Surfing SA

Sooo although I haven't written in a couple weeks I don't really have much to say. Eilat was an amazing few days of relaxing and sun. We came to Jerusalem for a planned 4 days of quick site seeing and a dip in the Dead Sea. Well we did all that we planned, even as an athiest Jerusalem is a truly remarkable city to see. The Dead Sea was amazing! Coolest feeling in the world. You literally lay back and your bum just pops right back up, and there you can lounge to ones content. Theres a christian youth group based out of the states staying at the hostel with us and we soon made friends and ended up staying an extra 4 days. After over a week here we decided it was time to move onto to Tel Aviv then Greece. We arrived in Tel Aviv very unappreciative of the sun and beaches and feeling unsatisfied. We spent two days wandering around then turned around and came back to Jerusalem. We decided to spend a week sitting in random gardens reading books, staring at the sky and pondering the meaning of life. We've just booked our flight to Istanbul for Monday. From there we're going to rip through Eastern Europe until Agnes' account is empty and perhaps spend a week at her aunts farm in Warsaw. The last month has been slow and long but full of amazing self-discoveries and great new friends.

I finally made it to Berlin on March 24th where Agnes was keenly waiting my arrival. We stayed up half the night planning our trip and giggling. The next day she showed me around Berlin, great city. It was bloody freezing, and we had every article of clothing bundled on us. That day we booked our flight to Cairo as we decided we were in need of sun. Successfully booked our ticket to Brussels where were to catch another onto Cairo...it was full until Sunday!! Sooo all taken in good stride and we booked for sunday and planned 2 days in Brussels with a day in Amsterdam. We arrived in Brussels around 8pm the following evening to wander the city looking for spare beds. We spent a day wandering around shopping and oggling beautiful architecture then jumped on a bus headed to Amsterdam. It was meant to arrive at about 3pm in Amsterdam giving us enough time to shop/wander/eat and find the hostel...it was however extremely late and busy on the highway. We arrived in Amsterdam to pouring rain at 7pm! We very grumpily found the downtown hostel where we were informed we'd just missed the last shuttle to our hostel at the beach (only available hostel left due to easter holidays) So back on a train and out to the beach in time to hang out with stoners and head to bed. Bussed back to brussels for the day to wander and be tourists some more before bunkering down on the airport floor for the night, check in was 4am.

Finally arrived in Cairo, hassle free visa and all at 12pm. We had read up and managed to get a good priced taxi into town to our hostel. Cairo is crazy, simply crazy. Our taxi was barely staying together, they drive 3 side by side in a 2 lane street, honking,screaming, people darting in and out; amazing...for about 10 minutes then completely overwhelming. We were then treated to lemonade while the hostel owning pushed his personal guided tours of various sites of Egypt. We went on the nile dinner tour that night, belly dancing and all. Rather over touristy and dull to be honest but cool to be on the Nile. Next day we 'wandered' for about 2 hours all together. We also hit up the Egyptian Museum which was amazing, saw King Tuts things etc. Next day was pyramids! We started the day with a sunrise camel ride across the sand dunes of the Sahara desert! Beautiful! Our guide was well trained and took extremely touristy shots of us holding the sun etc. Returned to the stables for a delicious breakfast of pita, bean paste stuff and falafel!! Mounted our camels again and rode off for the pyramids! Really amazing, I pictured little men hauling huge stones, very impressive! Loads of tourist shots then back to the stables after a few hours. From there our driver picked us up and took us to a perfume shop where we were given a informative info session then hassled and hagged as they tried forcing the poor backpackers to buy. From there we were hauled into a papermaking shop, also very informative but they wasted their breath on trying to get us to buy. from there out to somemore pyramids which we were then told we needed to pay for so we said we were more than happy to turn around and go back then. So we drove past and went on to Memphis, where we also just stared through a gate. Then we stopped for some fruit (we've been living off of nuts, been dying for fresh food!) then last stop was a carpet school. really cool, haggled and hassled again. Every single person you come across in the street tries to make you buy or go somewhere, became extremely annoying. Being blonde didn't help the stares, shouts and other vulgarities but each culture to their own I suppose. We decided we had had enough and peaced the next day on a bus to Taba (border crossing to Israel)

Arrived in Taba after an 8 hour bus ride across the sinai being stared at the ENTIRE time by three israelis riding with us. We walked across the egyptian border (very cool to walk, we thought) to the israeli side where we got stuck behind 2 chinese tour groups!! Took forever, finally got to the immigration window where it all went sour! First time anyone has one questioned that the bald person in my photo is really me and two cared that I'm using my British passport. This turned out to be a 3 hour ordeal, which was fine as we had nowhere to hurry to. They were all very sweet and said they just had to fill in security papers b/c I also had my canadian passport. Anyways it was all fine in the end but they've only stamped my Canadian so now I have to travel on that one. Arrived at a cute hostel, AC/Tv/Fridge, greeat! Best part is its right behind the Fawlty Towers Hostel....didn't know about it until we'd checked in!! I'm going to go take a look later! We're in Eilat which is really resorty but soooo nice coming from cairo, people are normal! Spent the day at the beach today and wandering around. My tan is finally progressing again. We'll stay here until saturday morning when we'll head to Jerusalem for 4 nights, with a day trip to the dead sea.

