Changing continent and shifting gears
Trip Start
Nov 02, 2007
1
7
14
Trip End
May 31, 2008
Cape Town,
South Africa
Sunday, January 27, 2008
asiatic island pleasures, but for Africa. The last few days in
Thailand were filled with chance encounters with wonderfully
interesting people, like Annette and Anika who were teaching french
along the Thai border to Burmese refugees.
My detour to South Africa will mostly be filled with the Cascoland
project in Durban (www.cascoland.com). There will be time after
the project for a couple of weeks travelling before i head back to
Thailand and the last installment of massage training, a possible
visit to Laos and then back to the UK.
I flew into Cape Town to meet up with Ali and John (we're collaborating
for the Cascoland project) and what a treat to see familiar faces as i
passed into the airport foyer; no hassle to find transport or
accomodation, just walk across the car park and head to Cecil Rhodes
monument for breakfast on the terrace with the breeze in the trees
and Table Mountain as a backdrop.
Ali's sister, Gail, put us up for a couple of nights, then onto Pringle Bay and Caroline's new house. It's a beautiful space, not much to look at from the outside, but once inside every window frames a view of the mountains, every room position takes advantage of shelter and the path of the sun and the main living space/ki8tchen is wonderfully well equipped. Haven't got the details for renting, but it's available all the year round (and i'm not actually on commission).
Saw the infamous baboons along the road; all those hilarious anecdotes i've heard over the years suddenly didn't seem so funny ... the fangs, the sheer size of them, the number of them, and those ugly arses ... Something everyone seems to have ommitted to mention over the years is the wind (no, not my usual bowel obsession), the Cape wind. It's a constant feature, a backdrop to everything and surely persistent enough to cause madness ?
At this point i was still managing to keep up the early morning meditation practise. Once we got to Durban and the 'meat' of my South African adventure, this would soon change ...
