1 Month To Go

The 18^th of April marks my last day in Port Elizabeth and my last day of service. In one month from today I will end what has been a whirlwind of events, a vortex of emotions, a dialectic of crisis and victory, an amazing time of growth, self understanding, wonderful new friendships and above all a time of service.

As this day was approaching I looked back on photos of myself from this time last year and reflected on what I was doing then and what I’m doing now. The funny thing is at both times I was travelling, I guess that side of me will never change. This time last year I had just come home from visiting Vanuatu, the first place I ever went for service in January 2008. I had made some of the most wonderful friendships of my life there and so I went back to visit the friends I had made and to be back in the place that my soul calls home.

Looking back on other photos there were times I could hardly recognise myself, not only because my hair colour has changed or because the clothes I was wearing are still in Sydney but because I remembered the way the world looked to me back then, I remembered what was the most important to me then, I remembered what kind of person I was. None of these things were bad but the growth that I have experienced recently is so great that I feel like that girl that said goodbye to her family in Sydney all those months ago is not going to be coming home.

Normally when I notice that I have developed as a person it’s based on a year by year scale but this time I can look back on myself a few months ago and see that I’ve changed. I looked at photos from Johannesburg when I first arrived here and I was having the same feelings about myself as I did with the photos from when I was still in Sydney. Amazing what service can do. It reminds me of this quote from Shoghi Effendi...

"The more we search for ourselves, the less likely we are to find ourselves; and the more we search for God, and to serve our fellow-men, the more profoundly will we become acquainted with ourselves, and the more inwardly assured. This is one of the great spiritual laws of life."

                (Compilations, Lights of Guidance, p. 114)

I didn’t come to South Africa to find myself, when I left Sydney I thought the person I was was pretty great. I didn’t think I needed much self tuning or any major personality repairs but the more I was tested during this service, the more hardships I faced, the more things went wrong or people treated me badly, the more I realised that there were things about myself that I wasn’t happy with and it wasn’t even a process of change requiring tonnes of effort that made me develop from these weak points that I saw but a natural reaction of me realigning myself to counter the things that were going wrong around me. I can’t pinpoint a specific time or place that this change began or be able to note when the greatest change occurred, it just happened and one day I looked at myself and saw that I was different.

It really is true that you see the best and the worst of yourself when you are serving. I’ve seen things within myself that I am just shocked at, how easily I lost control of myself and fell into black pits of despair and I’ve also been so amazingly proud of myself for how I’ve managed to survive through everything and continue to go on with almost no support from anyone. I’ve seen myself reach my heaviest weight while in South Africa, tipping the scales for the first time in my life over 50kgs when this time last year I was in the best shape of my life. I won’t detail everything that I’ve noticed because it is personal reflection but I will say that for those who I will see again in Sydney you’re going to notice that this Martha is not the same as the one you said goodbye to. I am the upgraded version of myself, fully installed with new life handling powers and an ability to kinda cook (mum will be happy about that one).

So now maybe just an outline of what will happen after this month is over. From South Africa I am flying to Madrid, Spain to visit my uncle and his family who I haven’t seen in a couple years. I’ll be spending a month in Spain and potentially going to Haifa, Israel in that time also for a few days to visit my big sister Melody and spend time in the Shrines. The arrival home will be towards the end of May and I have already started my application to do my Masters in Building and Sustainable Design for second semester of this year at the University of Sydney. That gives me 2 solid months to work and pay off all the debt that I have accumulated over this year, which means I also need to find a job and I’m open for suggestions on what I should do.

Honestly, I know it’s cliché, but I cannot believe that it has almost been a year already and at the same time I can’t believe that it’s only been almost a year, it really feels like forever.

Truth be told I can’t wait to get to Spain and see something new, although I’m sure it’s going to be difficult to leave. As much as I’ve stated my dislike for South Africa I actually think I’ll miss it.

Hey White Gal

As previously mentioned I live in the township. For the most part this has been fairly normal, there hasn't been anything in terms of how I live that is different to living anywhere else but there have been some very noticeable elements about township living that have stuck out for me. As well as living in Motherwell I also spend at least 3 days a week in Kuyga township and what I am about to explain applies in both places.

Looking at me and most certainly while living in Australia I am not a white girl but in South Africa what colour you are branded as isn’t so much about the actual colour of your skin but more what class you fall into or group you belong to. Being ‘coloured’ is more of a culture than the fact that you are mixed race. For example your father could be an Anglo-Saxon Australian and your mother a Xhosa South African but that doesn’t automatically deem you as coloured, people in this circumstance usually refer to themselves as mixed  race. It’s hard to explain because every case is different but pretty much what I’m trying to say is that just because my skin isn’t white doesn’t mean I’m not classed as white, especially in the township.

So I’ve been living in Motherwell for over a month now and as I had originally stated there aren’t that many non-black people here, or any at all for that matter. So yes I do get a lot of attention, people stare when I walk down the street or look at me funny and this naturally I expected. I expected people to be curious as to what I’m doing here which is normal as it is completely uncommon for ‘white’ people to be in the township let alone live there. What has been happening in both Kuyga and Motherwell, however, has been completely foreign to what I expected, it has been strange to say the least.

