Cape Town. Random Urban Memories.

Dear Readers. Welcome to South Africa. Welcome to Cape Town. If there is a friendly city competition CT should enter. Everyone was sound, helpful and generally pretty chilled out.

As Ciara has already expressed, we were pretty shocked and excited by stuff to do, restaurants and shops. So excited and shocked that we forgot to do touristy things half the time. We ate. Ate a lot. We drank shed loads. Met some cool people (special mention for Caitlin, Laura and Esther) We got the car fixed. 

I am sharing some photo's with you and hoping to give you some extra insight. You know, there is always more to a photo than you might think.

We did do more than this. Table Mountain and the ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW  (which was hilarious) for example. We don't think you need to see a photo of the Toyota garage that fixed Ravlon or the shop John bought his new specs.  

Bray struggles to contain his emotions as Julia finally (after 9 years of love and 2 weeks of attempts to glue them together AGAIN) throws away her boots.

Stellenbosch. you might think this is simple. We are comparing chocolate and wine here of course. Posh cmjjjing.
NO. Julia is in fact trying not to vomit in her glass due to the pretty horrific hangover's we were all sporting.

Ciara has a problem with wine. She may as well just have it on an IV drip. This attempt at theft didn't end in success but she did not let this hold her back,

remembering to be tourists at Cape of Good Hope. Pretty water isn't it. Bray may be smiling. He is actually crapping himself because its like, far, to the beach.

Bray, observing tourists. Searching for Whales. We thought we saw hundreds. We saw jack S***. They were rocks.

Simply a moment of shared laughter caught on camera?  No, Bray crippled Cross by gently touching his knee. Wimp. and the finger. well that belongs to Dave.

Meet Dave.  Our friendly tour guide. He was a nice man. a little quirky. Our favourite quotes and sights he pointed out.
Simons Town Police Station and its Chubb security sticker.
Rocks that look like Baboons.
South African Navy knowledge.
His Toyota.

and the never ending fish hook conversation... I still don't know if Cross was winding him up or just being a bit vacant.
Dave : 'I will drop you off in fishhook, more trains there, I live there'
Cross: I like fishing
Dave: No I live in fishhook, the village
(5 minutes later)
Cross: So is there much fishing here Dave? We want to do some fishing. Do you fish?
Dave: I live in fish hook, I don't really fish
Cross: do you fish from the beach around here ? or on a boat
Dave (now quite exasperated): I said... I live in fish hook. I don't fish myself.
Cross: oh.

Fish River Canyon = One scared Dad

Thanks Ciara for those pics of the Namib from our hot air balloon flight and, not forgetting, the champagne breakfast (thought I'd just remind you all of that).

Moving on...

Before I put together a piece on our Fish River Canyon (FRC) adventure I figured I would just add alittle information about each member of the CMJJJ group. This is mainly for the random viewers from Russia that seem to be following our blog.

Julia 'Mother Hen' Bach - Our friend from New York is caring, physically aggressive and, currently (as of 20/07/2013) single - please comment on the blog with your name, age, some spiel about yourself and a picture for a chance to win her heart.

LIKES: Burning puppies, early morning/late night walks, washing, cleaning, packing.
DISLIKES: Staggering home drunk, being woken up at half 4 in the morning, sitting still, saying 'please'.

Ciara 'O'Donomug' O'Donoghue - The Kerry princess is a member of the famed O'Donoghue mafia of Killarney. She is fun, usually asleep and likes nothing more than sitting down for a good read. Ciara is also a GRAMMER NAZI and, so, I will put, lot of, commas, in and disspelling loadsa, words, to wind her up.

LIKES: Correcting grammer, sleeping, reading, drinking pinotage, itineraries, swearing.
MISLIKES: Bruises, penetrative banter, cricket, being awake in the car, the idea that this trip will eventually come to an end.

John 'Stallion' Bray - The northerner is hardest to understand for Julia even though he likes to talk VERY LOUD. He is/comes across as being organised and is a natural leader. John is crap at table football - FACT. He is also very scared of heights and so has proven himself to be brave as we have encountered a number of high-scary situations so far.

LIKES: Sport (good lad), talking very loudly, buying new glasses, driving, fishing, losing shit, snoring.
DISLIKES: Heights, letting Julia drive, table football, being called 'Dad', getting punched hard in the arm, the ABSA bank machines in J-Bay.

James '_______' Cross (me) - Charming, handsome, a legend.

LIKES: Eating, sport, being a jock, farting.
DISLIKES: Littering, snatching and Julia not saying 'please'.

____________________________FRC_________________________________________________

So the drive from Sesriem and the Namib to FRC was a discontinuation of the marvelous scenery that had been on show in Namibia. The main road south is rather dull. However as we neared our desination things once again looked up. I serious advise anyone to check out Namibia, it is simply stunning on the whole.

We arrived just as the sun was going down and jumped out of the car to take our places on the lookout post for a grand old tourist view of the canyon proper (arguably the largest in africa and, perhaps, the second most impressive in the world after the Grand Canyon, apparently). WOW! What an amazing place! Bray very scared of the edge, the wimp.

Campsite was awesomely dark when the lights went out, we have been spoilt rotten by star-filled skies in Namibia. Following day we woke and headed an hour south to a place called Ai Ais where some hot springs were promised (cue huge excitement from the girls). Sadly we were unable to find the hot springs and so had to settle for a dip in the campsite pool which was warm as it was fed by the hot springs but also contained way to many children for a group of teachers on holiday...from kids.

Did get to access the canyon itself (it is closed to walkers apart from at the Ai Ais end were you can technically go quite a way in until you get told off. You can do the 90km hike over the course of a week but you have to book and to be honest, it would get mega boring after day 2) and so headed up for a few kilometres on the sand and rock of the canyon floor. Awesome scenery. Ciara lost her shades for the second time on this tour and Bray won two beers for finding them (Ciara you still owe him these).

Got back and had a quick bite to eat and catch up with the cricket on tv (get in!) before heading back for another look at the canyon at dusk.

That is pretty much the canyon. It was just HUGE!

Next day we left early for Cape Town after deciding that we would just smash it (Maguire et al, 2013.). That is a lot of kilometres let me tell you and the Ravster was beginning to sound like wanted to curl up in a nice metal and rubber ball and just die. Will CMJJJ make it to Cape Town in one piece, or indeed, at all? Will Bray let Julia drive at any point on the journey? Will Ciara spend the whole journey asleep and dribbling? Will Julia get the chance to buy herself a new pair of walking boots (much needed) in CT? Will I finally manage to get my lips around a fine double cheeseburger from maccy d's? Find out the next time someone can be bothered to update the blog.

Cape Town shopping list: BRAY - Glasses, JULIA - Walking boots, CIARA - Haircut, ME - Shades.

Ciao