Day 15 – The Boys Bail Me Out of Prison

I woke up this morning crusty eyed, feeling like decisions were being made for me and having one of the first people I spoke with accuse me of being a drunk, then I realized I was in a maximum security South African prison.

I don’t want to get in to the details of what landed me behind bars, at Robben Island Maximum Security Prison, but I would just like to say I am traveling with some truly great friends. Micah booked my ticket out of there, though he promptly made me pay him back. I think Carlos also played a hand in it as he insisted on taking my picture, while incarcerated, and making me promise I’d post it as my default Facebook picture to show every one that prison made me a “broken man.”

It’s a rather embarrassing moment for me, my family and my entire country as a whole. The only positive side that came out of today and my experience with being incarcerated was learning about apartheid and the struggles of Nelson Mandela. Though my time behind bars was rather brief, I can honestly say that what I’ve learned and the experiences I’ve endured over the past 24 hours have taught me valuable life lessons and will help me to mature further in to adulthood. They are truly lessons that will stay with me for my lifetime and something I hope I can educate with, and pass on to, my children to help them grow to be more accepting and understanding individuals.

I’m just thankful that I’m out, free, and able to safely enjoy the rest of this trip with some great friends. Making it back in time to watch Spain play and to see David Villa’s goal and post-goal celebration was also nice.

I was held against my will, so I figured I might as well also post this album...against my will.

Day 14 – 486 Reasons Why I Love Cape Town

Did the tourist thing today. We went to the top of Table Mountain for a bird’s eye view of Cape Town, drove the coast, swam with sharks, partied with penguins and watched the Brilliant Oranje concede their first goal of the tournament on a penalty kick, scored by Samuel Eto’o. It’s truly impossible to take a bad photo in this city. No matter what you’re taking a picture of you’ll always be able to use either Table Mountain or the Atlantic Ocean as your backdrop. I think the 486 pictures I took today is enough to prove this statement true.

Table Mountain was a blast and proved to be quite the test for my knee. There’s nothing quite like hiking around on unstable, uneven, rocky ground for a few hours and peeking over the edge of a cliff 1,086 meters above sea level to see if your knee is going to hold up. I got some great shots, but I’m pretty sure it’s impossible to take a bad photo in this town. No matter where you stand you can either have an amazing backdrop of Table Mountain, or a breath-taking backdrop of the Atlantic Ocean in your shot.

Once we got back down off the mountain we had lunch at an Italian restaurant in a neat little part of town. After we carbed up we cruised the coastline for a ways, passing through some ritzy beach towns, and eventually found a little vista point where we pulled off to take in the scenery and enjoy the sounds of the ocean. And, as we were all decked out in brilliant orange in preparation for the Holland vs Cameroon game that night, the sounds of passing cars honking and yelling “HOLLAND!” while giving us the thumbs up. Micah and I had a brief discussion of which town we were going to buy a beach house in. I couldn’t decide between Durban and Cape Town when Micah proved his brilliance suggesting one in each, Durban for the winter and Cape Town for the summer. The weather in Cape Town has been pretty nice to us, we really lucked out. I guess it has been dumping rain here for the last week or so, but aside from some chilly mornings and late at night it’s been sunny and nice in the afternoons.

After our jaunt up the coastline we dipped back in to town, found a place to park and decided to check out the amphibious creatures of Cape town…by going to the aquarium. There was some pretty interesting aquatic creatures in there, strange looking crab (what is the plural conjugation for various species of crab? Crab? Crabs? Crabi?), weird amphibious things, poison arrow dart frogs, penguins, and, of course, a gigantic shark tank. Why else would anyone go to an aquarium, except maybe the twice a day puppet show that the Cape Town aquarium has. We didn’t stop to watch it, though it was going on as we walked through. I did make friends with a penguin though, at least he waved at me and I took that to mean he wanted to be friends.