It actually started in Kuyga, the attention I had been getting in Motherwell was very similar to what I’ve been getting in Kuyga since the first time I stepped foot in that area, boys calling out to me and kids getting excited when they see me “Hey, come see the white girl”. In Motherwell I have boys often calling out “white gal, white gal! Come here!”, “Hello white gal, what’s your name?” which I got a lot of in Kuyga also but then recently something changed about the attention I was getting. It became personalised.

So one day I was in Kuyga going to a devotional gathering that was being held by some of the Ruhi book 1 participants and as I was walking to their house some kids walked past me “hello”, “hi”, “hello Martha”. First reaction is this must be one of our Jy kids but I’m looking at this child’s face and I have never seen any of these boys before. Then it happens again, after devotional I’m walking back to the taxi stop and “Hello Martha” who are these people? Now it keeps happening, I’ll be walking in Kuyga either on my own or with Bayan and people are calling my name, most of the time I have never seen these people before. I have been visiting this area for 6-7 months now so it is more than likely that people have been talking and asking ‘who is this girl who always comes here?’ and then they here from this person that I do something at the school and my name is Martha and so it spreads. Township life is very closed especially in Kuyga which is so isolated from other suburbs. People know everyone that lives around them, they know each other’s business, they observe everything that is happening  and they talk, talk, talk. I just hope that in their whisperings about me they are passing on the right message.

What has been happening in Motherwell has been slightly different. I guess because I don’t see myself as any different to anyone else I don’t notice how much I stand out. It all started when I was in Korsten which is an area about 20min from Motherwell and I was getting a taxi to Lorraine which is another 10min from there. A girl got into the same taxi as me and said “Do you live in Motherwell?” I said yes, “I know you”. I was like ohh ok cool, I thought that was an exciting story so I made it my Facebook status. Then it kept happening, again and again and again.

I would get into taxi in Motherwell, someone would ask me “Where’s your friend?” meaning Bayan. I would be in taxi going back to Motherwell, people call out the name of my stop for me, they know where I get off. I got into taxi leaving Motherwell, “so you living in Motherwell? I always see you everyday”. I can’t walk to the local shops without having someone follow me home or take a taxi ride without someone asking me who I am living with or why, I have men young and old calling out to me or asking me my name. I can’t be discreet, I don’t blend, everything I do is being noticed by someone because to them I’m different. I became a little concerned about this especially because a lot of people were asking me if I was living with my boyfriend. I guess this is the most rational explanation for them as to why I live in the township, so I have to keep verifying to people that I am living with a wonderful family as I am doing service for the Baha’i Faith and I hope people spread that around.

I love the look of shock on people’s faces when I speak Xhosa, it makes me want to learn more, I love when people ask me where I live and then they get excited because they live near me and they say they’ll see me around. What I think is the most wonderful thing about me living and spending so much time in the townships is that it’s hopefully bridging a gap. There is a stigma about the township from ‘white people’ and there is a stigma within the townships about ‘white people’. I hope the impact that I am having is positive, that is shows that there are people in this world who don’t notice the colour of your skin first and the person you are second, there are people who defy stereotypes and who don’t see everyone else in terms of their stereotype either.

Again recently in Korsten Bayan and I were walking to get the taxi to Kuyga and a guy said “There are the Baha’i ladies”, we had never seen this guy before. I had a girl get off the Motherwell taxi at the same stop as me in town and she asked me to say hi to Bayan for her. There are honestly so many examples that I could list of random people knowing who I am in both Kuyga and Motherwell. The last little remark I’ll share with you was when a guy we were walking past said “Hello Jessica” to me. I think he was just trying to guess what my name was.

Sometimes I find it annoying especially when I’m in a taxi going to Motherwell and people ask me where I live and I say in Motherwell and then they tell me I’m lying, like really? What else would I go to Motherwell for? Sightseeing? But I guess it is quite different. Strange thing is as shocked as everyone else is I don’t find it strange or shocking at all that I live in the township because like I said before I don’t see myself as different to anyone else. I actually like being in the townships.

I had a remarkable moment in the taxi the other day as I was driving out of Kuyga, as we drove through and I looked out the window, taking in this place that has become one of the areas I am most comfortable in, I started to think that I would actually really miss Kuyga when I’m gone and then I put this question to myself.. What would I stay in South Africa for? I smiled as the taxi pulled out of Kuyga township, it’s my favourite place in P.E.

Love for God

A concept that arises quite frequently in the Baha'i Faith is the love for God. We, mankind, have been called upon to obey the laws of God for the love of Him, to serve humanity for the sake of God's good pleasure, to pray out of our longing to be in the presence of God. As we have matured in our spiritual capacity and our understanding is greater we are no longer expected to do these things out of fear of punishment or out of a desire for reward but purely for the sake of love. This love is born of a conscious knowledge of the religion of God rather than mere acceptance for the sake of acceptance or acceptance out of fear or tradition or habit. We are called on by God to investigate His Revelation through the Divine Teachers or Manifestations that He sends and once we have accepted these Teachers to obey and follow their commandments for our love for Them and for our love for God.