After an eventful attempt at catching a plane to Berlin to meet Agnes on the 22nd I am now ready and well to do it right this time. I managed to catch a stomach bug which decided to kick in at midnight on the 22nd, 5 hours before I was to head out for my plane. Thank god for technology, a comforting mother and an understanding friend. I changed my flight for today, called mummy for comfort and emailed the hostel to let them know only agnes would be arriving. I then emailed poor Agnes to inform her I wouldnt' be there too meet her...and we were meeting at a different hostel than originally planned. I then spent the next few days cooped up under every layer of clothing I own and blankets watching Harry Potter and Fawlty Towers. I am now researching the countries in the middle east we'd hoped to go to only to discover each says to not go near any tourist destinations for fear of bombs, jolly good. I'll be arriving at about 10:30 and will hopefully have a proper plan for the next 2.5 months by tomorrow. Further updates shall follow. Going to have a nice cup 'a tea now.

These blogs will be my worst spelling, grammar and train of thought, please bare with me. So in the last few weeks time has flown past and now I have only two short weeks left. Rachel and I jumped out of a plane last week spur of the moment. We went to book a tour for abseiling but they were booked so we said what the heck lets go sky diving. So 10am the next day we found ourselves being shuttled 40 minutes north of cape town. We arrived and were hurriedly packed into harnesses and shoved in a corner to wait. From there we waddled out to the waiting plane and packed 6 of us in, Rachel, myself and a german girl plus our tandems. We then climbed to 9,000 feet giving us a pristine view of cape town and the surrounding area. On the way up they gave us instructions which were near impossible to hear over the engine. Basically put your legs over the side of the plane when we open the door, we push you, put your arms out, legs between the tandem and enjoy!!! So up goes the door and Rachel is first to go, I sit and watch as her legs are practically blown off her legs then feel the lift of the plane as she and her tandem disappear like ants into the sky. Next goes the German girl who looked absolutel petrified and needed a good shove, once again the plane lifted as did my stomach. After having seen the others throw themselves out of a plane it was my turn. I got up the nerve to put one leg over the edge the second was slightly scarier as i was sitting on the knee of the man taking me and felt if i were to put both legs over i would also fall over...which I suppose is the point but from 9,000 feet its bloody scary. I worked up the courage and out we fell. We did a double soumersaut as I flayled around with the worst of form until my tandem finally straightened me out. After our free fall the parachute openned and we instantly stopped at about 5,000 ft. (free fall was 30 amazing screaming seconds) once the chute was open I got to steer us in loops as we peered at the surrounding area. I felt incredibly nauseous as we spun in circles staring at the ground 1,000s of ft below. Landing was a lot easier than we had expected and it was all over like that!! Most amazing indescribable feeling ever.

Next on our list was abseiling down a waterfall and kloofing (cliff diving). We drove an hour out of town and hiked another hour through a park (PS Tamsin I did this in my silly 'slipper' shoes I brought that you scoffed at...they no longer count as footwear admittedly) After an hour we reached the first pool which we jumped off a rocked at about 24m I believe. Either way it was scary and gave me a wedgy and I didn't do either of the higher ones. After eatting lunch and spending time swimming in the pool we had a steep hike up to the top of the waterfall. We then ended up waiting over an hour in the sun for our turn. We of course decided to sun tan...leaving me as red as a bleeding lobster...but I will have an amazing tan later! So once again I watched as Rachel disappeared over the edge then it was my turn. I was a little shaky mounting the lip as you're giving in to just trusting the harness but once i was over my lessons from grade 10 came right back and I was flying down. ...work is done and I must run...to be continued

I'm afraid I've been quite lazy at keep you all updated. I'll do my best but the computer is often in high demand, I've just now managed to snag it at work. I started work at Garys Surf Shop last monday and have been surfing almost every day since. He is very firm about us being in the water if we have nothing to do, its a hard life! We arrive at 9am and help turn the wetsuits out, hang them out to dry, sweep the shop then head out for a surf. I'm still being rocked by the waves on the main part but I've managed to ride a few awesome waves. During the day we either surf, sit in the sun, do errands, rent out equipment or work on various projects. Theres a load of street kids around here which we're looking at trying to house. Theres a large plot of land just down the road from us infront of a slum that has a day care on it already. We've been taking turns in the mornings to go help out at the day care as we're hoping to place some housing on the land for the kids as well. The plan is to take one corner and put two shipping containers on it and turn them into houses, add a jungle gym and skate park eventually. We're all currently shipping out letters and such to try get all the materials required. During the afternoons we have groups of about 10 school/orphanned children that come in and we teach to surf. We then follow their progress each week and eventually we seed out the good ones and place them in Garys Extreme Surf School. He helps disadvantaged kids with life skills and their surfing giving them hope for a future. We're finished any time between 4-5:30 then we (all 10 of us) return to the volunteer house just up the street to lounge, eat and make merry. Its been rather low key for 10 girls in one house admittedly, very relaxing. We have a pool which we're currently trying to get cleaned. The weather has been dreary lately but still warm of course. Otherwise the Muizenberg area is quite windy, well of of Cape Town really. I'm sorry this is all over the place, its coming out as I remember. 3 of us hiked Table Mountain the other evening hoping to watch the sunset then catch the cable down. We arrived at the top 1.5 hours later to discover the cable car wasn't running as it was far too windy. So we turned around and hiked all the way back down before it got dark. Terrible walk down as it was so blusturous we kept almost getting knocked over as we tried to shakily hop down the mountain. The second day I was here we went on a tour of the Cape Peninsula and saw Penguins! I'll try to upload my photos another day. For now I believe that sums life up here in Cape Town for me. My roomie, Rachel, are living in Harry Potters closet at the moment but are happy to announce we shall be moving by saturday!! Love to all and hope to see many of you within the next few months.

Suzanne