the annexation, South Africa did the next best thing: influence the area with its then apartheid ways. For most of the twentieth century, the political battle went back and forth: the UN helping to keep the South Africans out so the territory could become an independent country (it was finally named "Namibia" in 1973); and the South African government attempting to win back the territory like a desperate boy/girlfriend that just got dumped and won't stop calling for forty years. (Can you say "stalker?")

Despite the fact that Namibia went democratic with a new constitution in 1990, I saw that the South African influence was still present in the country, at least in Windhoek. Afrikaans was a spoken language and even South African's currency, the rand, was in widely-accepted use. (One rand = one Namibian dollar.) As my transport to the hostel took me through the downtown area, passed the Supreme Court building and the shopping areas, I saw the same store names that I had seen in Cape Town: Checkers, Pick 'N Pay, Mr Price. Like Cape Town, some of the architecture was still in a colonial motif, only German instead of Dutch.

CHAMELEON BACKPACKERS, in its new and more central location, was a clean and newly-constructed mini-resort with bungalows, a pool (picture above), TV lounge, kitchen, internet, pool table, bar and a dog named "Burn" that was really good at playing dead -- all for just $10 (USD) with a dorm bed. We had arrived early, before check-out time for the previous night's guests, leaving me and another solo traveler that I met from the bus to wait around. He was Rhys, a Welsh guy from the U.K. on working holiday for six months in Cape Town, taking a "holiday from his holiday" in neighboring Namibia so that he could reset his tourist visa when going back to South Africa. We arrived just in time for complimentary breakfast, which included toast and two eggs that you had cook yourself. Despite the fact that I was American and Rhys was British, it was me who had Marmite -- Rhys had good ol' American peanut butter and jelly. Apparently influences weren't just between South Africa and Namibia.

THROUGHOUT THE "RESORT" were signs posted that further made me see the similarities between Cape Town and Windhoek:

Having gone through a knife point mugging myself in Cape Town, I wasn't about to take any chances and just left my passport and camera in a safe.

There wasn't much to take pictures of anyway when I ventured downtown to mail out the airline tickets I was trying to get refunded on. While Windhoek had the same stores as Cape Town, there wasn't much else; no waterfront, no Table Mountain, no nearby beaches. If you didn't know you were in Africa, you'd probably think you were in some small generic Western city. To escape the generic Western Windhoek World during the three days before my scheduled safari, I looked into day trips with Morne, guy tending bar at the backpackers. He made some calls for me, but it seemed that most tours weren't available due to a lack of staff or client quota to make it worthwhile.

In the meantime, I drank at the bar, did some blogging, made tuna sandwiches and met fellow travelers -- not necessarily in that order. Most of my day was spent vegging out with others in the TV lounge watching American movies: Gladiator, The Lion King, Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Six Days, Seven Nights. With the movies of Hollywood and the fact that there was a big Bally's casino in the center of town and a KFC down the block, I thought perhaps the South African influence was losing ground to the American one.

The New Lost American Generation

DAY 163: "So what brings you here?" my American dormmate Hunter asked me at the outdoor table as we were eating the breakfasts we prepared ourselves. I started telling him the usual spiel about may lay off the summer before.

"Let me guess," he continued. "You got laid off from a dot com which allows you to take an indeterminable amount of time off, and you figure it's cheaper to be in Namibia than look for work back home. And you've managed to save enough money to be here for a while."

I smiled. Hunter had it right on the money. "Yeah."

"Just like the last Americans I met."

"Yeah, there are a lot of us out here."

ALTHOUGH I'M A LATE BLOOMER BY TWO YEARS -- I was laid off in 2003 while most of the dot comers were laid off in 2001 -- I'm still part of a lost generation of former internet twenty- and thirty-somethings wandering the world without full-time work, seeing how long a little savings and a severance package goes. Most of the AmericanS I've met on the road are in the same boat as I am, taking a year or so off from the coporate world, a world of Microsoft Outlook and chain e-mail forwards. Perhaps the American Generation-X was eased into this technological life, growing up with Atari 2600s and Commodore 64s. (Remember LOAD"SPACETAXI",8,1 ?)

Only time will tell whether or not this new lost generation of travelling former American dot comers will be written in the history books like Ernest Hemingway's Lost Generation of the 1920s, but, at the time of this writing, I must say it's all been a trip so far.

Now not every American backpacking the world comes from Silicon Valley or Silicon Alley. Hunter the San Franciscan, like San Diego Sean in Cape Town, had just finished his term in the Peace Corps in Zambia (Sean was in Romania) and was wandering around Africa to prolong his unwanted return back to "American normalcy" without any plans of what to do exactly after re-entry. Living in Zambia for two years, he was far removed from the advancements in Western technology and laughed when I complained that the dial-up connection in the backpackers was too slow. I eventually adjusted to the "slow connection" -- typing up my last story secretly in my dorm so I could just upload it in one shot -- until "slow" came to a halt when the power went out in Windhoek for about half an hour.

The power went out mid-day during a pretty heavy hail and rain storm (picture above), the same kind of rainy season storm that put a damper on any of the outdoorsy day trips I tried to organized out of the city that day: either a cave expedition through the bat- and scorpion-infested Arnhem Cave (Namibia's largest), which was closed due to flooding; or a mountain bike game drive through the nearby Daan Viljoen Game Park, which was too muddy.

Instead, it was another day in the Chameleon Backpackers' lounge watching videos with others also trying to keep dry -- The Ninth Gate, The Professional, Twelve Monkeys and two Time/Life wildlife safari videos. I also read a chapter in Zadie Smith's White Teeth, which I bought in town the day before. The sun finally came out in the late afternoon, and I inquired about things to do in Windhoek -- but as Morne at the bar put it, "There's not much to do here, man." Two other locals agreed; it was more or less just a town to get stuff before moving on to the countryside. (I still had two more days to go before my safari.)

THAT NIGHT AT THE POOLSIDE BAR, I befriended Michael, yet another one of The New Lost American Generation of former dot comers, from Chicago. Burnt out from working crazy IT contracts for CBS and AT&T Wireless' mLife campaign, he took an indefinite leave of absence (it had just been over a year when I met him) to go to developing nations to attend and facilitate programmer workshops so that less-technological countries -- like Namibia with its dial-up connections (even in internet cafes) -- could play a little catch up to the modern Western world. He was at the end of his stay in Africa and was also trying to postpone the inevitable re-entry to the job that he technically never quit.

Rosa, the native Namibian tending bar, and I were chatting about the usual things you talk about at a backpackers bar, travel and life goals amongst them. She told me she had been working at Chameleon for the past two years -- maintaining the hostel, bookkeeping, tending bar, etc. -- but was certain that she wouldn't want to be there forever like her co-worker Sam, who was going on five years.

"What would you want to do?" I asked.

"My dream," she said in her African accent, as I waited for her to finish the sentence with something lofty in my mind, "is to work on computers."

Confused, I asked, "Like programming and stuff?"

"No, just to set up accommodations and reservations and things like that." She told me she wanted to work in an office.

Perhaps Rosa was part of an unwritten lost generation of Africans that wanted the exact opposite of The New Lost American Generation. As the saying goes, "The grass is always greener on the other side" -- especially when it had been raining so much that day I stayed indoors.