After the aquarium we made our way to the stadium and got there by the skin of our teeth, only two hours before kick off. Green Point Stadium is right by the Atlantic Ocean, not as close as AT&T is to San Francisco Bay but close enough that it smells like the ocean inside the stadium, has Table Mountain behind it, AND we were getting there at sunset. Needless to say I took advantage of those extra two hours to explore every crack and crevice of that stadium to get some good pics. It had been a long day prior to kickoff and I was feeling more like a nap rather than screaming for Cameroon’s head on a spear, then the game started. We’ve been discussing Holland’s lack of concern about advancing to the next round and how they play as if they’re on cruise control, not really showing their full potential and doing just enough to win each game. Tonight they wasted no time flexing their technical skills while continuing to act as if they weren’t really concerned about winning. They had some delicious plays and great chances early in the game, went up by one, and then turned cruise control off and just started coasting for a while. Cameroon drew a free kick that led to a handball in the box, resulting in a penalty kick. Samuel Eto’o converted the p.k. becoming the first person to score against Holland in this World Cup and leveling the scoring back out at one a piece. The exciting thing about this was it forced the Dutchmen to actually try for a few minutes. Arjen Robben was brought on as a super sub around the 70^th minute. The orange blotch behind the Holland bench put up a boisterous cheer as he ran from the warm up end of the field to the bench to prepare to enter the game. Once he subbed in the whole stadium erupted, it was pretty cool. But not as cool as when he got his first touch of the ball and anyone who was not watching the game would have thought someone scored, based off the decibel level. Best part of it was that it was just an uneventful one-touch drop pass.

Once we got back to the car, in the nearby parking garage, it took us two hours to move fifty yards. Following the Orange Army to their preferred pub after the game was at the top of our priority list immediately following the game. But once we made it out of the parking garage and saw the dark of night we were all pretty wiped and opted to just head home and call it a night. Or did we?

Check out the condensed 106 photo album here!

Day 13 – Back to Civilization!

Our palace has premium cable and wifi, needless to say it was next to impossible to get anyone out of here today. When dinner time rolled around I was able to get Carlos and Micah out of the house for a trip to Nandos, but Marcos isn’t a fan so he opted for TV, wifi, and Corn Flakes. I, on the other hand, got my chance at Nandos Extra Hot Chicken Sandwich. I’d conquered their second hottest sandwich last week when we were up in the Kruger. It was child’s play. A spiciness level that I imagine Rambo Solterro would compare to common table salt.

We took a quick drive through downtown Cape Town and aimlessly guided ourselves to the rich district. We felt a little out of place in our excessively dirty war wagon as we cruised the strip amongst Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Aston Martins and alike. What we lacked in stunning horsepower we made up for with our stunning good looks.

Day 12 – The Songs Remain The Same

On the road all day today from East London to Cape Town, a twelve-hour cross-country trek. Pretty scenic drive with lots of great landscapes, canyon crossings, little towns on the water, and such. Unfortunately we’re trying to make time so we don’t have to check in to our place in Cape Town in the middle of the night, so we’re just powering through and not doing much stopping. We did, however, make the executive decision to make it a non-stop drive back to Durban, apposed to breaking it up over two days. We weren’t able to find a place to stay for our trip back to Durban and had contemplated asking the people we stayed with last night if they had an opening on that night, but then we discussed how we’d like to spend a couple hours exploring Port Elizabeth so perhaps we could just do it in one shot and check back in to our Durban place in the late morning. It’s about twenty hours of driving, good thing we’re young. The Ortiz boys just sleep in the car 90+ percent of the time we’re in it, so they didn’t seem to mind, and I never sleep anyway, so we figured we might as well save some money and take advantage of those hours we’d waste sleeping.

Before we left the states I had my biennial half a second of brilliance while packing and put five blank CDs in to the secret CD holder compartment in my backpack. Their stock immediately went up once we got in our war wagon and realized it not only had a cd player, but an MP3 cd player. I’d done a quick run through the 4,500 songs on my laptop and compiled a, what was limited/cut down to, five disc ultimate mix right before we left Jo’Burg for Kruger Park. There have been a handful of surprises that have snuck on (I should have actually looked at what songs were in the one hit wonder folder) and some I swear I’ve never heard before in my life and am curious how they got on my computer. We got about 120-150 songs on each of the five CDs and we ran out of fresh car tunes this evening and had to start back over with CD one. That gives you a good idea of how much time we’re spending in the car. What’s even more impressive is that we listen to the games on the radio, which takes about four to six hours a day out of that time. Another interesting tidbit about the radio here, it appears they have the same stations across the entire country. We’ve been listening to the games on the same sports station since we left Jo’Burg, and we’re now in the opposite corner of the country. Every time we scan the channels we appear to have the exact same options…and none of them are country! Just another reason to add to my list of why I should stay here.