This love for God has been a term that I grew up with and when something is part of your vocabulary from the time your vocabulary was created you can sometimes, and this is what happened in my case, fail to understand or grasp what the meaning and implications of that term actually are. The love for God. Through my reading of the Holy Writings, through my acts of service and through my attempts to deepen my knowledge of our spiritual journey and the implications of this life on our souls I began to notice that I was having a hard time putting into practice this concept of love for God. Suddenly, as if reading it for the first time, my mind was deviling into what this love actually is and was I able to feel it? Did I do things out of love for God? What does love for God look like? How exactly do I show it?

I started to wonder why it was only now that I was struggling to grasp this concept, why now was I so unsure about how to love God? Then it dawned on me.. the more I learned about God the more I realised I knew nothing about Him.

It is easier to feel like you know God when you say that God is like the sun or that God is this great being because you are giving physical attributes to God which our finite minds can comprehend. A God that looks like the sun, I can relate to. I can picture in my mind a God that is a great being or a man or one of the other images that we have created for God so that we can fathom who and what He is but the more I learned about God the more I realised I knew nothing about Him and so it became harder for me to find a way to connect with this force or spirit or essence that our human words have no power to describe and even the 3 letters we attribute as His name are nothing compared to what God is. We limit God because we are limited and I felt lost in trying to find a channel to God.

How do you love God when you don't know what God is? Although it was never that difficult for me to feel His love I was stuck on how to reciprocate that love back to God.

It was hard for me to fear God, when you feel unable to channel that love for God then it hinders you in feeling that fear of God. The fear of disappointing Him and of not being able to receive His love. These are concepts that I can't fully understand because I don't know how to show them or feel them for an essence that I can in no way comprehend or conceive.

As my time in South Africa has progressed I began to notice that I did have a channel to send and receive that love from and it was as a result of being so distant and far from that channel that I was able to realise its existence and that channel was through my mother and my little brother. These are the channels that I feel like I can reach God through because of the love that exists between these 2 people and myself.

I feel the the love of God through my mother as she has given so much for me, as she does everything in my best interests even when it doesn't seem that way. She gave me life and she will always be a source of unconditional love for me. This is how I can feel love of God and for God; through my relationship with my mother. Through this I can feel the fear of God as I fear disappointing my mother. She knows my capacity and my potentials better than anyone, she watched them develop throughout my whole life and for her to ever have to see those capacities and potentials go to waste because of my actions would shatter me.

The greatest expression of love that I have ever known is the love I have for my little brother and with this love comes a responsibility to him that I will be the best that I can be for his sake. I never want to let my brother down and I strive to be a better person because I love him so much and I want him to see me as a positive force in his life.

This is how I feel the love for God and the fear of God. This is how I can make sense of these immense concepts and create a pathway to God. They are my channels. Now I find it easy to pray out of love, to serve out of love, to obey the laws out of love. It is as if my mother and brother are mirrors which reflect my love for God to Him. Whatever love I feel for God I send to them and they reflect it to Him.

I know that I have my own personal relationship with God and I communicate directly with Him all the time, this is different from the expression of love that I feel for God which is where I find the difficulty. Now whenever I am in moments of deep thought or reflection, whenever I take time to meditate on my life and my actions I think of my mum and my baby brother and think of what I would become if I lost their love or if I disappointed them and then I know what I have to do with my life and how I have to improve because I know that I would become like utter nothingness, that my existence would be meaningless and my soul would shrivel up if I lost their love and that's how I know what I have to do for God because I know that losing God's love would feel so much worse and I wouldn't be able to survive.

This is how I know God. This is how I can love Him.

Road Trip Days 5 & 6

Day 5 - Friday the 11th of February - Heading Back - Total Kms: 550


When I assumed I would be in pain on waking up this morning I was wrong. The pain didn’t wait till morning to hit, I was in pain the whole night. I could barely make the trip off of my bunk and down to the floor as I was so stiff and in so much pain. It hurt to walk, it hurt to turn, it hurt to do anything that required movement from my body and so unjustly and in horrible contrast Bayan was in very little pain whatsoever. So I suffered alone, aching as I went up and down the stairs in the backpackers to take bags to the car, struggling to bend down to the ground to pick the bags up in the first place. At least this morning I decided that nothing would get me out of bed before 9am so there wasn’t another horrible early morning wake up.

We left the backpackers and Cape Town somewhere around 11am and started our trip back to P.E which we would stretch over a day and a half.

