Jon and Jody in Jo'burg: January 2012

Jonathan and Ally
Hout's Bay, Cape Town

Table Mountain

We hope you and your family had a wonderful Christmas/New Year holiday season. Jon and I got the best Christmas gift ever-Jonathan and his girlfriend Ally came to SA the day after Christmas and we began an incredible 14-day adventure (Please see below for our photos). We spent 2 days in Jo-burg, taking the kids to Pilanesberg for a game drive and to the Lion and Rhino park to pet the cubs and watch the lions feed, among other things. Then we packed up the rented SUV and left Jo'burg at 1:00 am on Dec 30th to begin the 15-hour drive to Cape Town. Little did we know that this was just the first leg of what would turn out to be a 3,000 mile road trip through South Africa! We arrived in Cape Town the evening of the 30th and stayed in a hotel down on the old market square. It was what you might call a boutique hotel, across the street from a 150 year old Methodist Church and overlooking the old market square which is today a "traditional" African market of tents and tables and everything from wood carvings to Bob Marley t-shirts. Ally and I had fun exploring. This old part of Cape Town has a bit of a New Orleans feel with converted warehouses and iron-wrought balconied buildings. It is an eclectic mix of old and new with a melting pot of people. On New Year's Eve day we got up early to ride the cable car to the top of Table Mountain. We got there only to be told that there were gale-force winds and the cable car was closed. We re-grouped and changed our plans and spent the day driving south along the Cape Peninsula where we went to Boulders Beach and saw the penguins, drove to Cape Point and felt like we were standing at the bottom of the world, and wound our way back north along the western edge of the peninsula on Chapman's Peak Drive, the steepest, narrowest, most harrowing road I have ever been on. But the views were breathtaking. Jon made reservations for us that night for New Years' Eve dinner at his favorite restaurant in Cape Town, called Codfathers. You select your seafood fresh from the ice and it is grilled to order. It was spectacular. We finished the night standing on the balcony of one of the many bars in town, watching the streets below, people and cars vying for space, listening to car horns and the music of the New Year's parade a block away. I can honestly say it was the best day I have had in recent memory.

We also managed a rather rough ferry ride to Robben Island while we were there. Robben Island is a small island about 6 km off the coast, originally a leper colony during colonial times and a prison for political dissidents in recent history and the home of Nelson Mandela for 18 of his 27 years in prison. It is a desolate island, scrubby and sandy and windy, yet within sight of the mainland. It must have been awful to be so close and yet so far to freedom. The prison tours are given by former prisoners and so with their individual stories the island and prison really came to life.

We never got up Table Mountain because of the clouds or winds, but we managed the drive up to the top of Signal Hill and got some great photos overlooking the city and out toward Robben Island before climbing back in the SUV and heading East along the Garden Route. We made it to Stellenbosch in time for lunch. This part of SA is known for its vineyards. Stellenbosch is a quaint Dutch Colonial town and the countryside is covered in vineyards and flowers. We found a little private vineyard where we had a lunch of cheese and meats and did some wine tasting to accompany our meal. It was a unique experience for us all. We traveled a few hundred kilometers more and after a one-night hotel stop we made our way to Tsitsikamma National Park and the Storms River suspension bridge. The park is perched literally on the side of mountains that drop right to the water's edge. We made the short hike to the suspension bridges and walked and rested overlooking the ocean. The entire day's drive was gorgeous. Between the scenery along Cape Point and Tsitsikamma National Park I can honestly say I have never seen anything more beautiful and breathtaking in my life.

Our final destination was Jeffrey's Bay, South Africa's premier surfing spot (can you guess whose idea that was?) and along the way we made a detour (again, guess who) to the actual southernmost tip of Africa and the place where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet, called Cape Agulhas. Most people think the Cape of Good Hope, also known as Cape Point, is that spot but in fact it is not. But since you can only get to Cape Agulhas after 30 km of dirt roads I guess the SA board of tourism decided to give the honor to Cape Point. We trusted Jonathan, our navigator since our GPS can't navigate dirt roads, to get us to Cape Agulhas, which he did. This was another special moment of the trip- an unplanned detour that turned out to be well worth the dusty drive.

We finally reached Jeffrey's Bay and stayed right on the beach in a lovely 10-unit condo. It was beautifully decorated in beach style and the bedrooms had AC!! I haven't slept in an air conditioned bedroom in a year! The most decadent part of our stay there was that every morning the staff at the guest house as it is called in SA came into our unit, set the table and cooked us breakfast to order. We felt like royalty. We had eggs, sausage, assorted breads, fresh fruit, yogurt, coffee and tea each morning. The unit had excellent views and Jonathan loved that he could walk right out on the beach with his rented surfboard and be in the water, surfing the waves (well, attempting to) within minutes. All four of us enjoyed our four days in Jeffrey's Bay, laying on the beach, reading, body-surfing, collecting shells. The town itself isn't much, a miniature Panama City Beach, but we managed to eat some delicious meals and Jonathan and I snuck off for a moment of mother-son time and a round of putt putt golf on the old boardwalk. I beat him by one stroke which felt good after all his trash talking.

On one of our beach days we drove an hour back toward Storms River to a bridge we had crossed earlier in our travels called Bloukrans Bridge. It is a world-famous bridge known for being the highest bungee-jumping bridge in the world (over 700 meters). Jonathan, Ally and Jon all jumped! I can't believe they all had the courage to do it. Ally didn't call and tell her mom back home until after she jumped. We all agreed it was better that way. I don't know if the kids will ever do it again but I think I can safely say that Jon has added that to his "one and done" list.

Our last night in Jeffrey's Bay we ate at this great little restaurant right on the beach called the Walskipper. The moon was out over the water, the tables are under a big thatched roof cover and it all sits right in the white sand of the beach. The seafood and meats are cooked on open fires and served on a huge platter with rice and potatoes. We dove in and ate langoustines, prawns, calamari, oysters, crab, line fish, ostrich, oxtail, lamb, springbok and crocodile. It was a beautiful evening and an incredible meal. We headed back to Jo'burg the next day, a grueling 12 hour drive through some desolate landscape and 40 degree Celsius temps (104 F) and ending the drive in pouring rain and an incredible lightning show.

After a day in Jo'burg to catch up on laundry and rest, the kids had to fly back to Virginia. We hated to see them go because we had the best vacation of our lives. I can't remember a time when we all laughed so much, did so much, and detoured so much as we did for those 2 weeks. I am so grateful we got to spend the time together.

The kids flew home on Wednesday night and I started a new job on Thursday morning. The day after Christmas I got a call from the American International School principal in Pretoria needing a social studies/English middle school teacher in January. They had a teacher quit suddenly at the end of the first term and he had heard good things about me from the American School principals in Johannesburg, with whom I had met and interviewed for some other positions. So I took the job and I am loving it, even after 2 days. It is a bit of a drive to Pretoria (about 40 minutes) but it is all interstate and I have a total of 28 students. Not 28 in each class, 28 total! It is a dream job.

So far 2012 has gotten off to a terrific start-a happy visit with Jonathan and Ally, a new job for me, and a happy Jon because now I will have a paycheck to help pay for the mammoth road trip!

Happy New Year and all our Love, Jody