The highlight of the day came when I set a new War Wagon record with a triple car pass. Not to be confused with passing three cars in one swoop, that’s child’s play. There was a string of traffic, six of us or so, who were stuck behind two semi trucks for longer than any of us would have liked to be stuck behind them. Every time we got to a passing area the lead semi would pull on to the shoulder so people behind him would have an easier time passing. The semi behind him would then attempt a pass, he’d get about one third of the way in front of the truck he was trying to pass, run out of horsepower, and eventually fall back in to his second place spot by default. Of course by the time this has happened we’d reached the end of the passing zone. Eventually we hit an extremely long straight, flat, stretch of road and there was no one coming in the on coming lane as far as the eye could see. Lead semi pulled on to the shoulder, semi two attempted a pass, next car back behind semi two just got angry and stayed behind semi one, and the second car back (which was the car in front of me) decided to spread the field and pass both semis while they were passing each other. Being American I’m all about going big or going home and the car in front of me wasn’t going fast enough for me. I one-upped all of them and flew all the way across the road to the opposite side, the on-coming lanes shoulder, and passed all three of them. So, at the apex of the pass we were spread two semi trucks, an SUV and a VW Polo War Wagon mirror to mirror taking up the entire road. I can’t wait to get back home to the U.S. and introduce all these new driving techniques I’m learning to the rest of my fellow countrymen!

The place we’re staying at now is a total party pad and apparently the other group that was staying here canceled at the last minute so we’ve got the entire place to ourselves. Massive rooms, massive bathrooms, closets bigger than my bedroom at home, a bar, swimming pool, and an owner that made us all take a shot of tequila with him as soon as we showed up. It’s going to be a good next four days!

Added a few more pics to the random trip photo album.

Day 11 – Durban to East London

Day one of our two day trip to Cape Town kicked off today. The GPS calculated it at nine hours and forty minutes (I shaved an hour off that, Carlos was proud.) We went through two really cool towns on the drive, cool in that we went a little inland and were quite a ways away from a major city. So, to put it in perspective for you, as we rolled in to Mount Frere I dropped the windows, turned up some gangster rap, and let them know the Yanks were in town. OK, maybe not really, I turned the gangster rap down, I didn’t crank it up. I did hear someone say, “Whoa, look! A white guy!” Apparently I’m a hot ticket around those parts…or someone wanted to kill me. There were street markets, old run down stores, people everywhere, it was exactly how I’d pictured Africa to be.

I also, albeit accidentally, got to see how little the Police care here. Well, there was an instance the other night where we were sitting at a red light in the straight ahead lane when a huge semi truck went barreling past us in the right turn only lane, only he went straight, blew through the red light and sped through the intersection making pedestrians who were crossing the street dive out of his way and cars swerve and jam on their brakes. We all sat in disbelief at what just happened as a cop car crept up to the line next to me, he was behind the semi who just broke who knows how many laws and didn’t do a thing about it, or even look like he cared for that matter. There are all kinds of other things as well, mass passing, speed limits (regardless of construction zones or not) just seem to be a laughing point, and solid or dotted lines on the road are more of a suggestion. Today we were reaching the top of a hill where our two lanes were about to narrow back down to one and there was a semi truck going painstakingly slow, so I decided to pass him. There was an American equivalent to a center lane (they’re a little different here since everything’s reverse) coming up so I figured I could just use that as a passing lane if I didn’t get in front of him on time. I came around to the front of the semi, reached the top of the hill, used the center cautionary lane, and as I was maneuvering back in to the lane in front of the semi I realized there were three police officers standing there. I don’t think they saw what I did, I’m not sure how they didn’t, but whether they did or not they didn’t care or do anything about it.

We reached our stopping point for the night with time to spare before the Spain kickoff and our hosts invited us to stay for dinner. Our plan was to just hit up the pub across the street that they talked up on their web site, but as soon as we arrived and told them that was our plan they told us the food there wasn’t very good. Of course once they put the plate of roasted lamb, potatoes, corn, and various other five star side dishes in front of me I saw their scale of “good” and bad might be slightly higher than ours. Regardless, what an incredible dinner!

Up early tomorrow to head to Cape Town, should be about a twelve hour drive. I’m looking forward to it. Everyone who has been to South Africa keeps telling me I’m going to love Cape Town and it seems like every new city we get to I like more than the last. And how could I not be looking forward to it, you can go swimming with great whites!

