The Garden Route- Not just a walk in the park

Well I have just had possibly one of the most insane weeks of my whole life. I can just hear my dad saying: “You have done more in your life at 19 years old, than most people do in their entire lives”, and I definitely feel very blessed to agree with him. If you are like me, when I first heard we were going on the “Garden Route” for a week, I literally thought we would be strolling through botanical gardens for a week, stopping here and there to do random activities maybe, but mostly just looking at scenery. Well I was very wrong. The Garden Route is an actual set route along the coast of South Africa with different hostels to stay in along the way and different suggested activities to do along the way as well as things to visit and places to stay (Google it if you have a second). My journey on the Garden Route started at a very early 4:30 a.m., but let me tell you, it was worth it!

Monday: 4:30 a.m. wake up call so we could make it shark cage diving on time. I was with a group of 24 students and 1 leader and we crawled into the funniest looking bus I have ever seen. “Bus” is a generous word. For those of you who have seen “Indian Jones and the Last Crusade”, think about the transport van they carried the ark in… That is what we were riding in. We went to this place called Shark Alley right by Geyser Rock, one of the 2 infamous “seal islands” where Discovery Channel spends a lot of time filming for Shark Week. We put wet suits on and hopped in the cage hanging off the boat, but before I go into any more detail, let me just say that before they even put the cage in the water, an 11 foot shark started circling our boat. That might not sound big, but they were huge!! The pictures don’t even do it justice, but I’m hoping some turned out well. I was in the cage with 4 other girls and we were loving every minute of it, but the sharks were realll close. There were 3 sharks, a 10 footer, an 11 footer, and a 12 footer and the closest they got to our cage was a few inches. They were baited by tuna heads right in front of our cage, so we got to see these huge sharks up close and personal. I felt like I was in an aquarium, until they started getting closer! Right after our group got out of the cage, the next group to go in actually had a shark run into their cage and shake it, as well as the whole rest of the boat. We were screaming, but again loving every minute because when else is something like that going to happen in your life? After that, we got back in our bus/ van/ army transport vehicle and drove for about 5 hours to our first hostel located right on the beach. It was a beautiful place, apparently “too nice to be considered a hostel”. The food was incredible, and we, all 25 Americans, sat around the camp fire and made s’mores. We taught some of the other travelers staying their how to make them and they were a big hit of course.

Tuesday: We had another early wakeup call and headed to an ostrich farm where I actually got to ride an ostrich! If anyone has ever seen the movie “Swiss Family Robinson”, think about Ernst trying again and again to hop on that ostrich. They move soo fast and it’s a very weird feeling sitting on a big ball of feathers. I had to put my legs under their wings and then hang onto the top of their wings for dear life. They are not nice animals, and I have decided here that I really don’t like them. They are everywhere and so ugly! After the ostrich farm, we drove to the Cango Caves and explored these caves full of all kinds of secret passageways and trails. Someone asked me before we walked in if I had done this before because it “seemed like my thing”. I laughed and said I had explored caves and thought back to “Fat Man Squeeze” in New Zealand and it made me thankful my parents had pushed us to explore places like that. There were some VERY tight spaces in the caves, and some people who were very claustrophobic really struggled. The worst part was this place called “Devil’s Chimney”, which was a vertical climb through a teeny little hole. The only way to get through it was reaching up with your hands staying totally vertical and grabbing any hand hold you could to pull yourself up vertically because there was no place for your knees to bend. Tight to say the least, but very cool and I loved it. We drove back to the beach hostel and enjoyed another night by the fire enjoying the stars and being together.

Wednesday: Another early morning, getting up at 7:00 a.m. to be on time to our appointment at the elephant sanctuary!! Definitely one of my favorite activities since I have been here and one I was looking forward to the most. Elephants are one of my favorite animals, and I actually got to walk one around, play with it, and then ride it. The boys will tell you how uncomfortable they were the whole time while riding them, but the girls all had a blast and pretty much every girl walked away ooing and ahhing over the elephants and talking about how much they wanted one. This of course led to one of the guys making the logical conclusion that instead of getting a puppy so girls would approach them, they were going to invest in an elephant. Totally logical… We left the elephant sanctuary and went to the cat sanctuary where we learned about all the different kinds of cats in South Africa and we got to see them up close and personal. We walked into the cheetah cage and got to sit right next to one of them. We also got to go in some more cages, but petting was “strictly forbidden and highly unadvised”. We left the cat sanctuary and went to Monkeyland where we ate lunch with the monkeys. They were everywhere and so silly, but they were aggressive when it came to getting food. One jumped on my leg trying to get my ice cream bar! From there we drove to our 2^nd hostel and played soccer against the local children. We pulled up to the school and they all had their uniforms on and every other Global LEAD group had been beat by this team of 11 and 12 year old boys, but we had too many competitive people on my team to allow that to happen and we really fought had. We had 2 super stars on our team, a girl who played in high school and scored 3 of our 4 goals, and then a boy who loves soccer and hockey the most out of anything in this world and he was able to coach the rest of us. I’m happy to say that Tophat Soccer prepared me a little bit for playing against these kids and we had an absolute blast. We ended up beating them 4-3, but it was a hard fought game. Afterwards we danced with the kids and played with all of them, and let me just tell you, they love to love on you. The girls played with our hair, danced, sang Justin Bieber, etc. The boys ran around rough housing and playing even more soccer. It was total chaos but it was truly beautiful. I had the most content and peaceful feeling as I was sitting there looking over the field with a beautiful little girl named Aceely on my shoulders. We were watching all the others kids playing together, the sun was setting, the weather was warm, and I had the most incredible feeling come over me and I just knew that that was exactly where I was supposed to be. I wish I could go back and be there right now. Another day well spent.

