Good, Good, Good, Good (Island Vibe)rations

Monday, August 20, 2007

Well, it’s been a while since I posted anything of substance, so it’s gonna be a long one. Since my pictures are refusing to bare it all on the internet (what prudes) what follows is a brief summary of the J-Bay trip (I have to leave you some incentive to look at the pictures after all) and a brief update – enjoy:

J-Bay I was told is a six to seven hour drive from Cape Town so we figured it would be a good four-day weekend trip, and being poor college students opted for the disgustingly cheap (and surprisingly not disgusting) overnight bus. Little did we know the bus ride would take a full twelve hours, enough time to watch Lindsay Lohan’s Unlucky, Hitch, and The Nutty Professor 3, which I was shocked to learn has nothing to do with a nutty professor!, on the bus television. It was painful and terrifying sitting on the bus knowing that these movies were influencing South African perceptions of American culture, one talking farm animal at a time. Anyway, aside from the movies the ride was mostly painless and we arrived in Jeffreys Bay in the wee hours of the morning.

We stayed at this incredible little backpacker that sits atop a sand dune with a 270 degree view of the beach, a nice little beach break on the doorstep, a full service bar and restaurant all decorated to make it feel like an island oasis – it was heavenly. Surfboards were lying around between people drinking beers, taking naps and reflecting (or maybe just nursing a hangover) over a panoramic view of the ocean. Everything about staying there was mellow - it was called the Island Vibe, after all. People left their clothes and wetsuits lying out all day, no one worried about the thieving ruffians so common to South Africa’s large cities. On top of it all it only cost 70 Rand (about 10 bucks) a night.

The city of Jeffreys Bay is a true surf town and really could be anywhere in southern California. There’s the Billabong village that’s basically a huge surf shopping mall as well as a ton of local shops and shapers. I picked up a board for pennies at a shop that advertised itself as having the largest board selection in Africa (Wise would put it to shame). The town was rather sleepy, I think because it’s winter (even though it was 75 degrees out) but it could just be hung-over from the two weeks of partying for the Billabong Pro. All the restaurants and bars led me to believe that was indeed the case and we just came at the wrong time.

And now a random story: I met this kid out in the water who couldn’t have been more than thirteen years old. He was absolutely thrilled when I told him I was from California, so thrilled in fact that he followed me back to the backpacker and “adopted” me as his “brother from San Francisco”. In between stories about getting surf lessons from Kelly Slater and hanging out with Andy Irons (the kid could talk your booties off - oh, and I didn’t believe a word he said) he’d be introducing me to random people, at the backpacker, mind you, where he didn’t know anyone, as his brother from San Francisco. It was cute for a while but eventually enough was enough and we had to send him back home. I don’t know why I included that. Oh well.

Two days at Jeffreys went by in a flash and we were on our way to Addo Elephant Park. The park was small which made it feel a bit like a glorified zoo, especially driving around in huge safari buses. My favorite part of the game drives was during our night drive when the ranger killed the engine and lights of the truck, allowing us to just sit still and listen to the sounds of the bush at night. I won’t bore you with a description of how fascinating the animals were, especially the water buffalo at night roaming the park in a herd of twenty. You could hear the clunk clunk of the hooves and the heavy nasal breathing of… bored yet? Thought so. Seriously, just wait for the pictures – they’ll do it more justice than I can, and honestly I feel weird about the whole notion of a safari anyway.

To make a fourteen hour story short, the next day we took the bus back to Cape Town.

The end.

Sorry to be so curt, I’m just bitter about having to actually do work. It’s all interesting stuff, but it’s hard not to feel like I’m on vacation.

Dreariness aside, I had a fun weekend. On Friday I went to my first South African Indian restaurant which was fantastic (minus the fact that everyone except myself got sick – all those meals at Naan N’ Curry must have fortified my stomach). Saturday was a rugby day (and let’s be honest, night too). We destroyed our opponents with some beautiful, punishing rugby and then, well, some Castle Lager tall johns (South African tall cans) had their turn with us. It was an odd scene actually – twenty grown men (boys?) standing around a mountain of beer on an empty rugby pitch in the middle of the day wearing matching blue dress shirts singing and yelling (for pictures and an exposé in the worst (best?) of rugby culture, Facebook search “Ikey cubs”, a group should pop up and under the pictures section there should be some gems). Anyway, I recovered at a beautiful seafood dinner on the waterfront only to end up at a party at one of the American houses which was fun, but not terribly exciting and not to be done again. Sunday, as you can imagine, was a day of mind, body and spiritual cleansing. We went to a fabulous lunch at the house of one of our Solmates in the township of Oceanview, which I mentioned in my first post. The food was fantastic and the family members and neighbors were jewels of human beings. It’s always uplifting to see and feel energy, optimism and joy in people who have historically been so marginalized by society and government. I'm looking forward to our homestay in Oceanview next weekend.