Added a few more pics to the random trip photo album.

Day 10 – Fanfest, Gambling and a Large Indian

Having mastered the local transit systems yesterday we decided to spend the day at the Durban Fanfest zone, which happened to be on the beach. We caught a bus down to a transfer point, then Micah and I decided to walk while the Ortiz boys opted for another cab to shuttle them the remaining 1.5 km. Before we even got out of the bus transfer area we found ourselves conversing with some event staff ladies, which lead to a good thirty minute conversation about anything and everything: languages spoke, education, race, all kinds of good conversation, not just small talk. After we snatched a number, offers for giving us a tour so we could “REALLY see Durban,” and offers at places to stay, we left. Never mind that the majority of those offers came from their manager, who was a guy. Regardless, the girls were excited to now have American friends and we took a bunch of pictures together. Comically, while grouping up to take the pic Micah and I were on the outside and all of the girls were in middle. One of them didn’t like the arrangement, grabbed our arms to pull us into the group and said, “Come on, we must mix the thorns amongst the roses.”

The walk to the fanfest was certainly an experience. As soon as we broke those girls’ hearts so we could get to the beach we ran in to a shopping mall since I forgot my sunscreen back at the house, curse of the Irish skin. It was a decent sized shopping mall, think Lloyd Center or Stonestown, and Micah and I were in there for a good five to ten minutes and we were the only white people in there, certainly a new experience for me. Also along our walk, we passed a wall with graffiti-looking paint running the length, which ended up being paintings of South Africa’s rights. Way cool.

First priority once we got to the fanzone, which was literally on the beach, was to hop in the Indian Ocean. Mission accomplished. Mission two: find beer. Mission accomplished. Micah and I met back up with Marcos and Carlos and watched the Italy vs New Zeland game, which was rather exciting. What was most exciting was how I’ve been hoping Italy finishes second in their group, which would mean that’s who we get to watch Holland play in our fourth game. I’d thought all along that Italy would easily win their group, but now it’s looking like there’s a good chance we’ll be seeing them play Holland in Durban next week.

The fanfest was pretty cool, but not the chaotic wild parties like I remember seeing on TV in past World Cup’s. Never the less, it was a fun time. The main focal point of our day was to watch the Brazil vs Ivory Coast game at the casino. We’d talked to a local guy last night who informed us that his son claimed the casino was the place to watch games. Apparently that’s where all the Brazilian chicks hung out. We figured it was at least worth a look. Sun Coast Casino is Caesar’s Palace, I think they were even less pager friendly than the not-so-real Caesar’s Palace. Micah had told me earlier on the trip, maybe even before we’d left the states, that Durban had the largest Indian (red dot) population outside of India. I’d noticed there were quite a few Indian’s around, but it was very clear once we got to the casino that they made up the majority of the population. The casino had a mini fanfest type area set up outside of the casino, which is where we watched the first half of the match. The vuvuzelas proved to be more than we were willing to deal with so we went back inside and found a sports bar to watch the second half of the game. Our bartender was pretty funny, he told us he knew all about America, then proceeded to tell us about Reggie Bush and the Kardashians. Pretty funny, apparently that’s who defines us as a nation. Oh, and he knew Obama was a basketball fan and put a basketball court in the White House.

The highlight for the day came once we got off the shuttle bus back at our car. As I stepped off the bus I took note of how pleasant of an evening it was, no wind, clear sky, about 65 degrees or so, perfect. Then I realized all the event staff volunteers were staring at me in my shorts, sandals and Brazil jersey. A drastic difference from their down jackets with sherpa lined hoods (which they had pulled over their heads), scarves wrapped around their necks, skiing gloves, long pants, and they appeared to be shivering and dancing around to stay warm. This morning Micah made some comment to the owner of the place we’re staying in regards to the weather, Micah implying it was nice, to which the owner, dressed in pants and a sweater apposed to our shorts and t-shirts, immediately started in on how cold it was and this is the coldest its ever been. Crazy Africans.

Day 9 – Holland vs Japan

The view from our place is spectacular, we’re right on a bluff overlooking the Indian Ocean. I’m a bit wore our and it sounds like we have a big day of indulging in the local culture ahead of us tomorrow. And by indulging in the local culture I mean mass consuming bottles of Black Label at the FIFA Fanfest zone on the beach.