There isn’t much to be told of this day, we were on the road pretty much non-stop from Cape Town to Plettenburg Bay. There were tonnes of road works stops which actually were a blessing for my cramped and aching body as we would sit at a stop for maybe 10minutes at a time so I would always get out of the car and stretch. After a solid 5 hours of driving we reached Plettenburg Bay where we decided whilst driving would be where we spent the night. We phoned a couple of backpackers we found in a road trip guide and picked the best sounding one. We got to the place and as we approached the front door we realised the shock horror of the accommodation we had chosen. There standing in front of us was a staircase which we would have to ascend and descend every time we came and went. The pain we were in, my oh my, the pathetically slow pace at which we climbed those stairs. Yes, finally, the pain caught up with Bayan and I couldn’t have been happier. I was even more delighted when our climbing companions called to say that their muscles were also stiff and they couldn’t move. It was wonderful news to me to know that I was not suffering alone. The girl working there was at first confused and then amused by our stair climbing ways. We took each step slowly, holding onto the railing and pulling ourselves up to ease the stress on our legs. Finally, after a noisy and slow climb we reached the top and signed the paper work. Then we had to go back down to get our bags. This was plain hilarious. We were crying from laughter at ourselves for howling in pain as we were going down. We could hear the people upstairs laughing too and then Bayan pushed me so I went down a couple of stairs really fast and that was so painful. We were both humiliated by our sorry state and also extremely entertained by it as well.

Leaving Cape Town..

Bayan and Me and the view of Cape Town behind us

The view from my rear view mirror

cool blue house

The sun was slowly making its way down so Bayan and I decided to go to the beach. A Brazilian girl was also staying in the same dorm as us so we took her with us to the beach. She laughed as Bayan and I attempted running on the sand to help our muscles and the pain we would cry out in with every step. We frolicked on the beach for some time and I drank some dirty pond water to prove to Bayan that it would not result in death before heading back to find food. We got a Steers veggie burger for Bayan and a wood fire pizza for me and sat next to a Marimbaz band on the main street. We enjoyed our food and the free music and watched some kids dance to the music.

Bayan and me on the beach in Plett

Beautiful sunset

Day 6 - Saturday the 12th of February - The Last Leg - Total Kms: 250



We woke up this morning and lazily prepared ourselves for the day. We were tired and still sore and a little grumpy and I think we were both glad that this was the last day.

We started the day at the beach claiming to each other that we would swim but getting there and deciding that it was too cold. We went in about half way. Then we hung out with the lifeguards one of whom was very attractive, can’t remember his name though. We talked a bit and they asked about Australia and our trip. Then we packed ourselves into the car and headed off for our last stop before P.E. We were going to Tsiki tsiki forest. It’s actually called Tsikama forest but I kept forgetting the name and called it tsiki tsiki instead, I think it sounds better.

The guy at the entry gate let us in for free, nice guy, and we drove down to this beautiful coastline. It was so nice, so so beautiful. There were these suspension bridges hung across the water that we could walk over and so Bayan and I did that and of course we put our hands in the air and run across one of the bridges while screaming because that’s how we do. Then we saw the sign that said no jumping on the bridge, in all fairness we had done all our jumping before seeing that sign.

We needed to be back in Port Elizabeth by 4pm and so we didn’t get to spend too much time here. After seeing pretty things and me and Bayan not talking for a good 15minutes because we were angry at each other about something silly, we left.

The next bit was the last stretch of drive before P.E and we drove straight from our road trip to Sonja’s house for Unit Convention which is a Baha’i gathering. We arrived exactly on time and we had a very nice convention.

Next stop was King’s Beach which is in P.E and then finally at around 10pm we drove home, ending our road trip.

Ups and downs are expected with an endeavour like this, 2 people in each other’s company non-stop for 6 days straight can cause a little strain on the sanity levels and being the only driver I was completely exhausted and had no time to rest. There were times while driving that Bayan would fall asleep and I would stare at her with such envy almost wanting to wake her up because I didn’t think it was fair that she should sleep while I couldn’t. Lack of sleep and lack of food make me very grumpy and so there were times that I’m sure I wasn’t the best company but all that aside we had a great road trip.

In the future Bayan and I have decided that we actually want to take a back pack with us should we travel in this fashion again because at every backpackers we went to we were the only ones without backpacks, instead filling the storage space with several different types of carry bags and hand bags and plastic bags.

Also although we couldn’t choose our own soundtrack for this trip our road trip song became Liquid Deep’s “You don’t have to be alone” which played on the radio at least 5 times a day.

And so ended this adventure as chaotically and unorganised as the way it began.

Storms River

Suspension bridge

ready with her hands in the air to run down while screaming

Just the 2 of us

Bridge

A frog

Me :)

Road Trip Day 4

Day 4 - Thursday the 10th of February - Climbing Mountains - Total Pain: lots

The day of the big climb and yes another 6am wake up.. woe to me.