Thursday: BIG DAY. Today was bungee jumping day, but we did several other activities first. We woke up early again to drive to the place where our wild game drive (aka safari) was going to take place. The game reserve was over 200 acres, and all of the non-predators literally roam free. The lions were kept in a separate part of the park, but we drove everywhere in a safari vehicle that looked like an oversized uncovered Jeep, (keep in mind, it is winter here…), and saw everything from zebras, to springboks, to giraffes! I also got to see the rest of the “Big 5”. The Big 5 are the 5 most dangerous animals to hunt on foot and they include elephants, water buffalo, lions, hippos, and rhinos. I had obviously already seen elephants, but we got to see all the others on the safari and I loved it! We then went to the Tsitsikamma National Park to do a quick hour long hike before we ate lunch and then we headed to bungee jump. For those of you who haven’t already seen my profile picture, it was INSANE! We went to Bloukron’s Bridge which is the highest bungee bridge in the world at over 750 feet tall! Again, if you have a second either Google it or YouTube it. I was pretty terrified, but always knew I would do it. Our whole group jumped, another Global LEAD first on this trip, and they pick who goes totally randomly. I was the 4^th to last which wasn’t my favorite thing ever, but while everyone else jumped, we had a dance party on the bridge. Cleary they know what they are doing and I had a blast pumping everyone else up and cheering for them as they jumped. When my number was called, all of a sudden my demeanor totally changed. For those of you who might be so unfortunate to endure my video when I get back, you will hear the party music pumpin’ but see me taking deep breaths and doing some stretches. They hooked me up and strapped me in all in about 2 minutes, then they carried me to the edge of the bridge, counted down “5, 4, 3, 2, 1, bungee” and off I fell. For a split second I thought “what the heck am I about to do? Why am I doing it?!” but by the time I processed that, I was already at the bottom of the bungee bouncing back up and screaming the whole way! It was one of the most incredible experiences of my life! I was absolutely terrified but I loved every second of it! Nothing hurt, nothing was uncomfortable, I was just hanging upside down and it was so quiet and peaceful, it was unreal. I just looked around me and saw the ocean and thought about 1-how thankful I was to be alive, and 2- how not very many people ever get to experience what I just did and how I needed to be soaking it all up. Explaining it on here doesn’t even do it justice, but I will say that I would do it again in heartbeat and I even said I was happy it wasn’t shorter because it goes by SO fast! After bungeeing we went back to our hostel and had a huge party. We danced all night and the bartender gave out free shots to anyone who wanted them, so some people had a rough bus ride the next day, but all in all it was an incredible day.

Friday: We drove back to Cape Town, all 8 hours. We stopped here and there to walk around and take pictures from gorgeous look outs, but it was nice to have a more relaxed day and be able to enjoy the gorgeous scenery of South Africa, because let me tell you, it is that. One of my favorite things happened on this day though, and it’s so incredibly cool to see how God works. I was sitting next to a girl that from before the trip even began I wanted to get to know better. We sat next to each other on the bus and played the “Share your life story in 4 minutes” game. Of course neither of us could only share in 4 minutes, so we spent a long time talking about our lives and she has had an amazing life and one that I would love to replicate one day, but she also had a lot of questions about my faith and why I believe in the Lord. I got the opportunity to tell her why I believe in Christ and what that means in my life and what that looks like for me. I was blessed by the conversation and I hope that she was too. I’m looking forward to seeing how God continues to work in my life as well as others around me. 

It was an incredible week and I truly hope that one day y’all get to experience one of the things I did- whether its peace about where you are in life, a sense of accomplishment for doing something that terrified you, or even being blessed by what could have been an awkward conversation but turned into something wonderful. God is moving over here in Africa and in my life, and I’m excited I get to share that with y’all. Thank you for all of the continuous prayers and please know I am praying for each one of you.