Carting Carlos the Cripple around with us finally paid off again. We got to take the handicap shuttle bus to and from the game, apposed to the overcrowded regular shuttle buses. This also meant shorter lines and not as many overzealous drunk fans trampling you and trying to shove you out of the way to get on the bus. Of course, after the game the security lady was trying to tell us that we couldn’t get on the bus with him because we weren’t injured, awkward timing to mention tearing my ACL two weeks ago.

The stadium here in Durban is pretty sweet and one of my favorites so far. It’s hard to not like Soccer City since it’s so unique looking, but so is this one with the arch going over the middle of the field. Perhaps one of the biggest reasons I liked it was because you got a little more legroom in front of you. Or maybe it was because it was about 75 degrees and when the wind blew it was quite pleasant, not chilly like it was in Jo’Burg.

The game was a little bit on the boring side. Holland dominated, as we expected. My boy Wesley Sneijder’s goal was absolutely top class and made the game worth it in the end. Definitely appreciated the movement the players had, as well as their ball movement. It seems that Holland aren’t really trying yet, they’re just doing what they need to do to win their group and advance. Which, unfortunately, isn’t much.

Funny story for the day: Today’s park and ride, or at least the easiest one recommended to us was at a mall. We wondered around a little when we got there so I could find some more batteries for my camera, apparently taking 1,150 pictures in a weeks time really sucks the life out of them. When we got back we grabbed some food and a beer, my bacon and egg cheeseburger with fries reminded me of home, so I counterbalanced it with a local beer. Then Carlos said he didn’t bring any shorts so he wanted to go buy a pair. He knew it was wintertime here, but never bothered to look at what the weather was. Apparently all the long sleeves and pants he packed, combined with long distance crutching, were making him a little hot. The only problem was that it’s wintertime here, so all the stores are filled with pants and sweaters. The people here truly think this is cold, it’s almost 1 a.m. here and if feels mid to upper 60’s outside. After walking all over the mall Carlos finally succeeded his mission. What store in the mall had the shorts he wanted? Columbia Sportswear. I guess it’s kind of like remembering to pack them in the first place.

We also took Carlos to the hospital on the way home to get his stitches taken out. It went much quicker and far smoother than I could have ever imagined. We drove right past one on our way home from the game so I wheeled in and shoveled him and Marcos out at the front door. They were back out in no time. So quick in fact I thought they wouldn't help him and told him to come back tomorrow. Apparently the nurse just didn't want to have to fill out any paperwork so she did it real quick for free. Score for Carlos. If you ask him though he said he just walked in and said, "I'm an American," and he immediately got the royal treatment.

You can view the full album here.

Day 8 – Are we there yet?

I probably shouldn’t admit this, traveling with three other guys and all, but my butt sure is sore. We left for Durban this morning and had found a route that said it would take us a little over eight hours. I’m not sure if that meant Carlos expected me to do it in six or not, either way, I failed him miserably. The route included slaloming massive potholes for extended periods of time and lengths of the freeway that were just dirt road and I think we went through four spots where we had to sit and wait for twenty minutes. I’m not sure if it was the ten hours behind the wheel or the pain in the ass potholes that were the culprit, but what ever they were, I was glad to when we pulled in to our place tonight. We’re on a bluff right over the Indian Ocean, we got in past dark so I can’t see all that well and am looking forward to seeing our view at sun up.

Nothing too exciting to report, other than meeting the proprietor of this place a few minutes ago. We’re staying at a guesthouse, which is basically a B&B and had someone else let us in when we arrived. He didn’t know much about anything, literally. When we checked in to reception he just had us phone the proprietor, who then asked if (insert what ever that kids name was here) to which I didn’t respond, as I had no idea who that person was. So the guy on the phone hastily followed up with, “Is there some black kid there?” Not exactly the way most people in the states would word that, but never the less it was the case. Some Black Kid was watching rap music videos when we showed up before he showed us to our place. Then he didn’t even know how to turn any of the lights on, which proved to be a bit of a challenge for Carlos the Cripple.