Bayan, although having accomplished this great task once before and swearing that she would never do it again, wanted to climb Table Mountain and me just going along with things as I do said yes. We had to leave early to drive and pick up some friends of Bayan and soon we became a climbing party of 4; myself and Bayan and brothers Dominique and Angelo. The morning started with me being super tired, driving 40kms away from the mountain to pick people up then driving 40kms back to the mountain (on a side note Table Mountain is a 5min drive from our backpackers) being stuck in peak time traffic and then finally reaching the base of the mountain 2 hours later than we had originally hoped to. As you might imagine I was not in a good mood.

So we decided that since we were behind schedule we would opt for a shorter route up and down the mountain but one that was very very steep. When someone tells you that the route is steep in your head you're like "yeah no worries" but when you start climbing man oh man do you realise how difficult it is.

We started climbing and it was after about 5minutes that I realised this was not going to be fun. It was all stairs, not like pretty stairs with hand rails and even heights, it was rock stairs that went up the mountain like the secret stairs to Mordor in The Lord of the Ring. Having only slept 4-5hours and on an empty stomach because we were running late Bayan and I felt the strain very early on and the boys weren't helping as they are both like 2metres tall and had lots of energy so they were setting a really fast pace.

I won't go into the details of the climb as it took about 1.5hours except to mention a few key words... pain, suffering, despair, sweat, aching, desperation, exhaustion, torture, tribulation, lack of motivation, anguish, loss of hope, overwhelmed.

The number of times while climbing that mountain I wanted to lay on the floor and just die were insane. Like I actually thought that I wanted to die. I really don't believe that any words or pictures can describe how difficult and energy consuming that climb is. Honestly you had to take it one step at a time. I would take one step, I would pause, I would take another step, I would pause, I would take the next step, I would pause. There was no other way for me. Angelo was leading the group ahead of me and Bayan and Dominique were just behind me so as I tackled this climb on my own I started to drift off into thought and I came up with the following analogy. It is very much cliche but what can I say? When you're climbing a mountain, you're climbing a mountain.

The analogy I created of my climbing this mountain was that this climb represented my time serving. How did I come to this bizarre conclusion you may ask? I know it's obvious, but there was just so much in terms of my mental state while climbing that I could specifically relate to moments during my service. The enthusiasm to which I embarked on this trip, the lack of thought I gave to how difficult it would be, The realisation that this was harder than I had anticipated, the fear that I would not be able to complete the climb, the stern determination that I was capable of finishing, the set back of the path never flattening out to ease my climb and give me some relief, the creating of excuses for why it's ok not to finish, questioning why I decided to do this in the first place, the contemplation of quitting and going back down, then seeing that the way back down is longer than the way to the top, finding the strength to keep climbing, support and encouragement from friends keeping me moving, reaching a stage where I can see the finish and suddenly being filled with a new burst of energy, knowing that the finish is coming but feeling like it's still so far away before finally the moment of jubilant joy and accomplishment as I reached the top.

I'm sure without me explaining you see how this 90minute climb so distinctly related to my last 9 months of service. The parallels are obvious and really, really, really I have felt every single one of the above statements during this time even that of reaching the top. 

At the top of the mountain the view was nice and we took some photos, then I inquired about the cost of the cable car to take us to the bottom and found out that it was R95 each so of course we climbed back down the mountain. There is no analogy, no wonderful understanding, no moment of clarity or journey to perfection that can be associated with this segment of the climb. Going down Table Mountain after having just climbed up is just plain stupid and the worst thing I have ever done. It kills yours knees, destroys your ankles, hurts your toes. Again thoughts of death pervaded my thoughts and I wanted to just lay myself down and wait until the time of death would come but I was the only driver and everyone was relying on me so I kept going. At one point the step was a little high so I decided to jump down, my knees and legs also realised that I wanted to jump down but felt that they had suffered enough already and so they would help me at all and so when I jumped my legs gave out and I just fell to the floor. All I could do was laugh at myself for how pathetic I was in that instant and try and get up and keep going.

All of the adjectives I listed before can be attributed to this descent and finally the road was reached.

While everyone else got to relax I had to drive us and so with aching and weak legs I drove us to our backpackers. Every time I had to put the clutch in or press the break a shot of pain would race through my leg, it was horrible. Then with no power steering I reverse parked into our tiny awkward spot and breathless from the effort of turning the steering wheel I went to shower.

With the mountain climbing behind us and Bayan again swearing she would never do it again we headed off for our next stop which was the Iziko Museum where there was a photographic exhibition that Bayan and I really wanted to see. Wow it was so worth it. It was an amazing exhibition, it was breath taking, it was spectacular, awe inspiring, transcendentally beautiful, majestic in its content and exquisite in its detail and leaving me in a state of absolute wonderment reinforced with each image. The exhibition was of the top photographs of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition for 2010. If I was allowed to take pictures of the pictures I would have because these are images that deserve to be shared however if you google search the name of the museum and exhibition you can find some pictures in the image search.

Unfortunately my legs were still weak and aching so I was sometimes distracted by these beautiful photos by the throbbing sensation but otherwise it was wonderful.

