Belated Tripping

And another much too long blog...apologies in advance

Day 1

The original plan was to fly from Cape Town to East London in the morning then make the 4 hour drive to our both figurative and literal Haven on the Wild Coast of SA, but "technical difficulties" and lost luggage inhibited both the leaving of CT and EL respectively. After a hectic time at various airports we decided not to let the airport officials spend over 4 hours driving to and, more importantly, trying to find The Haven and just stay the night in EL to get the suitcase in the morning.

Day 2

Unfortunately, this decision resulted in us not making it to the Haven in time to go to the nature reserve with the rest of the PennState people. This is the point in my story telling where I realize that I'm not in the mood for story telling and will just tell you the highlights ever so briefly (I say briefly, but really you should know better by now).

Highlight #1:
Having wonderful meals cooked for me every night. One night we even had live entertainment, where everyone working in the kitchen came out to sing in a sort of congo line.

Highlight #2:
The confused zebra wandering around the hotel grounds with the horses.

Highlight #3:
There were students from University of Cape Town (UCT) studying climate, one of which wanted to interview me for his project. The interview consisted of me being head of my own windfarm and having to make decisions on how much power to promise people based on various weather predictions. He was looking at the factors people take into account when making decisions. After this we started talking and I mentioned I recently took up ballroom dancing. He dances as well, so we go outside to try a move...sound familiar? The move consists of me standing beside him one minute and the next minutes...standing beside him...? At some point I spun backwards over his arm, but it beats me at which moment that was. Even when he dropped me...one minute I was standing, the next I was lying on the ground. Fun, but I was definitely less prepared for this than the upside down move.

Highlight #4:
The UCT students were studying weather patterns in the area and one day they had to release and track a weather balloon every three hours for a full 24 hours. It was really cool to watch and one of the students taught us how to read the equipment and explained what it all meant. A PennState student and I were so interested that they suggested we try it for real and let us track a balloon. We lost it in the beginning, but eventually recovered and were able to track it for 12 minutes (they averaged 25 minutes and the record was around 40). Not bad for a couple rookies.

Highlight #5:
One of the most interesting things about this trip was when the professors organized with the head of the hotel to let us meet with the Chief of the area. We got to ask him questions to learn about his role within the community and some of the issues he is dealing with. He talked about how some aspects of their life were better under apartheid (obviously not in so many words), his perception of the current government and their hope for the future. I found it interesting how the issue of government versus community control of the land, paralleled First Nations land claims in Canada. It's funny how all over the world people are really just repeating the same set of conflicts over and over.