We didn’t have much time to find food and get back in time to watch the England game so we ran out to see what we could find. With everything closed our options were limited to Nandos, which we had last night, or pizza. We opted for the pizza. We also had a rather entertaining conversation with a local while waiting for our ‘zza. I love the people here, they’re so friendly and helpful and just want to put a smile on your face and make sure you’re enjoying their country. They remind me of a small mom and pop kind of business, they go out of their way to make sure your satisfied in hopes that you’ll come back again. Any who, we came back for beers and pizza while we watched the England game, which turned out to be a bit of a boring game. I think it was Micah who discovered Janga in one of the cabinets here while looking for plates and he pulled it out jokingly asking who wanted to play. Next thing I knew Carlos was clearing off the coffee table, on to the floor, and stacking up the blocks. We played a couple games and the second game ended around the same time as the England game, so, of course, we just left the pieces scattered about the floor and coffee table and got ready for bed. There’s only three beds in this place we’re staying but one of them was a double twin (not up to date on my bed size terminology, so I’m not sure what that makes it.) So, Carlos yanked one of the twin mattresses off and dragged it in to the living room next to the coffee table. Basically, we’ve been here about two hours and it looks like a bomb had gone off in the living room. This is when the proprietor walked in and introduced himself, but not before taking a quick survey of the living room and asking, “Is everything alright?”

It got better when his daughter (late teens) arrived in our place shortly after him and said, “Oh, there’s my dad.” As if she were looking for him to ask him a question or something, but then never left and never asked him a question. We all flattered ourselves with the notion that she had an ulterior motive of seeing who the four guys were staying in her house.

Holland vs Japan in the morning at the second coolest stadium of the tournament, the Durban Stadium. Game’s at 1:30 and we’re looking to be out of here by 9 so I think it’s time to headbutt the pillow.

Day 7 - Elephant Ex-Lax

Day two of our safari kicked off at the unfortunately familiar hour of 5 a.m. again. We weren’t as early to the gate as we were yesterday, not sure why that was, could have had something to do with drinking African fire water all night last night. We’d already plotted our route and since we’d seen a boatload of elephants, giraffes, antelope-like creatures, and zebras, there was no need to stop when we saw any of those. Once we got to our uncharted territories we started seeing some new wildlife, starting mostly with some funky birds. Soon came a warthog, some more crazy birds, more hippos, and then we found a damn cool dam. It was the happening place to be. There were a heard of elephants doing their thing, crocodiles waiting to be hunted, by me, hippos swimming around and lurking underneath the Pistia Stratiotes, or for those of you non-educated plant aficionados, Pistia Stratiotes is Water Lettuce and covered the top of the water. Pretty spectacular. We spent quite a bit of time there as it was a rather stunning view and there was lots of doings transpiring.

Once we decided to pack it up Micah decided it was time he tried his hand at backwards driving. Made sense, Kruger is like the Grant Watts Elementary School parking lot that my mom took me to learn how to drive in. Nothing really to run in to, there are no lines in the road and people drive all over the road looking at stuff, I figured it was a great relaxing place for him to learn and tossed him the keys. We backed out of the spot we were parked in, pulled out on to the road, and turned the first corner only to come face to face with a massive elephant. I’m not sure if he was so pissed at us because we drove in on him going number two, or because we were in his way. Whatever the reason, he was pissed and came right at us. Luckily, I was snacking on some trail mix just then, pulled out a few peanuts and offered the to him as a peace offering. Dumbo and I are now good chums.

Next up was a particularly good find. Ever since I’ve been on the mend from tearing my ACL two weeks ago I’ve been curious if I still had the cheetah-like speed I possessed three weeks ago. And, wouldn’t you know it, we came across the Cheetos family. I challenged them to a foot race and won. It was actually pretty amazing, they were way out in the grass when we spotted them, which was really difficult considering how well they blended in. But after a few minutes they all got up, walked towards us and crossed the road right in front of us. Probably because I kept saying, “Heeeeeere kitty kitty kitty.” trying to lure it in to the car so I could give it to Nichelle as her belated birthday present. Pretty sure I remember her saying she wanted an orange, black, and white kitty. Sounded like it fit the bill to me.

Having now seen the majority of the big game we were focused on spotting the likes of hyenas and wild dogs. We failed miserably. But we did see a few more pretty cool looking birds, a municipality of baboons, a giraffe, a zebra who was almost as close to us as the elephant, buffalo, a rhino and a hippo in a place where we were allowed to get out of our car but I might not have had I known how close that thing was! We drove out the gate just before closing and the sun was setting and providing an amazing backdrop behind us.

Our first long haul is coming up tomorrow as we’re off to Durban to gear up for our next Holland game. I think it should be about ten hours, not too bad. Especially considering Carlos gave me his vote confidence at dinner saying, “I bet you could do it in 8 and a half, Scotty.”