Next another great and wonderful experience.. FOOD! My first meal of the day and it was now 6pm. I had been craving Masala Dosa like crazy and have not been able to find it anywhere in P.E but thankfully Cape Town is much more diverse in terms of culture and so there are many Indian restaurants that I could take advantage of. At only R20 (about $3) I got some pretty great Masala Dosa. Every time my hand reached my mouth and deposited that amazing food onto my tongue I fell into a sweet state of ecstasy, only disrupted when each bite had been swallowed and my now empty mouth would cry for more. 

The day ended with me driving out to drop Dominique home and with perfect timing we arrived just as his family was about to start a devotional gathering with some other friends. We sat together and said prayers, completed a day filled with every emotion possible from annoyance to zeal. I was annoyed in the morning but I ate my food with zeal at the end of the day so there you go A-Z.

 My first time driving in the dark on this trip and as I expected I fell asleep a little bit which is the reason I had intended to avoid driving at night in the first place, nothing to worry about though I have become quite skilled at driving with my eyes closed due to so much practice whilst driving in Sydney.

This night I slept very well but my sleep was tainted knowing the pain I would be in in the morning.

The 4 climbers at the base of the mountain

me and Angelo

the Platteklip Gorge was the route we took

Bayan pulling Dominique up

One of the beautiful views that motivated me

View from the top

4 climbers finally at the top

Road Trip Day 3

Day 3 - Wednesday the 9th of February - Driving, Driving, Driving - Total Kilometres: 450

Bayan and I decided to begin this day in Mossel Bay with exercise once again, however this time it was an act of spiritual exercise rather than that of our bodies. We set our alarms to bring us out of sleep just before sunrise so that we could have dawn prayers on the beach and as my alarm sounded I wondered to myself why we couldn't just pray on the beach at 9am instead of at 5:45am. Still I lazily pulled myself out of bed, dragged myself to the bathroom to brush my teeth and wash my face and finally awoken with prayer book in hand I was ready for some spiritual nourishment while watching the sun rise across the ocean. 

As you may remember Bayan and I were spending the night in a train which had been transformed into a hostel and so we went to the head of the carriage to open the door when alas! The door was locked. They had told us that the doors would be locked from 10pm but we assumed that they would be unlocked by now. No worry, I decided I would just open one of the carriage windows and call out to the security guard to open the door as we were advised to do in such a situation. So as silently as possible without wanting to wake the other guests I pulled the window down and stuck my head out and... he was no where in sight. Never fear, Bayan and I would succeed in finding a way around this. We went back to our room and put forward the option that we could see both the beach and the sky from our room so it would still be the same if we just prayed from our beds. A valid option, another great option would have been for me to just go back to sleep as I was on about 4 hours sleep a night and I was the sole driver so sleep was sounding like a stupendous option for me but our resolve to pray was too great and Bayan was set on dawn prayers ON the beach not looking at the beach and so I jumped out of our window. 

Jumping out of a window seems like nothing major and in most cases it isn't but in our case we were jumping out of the window of a train which was some 3metres off the ground and there isn't much to hold on to. So I jumped out of the window as silently as possible and I laughed as silently as possible while watching Bayan try to achieve the same feat. As she dangled her legs out and started sliding down it suddenly dawned on me that our cabin door was locked from the inside meaning we wouldn't be able to get back in so Bayan had to pull herself back inside to unlock our door and then try to get out again. Success! We were free and we went and found a spot on the sand to pray. 

Bayan trying to get out of the window

Dawn Prayers

Waiting for the sun to rise in Mossel Bay

When we were finished with our spiritual breakfast we went for a walk along the beach and then back to our room to try and sleep some more. As we were wanting to get to Cape Town by this afternoon and we still needed a place to stay when we got there we decided not to dawdle any more and by 10.30am we were on our way out of Mossel Bay and on the road again. This strip of road from Mossel Bay to Cape Town is the most boring, there are almost no nice stops along the way and it is just a big stretch of highway so not all that much happened. At the same time tonnes of stuff happened. It's really strange how in all that nothingness so much was going on. When I look back on this day we barely took any photos, we hardly stopped anywhere, we spent almost the whole day on the road.. drove 450kms and I have almost no stories to tell from this day and yet to me lots of stuff happened. Funny how nothing can be so eventful.

So we drove to Cape Town, the drive was made all the more tedious by the road works going on. This highway (the N2) has only 2 lanes and so when there are road works one lane is closed and cars have to sit and wait while oncoming traffic uses the remaining open lane. This offered me a few opportunities to get out of the car and stretch but it also extended our time on the road by about an hour. As we were driving we would look out for towns or attractions that might interest us to either visit on this day or stop at on the way home. When we reached Swellendam I was desperate for an opportunity to get out of the car so we turned in to see what we could find. We followed a sign to a berry picking farm but when we got there we realised that berry picking season is over so instead we just tried all the jam (blackberry was my favourite) and bought some blueberry ice cream and then asked the girl working there what else Swellendam had to offer. "The Fairy Garden" she says. "The what?" I reply, "the fairy garden" she repeats. Confused, a little weirded out, in my own head trying to decide whether she means the boat type ferry or the mythical creature type fairy and deciding to myself she must mean the boat type because she appears to be in her 20's and couldn't possibly believe or expect us to believe that there are fairies and if there are that I would be interested in seeing them so I ask her again.."you mean like fairies like this?" I say this while flapping my arms like wings. "Yes, fairies" she responds with a bewildering confidence, not even a grin or a slight hint of a smile has come across her face to suggest to us that this woman is pulling our leg. "And what exactly do you do in this garden?".. "you walk around and see fairies everywhere".

