Culminating in the Cape

Culminating in the Cape

August 21^st 2013

Ons vir jou, Suid Afrika, or Us for you South Africa.

I say this, as the feeling of relief has just set it, the trip has come to an end, and although sad, I feel accomplished, satisfied and excited to take on my next challenge.

Standing up top on Lions Head at the Cape of Good Hope.

When one is gone from their day to day life for almost a ¼ of a year, the constants of everyday life can become quite foreign, ie paying bills, rent, meeting with friends at the same local pub every week, rising in the morning for your job, day by day doing similar things. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy my life back home in Canada, I have an amazing job, a great set of a friends and an amazing family, and travelling overseas helps me realize that more each time, it is just the preparation for a “reverse culture shock” that I am waiting for with anticipation.

Up top above Robben Island.

But besides the fact that I will arrive home tomorrow, and I have a mere week to find a new place to live, and get prepared to teach a completely new group of students along with returning to work at the Keg.

But that is over 24 hours away, and for now I sit at the Johannesburg international airport sipping a coffee, and pondering my experience here in South Africa. It has been a pleasure and a fantastic culmination to my journey in Africa.

Arriving in Cape Town a few days ago, I remembered that this part of Africa is a world apart from the countries I had just visited. The streets are paved and organized, the bus service is efficient, clean and straightforward, the hotels, hostels and homes remind me of Europe, and almost everyone I am meeting looks and acts like myself. This is hands down the whitest city in all of Africa, and it almost feels as though Table Mountain provided a buffer from the rest of the continents challenges, and here people just enjoy a beautiful amazing life that has been 350 years in the making since Dutch traders first settled here.

I wake up every morning and go for a run, I get down to one of the cafes in the central part of town, sip an espresso and talk politics with some of my old friends here, the hot topic of the time being what the country will do when Nelson Mandela dies. In the evening I attended comedy shows and wine bars, all the while still reminding myself that I was still indeed in Africa.

The Wine Lands of the Western Cape.

I went on a fantastic Western Cape wine tour, visiting 8 different wineries over the course of the day, trying many different reds, whites, ports and Brandy all in the process. The Western Cape country side has to be on the most beautiful places in the whole world. And it has to be the only place on earth where one can spot Zebras and harvest wine.

Goodbye Africa, for now....

Needless to say, Cape Town provided a welcome respite from the hectic nature of travelling the rest of the continent. It provided a transition back to my regular life and it has inspired me to make my next trip overseas trip back here to focus on the parts of South Africa that I have missed.

I could not have asked for a better place to culminate my trip. It has been a great two months.

God Bless South Africa and what a trip it has been!

Sincerely,

William Delaney