So we go, to the fairy garden which turns out to be exactly what she described.. a garden with fairies in it. Hundreds of figurines and statues of fairies. What this girl failed to mention to us was that there were also wizards and dragons and Harry Potter himself in this garden. As it was free we went inside and took the garden walk. This garden is the initiative of a lady who has created a garden in her home and transformed her whole house for the sake of allowing people to come in a be inspired by the positive and uplifting spirit of the garden. Fairies, in her eyes, are little guardians who are always there to guide and protect us and help us see the best in everything. It is a very beautiful idea and I'm sure I would have had a much more profound appreciation for this garden if I was 7 but for the most part I was not impressed with a grown woman advising us to come here. 

So we left the fairy garden and Swellendam for that matter with the understanding that there is so little to do in this town that people would send you to a fairy garden when you ask for advice on what Swellendam has to offer. 

Me with a dwarf in the fairy garden

and this guy was there too

Bayan and Harry Potter even though Bayan claims this statue was a girl

 Next was the last long stretch of highway before finally arriving in CAPE TOWN!!!! It was 6pm when we touched down and after googling 'cape town backpackers' we checked in at Cape Town Backpackers which turned out to be a great backpackers and only R80 a night thanks to their February special. 

After getting settled we tried to snooze for a bit and then got ready to go out for dinner. I have been trying to convince Bayan to try Asian food as they have great options for vegetarians and they use tofu which amazingly for a vegetarian of 4months she has never tried, and so we went to eat at a place called 'Simply Asian'. Bayan proved her natural skills at using chopsticks and enjoyed the tofu in her food. Then we walked to Long St (the main strip in Cape Town) and found a place to have desert. This place also offered karaoke so of course we had a turn. Bayan wasn't familiar with many of the songs on their list and Beyonce being her favourite artist of all time she picked DeJuvu. I asked her about the part where it says Beyonce featuring Jay Z and she just said that he only comes in a little at the end. So we're singing away when suddenly there's an entire section of the song with Jay Z rapping, so I did what rappers to best, I just repeated "What what what, whatta whata what" again and again until his part was over accompanying my rap solo with gangster rapper hand movements. 

Later when we went downstairs on our way out one of the bar attenders asked if it was us who sang the Beyonce song and then told us we sounded great.. kudos to Bayan and I and our amazing Karaoke skills.

We took our time walking back to our place and on the way a hobo who makes his own flowers out of beads asked if we would buy one so I bought one for Bayan. Then when another begger asked us for money I told him how he should try and actually work for it like the flower making guy.

As most nights go it ended with sleep and so went our arrival in Cape Town.

Arrival in Cape Town!!

Bayan using chopsticks for the first time

nom nom nom nom

Road Trip Day 2

Day 2 - Tuesday the 8th of February - Being Spontaneous - Total Kilometres: 130

The primary purpose of most road trips is to have fun which usually manifests itself by the participants eating a lot of junk with increased regularity and moving around much less as so much of their time is spent sitting in the car but Bayan and I aren't your regular road trippers and so of course on the second day of our adventure we set our alarms for 6am to go for an early morning run.

One thing which I failed to mention in the list of things that we packed with us for this trip is a little device called The Wheel. It is a wheel with two handles on either side which you use to work out your abs. We brought The Wheel with us on our road trip because we are not normal and yes if you want to know we used it... everyday!

So we had done the wheel the night before and now we were awake bright and early to go for a run. I did say we set our alarms for 6am but we woke up closer to 6.20am as we kept hitting that snooze button, whoever invented that should have gotten a medal, and after we both tried to convince each other that we should go for this run rather than just get back into bed we finally began.

The run was actually amazing, we ran alongside the water but on the road and there was this mist that surrounded us. The weather was cool which suited us perfectly because we started sweating very quickly. The sun wasn't yet able to find a way through the clouds so the sky was light but not bright and everything around us had a grey haze covering it. Our run took us about 40minutes and we snuck back into our rooms feeling great. Our two German roommates were still asleep so we quietly gathered ourselves int he bathroom to finish our exercise routine, of course we mean The Wheel. One thing I need to explain about The Wheel is that as you perform the exercise it feels like your stomach is being cut open, it is a killer ab workout but it works and you only need to do like 10 a day to start to see it working. Bayan, more so than me, makes a lot of noise when she is in pain and so you can imagine how funny it was watching her on the floor in the bathroom doing the repetitions and trying to suppress the owing and ooing she would normally have yelled out. 

Once our exercising was done we had our breakfast which we had packed from home and then decided on our plans for the day. Originally we were hoping to be in Cape Town by this evening so we decided to have a final look at what Knysna had to offer then try and squeeze George and Mossel Bay in before heading straight to Cape Town.

I had heard that Knysna Heads were beautiful so we drove off to see them. There was still a mist covering everything but the weather wasn't cold. It was actually perfect. We used our amazing navigational instincts to find where to go and when we found it it was stupendously beautiful. Ahead of us was this beautiful lake of water which we could see far off connected to the ocean, set against a backdrop of hills. The water was shallow and and we walked out as far as we could. It was so awe inspiring standing where we were because we were surrounded by this beautiful, clear water who's stillness was sporadically disrupted by small waves which appeared to emanate from nowhere.

There were small hermit crab type creatures scurrying around on the sand in the water and these little holes scattered across the floor from where streams of water would spit out like a fountain. I tried to capture a photo of one of these holes spitting but it would be over so quickly I never managed to click fast enough. We enjoyed the serenity for some time before noticing that there was a lookout on one of the heads that we could go to and so we went to see it.

Knysna Heads

I asked Bayan to pose with the boat... this is what I got

A trend that Bayan and I noticed in ourselves was our inability, or perhaps it's more of an ability, lets try it both ways, our inability to find the stairs and our ability to jump down or climb down high walls when we haven't found the stairs. We had parked our car at the lookout and the parking was on a ledge, we saw that if we went down onto the sand we could walk to a little cave type thing so Bayan and I not seeing any stairs instead climbed down the wall. We were both very proud of ourselves for being so versatile and finding a way down when there was none until we saw the stairs and then just felt silly. I'm sure we were great entertainment for all the people that were watching us and who at no point thought they should point out this oversight to us. I can't say much for this lookout, it was just a rock face and some water and the ocean which after about 10 minutes wore out it's entertainment value on us and so we went wandering instead. We found some pathways into the bush and saw 2 caves which looked and smelt like squatter homes for someone and we went up another path looking thing where we tried to take poser model photos but instead got eaten by mosquitoes. BayanOMG I see them!! It's not the same when you actually see them!!" so we left the bush and stuck to the pavement instead.

The ground was covered in these mussel shells

trying to do model poses in the bush but the mosquitoes were attacking us

We departed Knysna, the 2 wanderers, to continue exploring. We were on the road again and our next stop was somewhere near a town called Wilderness. We saw this amazing lake where the water was black so we pulled in to look around. Funnily enough the name of the place was Black Water Lake. While here my cousin Elina called me from Sydney which was exciting.

Black Water Lake

Next stop was Sedgefield. We saw a bunch of little shops and I bought a postcard which I still haven't sent home yet. There was also a sign which pointed out the way to Sydney, yes I was very excited. There was also a random beach in Sedgefield which we went to. The sign said it would cost R5 to go to this beach, clearly we didn't pay. We stayed for maybe 5minutes only enough to honor our policy of feeling the water at every beach we went to.

Sydney = that-a-way

random beach in Sedgefield

Next we went to George, I really ave nothing to write about George because we didn't do anything while we were there and after visiting the tourist information centre we actually crossed George off of our list of places to see, so we turned around and went to Mossel Bay instead.

By the time we got to Mossel Bay it was around 4pm and we were hungry. Somehow we managed to find ourselves at the beach front and there was a restaurant which had a train connected to it. Curious we went aboard the train and saw that there were cabins with beds in them. Bayan immediately came to the conclusion that this was a museum where you could see what the old trains looked like and she wondered why there was no difference between first and second class. I, however, jumped to the more reasonable conclusion that this was a hostel.. I was right. We went to the restaurant and asked about the train accommodation and decided that as we had no where to stay in Cape Town as yet and we wouldn't get there until sometime after 8pm we would spend the night here. I ate some amazing ribs, Bayan had vegetarian food and we explored the train and an old broken down bus that was next to us as well. As the sun went down we walked down to the beach and went for an evening run on the sand, we ran, we did some other exercises and then to cap it all off we stripped off our clothes and ran into the water. It was so beautiful, the sun was completely gone and the beach was lit only by the lights surrounding it. The water temperature was perfect especially as we were hot and sweaty and we were so proud of ourselves for starting and ending this day with exercise.

View from our cabin on the train

the kitchen

On the broken down bus

I thought of my mum the whole time we stayed here

Later we went for a walk around the town, we walked down to the harbour and watched the water, the water was pitch black except for some light that shone from a restaurant. Then Bayan saw something in the water. Then I saw it and for a good 30minutes we watched the water trying to figure out what was in there, we guessed fish, eels, then fish again, then I was sure it was an eel, then we just weren't sure, Bayan may have thought it was a snake until finally we got a good enough look at one to realise that they were seals. Content that we had finally figured out what the mystery creature was we walked back to the train and went to bed. So ended our second day on the road.

The harbour where we saw the seals