Full album can be viewed here.

Day 6 – Wrestling The Big 5

Woke up at five to earn my Big Five merit badge and also got my 1,000-km-behind-the-wheel-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-car-driving-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-rode badge in the process. Kruger National Park opened at 6 a.m. and we were one of the first through the gate. I’m not only glad we got up so we could be to the park early and spend a full day in there but because it also meant we got to see the sunrise, truly something else. The sunsets are equally as impressive, there’s just something about watching everything come to life after the orange and amber sunrises.

The park rangers checked our trunk before they’d let us in. I’m not sure if this is an every day occurrence or if it’s because they caught a poacher the other day who had shot a rhino. And by “caught” I mean shot, he had to get air lifted to the hospital and as soon as he’s stable enough to leave the hospital he has to go to court. I like the way they roll down here. Either way, I told the ranger I was already packing the most powerful guns anyone had ever seen then kissed my biceps. He backed off cautiously and let us in.

Once we were in we wasted no time conquering some big game. The first victim was Simba, a lion who created quite the little traffic jam and I think was starting to get upset that there was a gaggle of cars in his way. He wasn’t as big as I remembered him, then again it’d been a while since I watched the documentary on Pride Rock. I punched him in the nose, he tucked his tail between his legs and ran off. Shortly after Simba fled Price Rock we came across some zebras. Their stripes reminded me of pinstripes, which reminded me of the Yankees, which reminded me of how much I hated them. Zebras are lame, but I bet they taste good. Next up was an elephant. He couldn’t fly, I already had a bar of Ivory soap, and, unfortunately, didn’t have and cinnamon or sugar to snack on his ear, so he became dead to me. We found a watering hole that a hippo was swimming around in. This proved to be the ultimate challenge for me, not having any malaria pills I was risking getting malariaped by mosquitos. I wasn’t going to let that get in the way of my bucket list of wrestling The Big 5, so I swan dove in to the lake and punched that hippo square in the mouth. Next up came the giraffe. It was no challenge. I heard they break their necks if they fall over, so I put my slide tackling skills to work and took him out. We also saw some monkeys and baboons, but they crack me up so we just had a couple Black Label’s (THE South African beer) and told funny stories. There were all kinds of impalas and various other antelope-like animals, but there were so many the traffic jams they caused made me hate them more than I hate squirrels. OK, maybe that’s an exaggeration, squirrels are the worst. We also saw an African Bush Cat, which was perhaps our most interesting discovery. We were deep in the thick of it, a good 20+ km and came across this African Bush Cat. Truly fascinating. I’ve never seen one in the wild before and have always wondered where they were native to.

After a long day of bush whacking and Big 5 wrestling we decided to find a place to eat. Since Bufana Bufana (South Africa’s national team) was playing the late game we decided to find a sports pub to get rowdy with some locals. All I can say about that is, woops. Some guidebook we had described the place as having all soccer games on their big screen, we plugged it in to our GPS and tracked it down. It ended up being a swanky white tablecloth sort of establishment and their “big screen” was smaller than my computer monitor. We were hungry, so we decided to stay. I have no idea what I ordered, but it was nothing shy of a party in my mouth and I want more of it. The owner was a mingler, which was quite entertaining. Also, I’m pretty sure he was drunk. Now, let me describe “mingler.” He’s the kind of guy that will walk over to your table, ask how everything is, crack a joke, and next thing you know he’s saying, “Mmm, that looks good.” then reaching on to your plate and grabbing a bite of something off of it. I also saw him pour a lady a glass of wine, start to hand it to her, pull it back, sniff it, take a swig, then hand it to her. I’m pretty sure the majority of the people in there were locals, but still, it was pretty entertaining. Not quiet as entertaining as when he asked us where we were from, then responded, “Oh God, you didn’t all order cheeseburgers, did you?” He came by a few minutes later and checked to make sure it was our first time in the country. Once he knew what we were all about he smiled, said, “I’ve got something for you,” then disappeared behind the bar. Next thing we knew he was delivering free shot after free shot of local liquors. After enquiring about the shot he said would put us on the floor, to which Carlos replied, “I like the sound of that!” he brought the bottle of Litchi over and it was wrapped in barbed wire. Way cool! Needless to say our plans to grab a quick bite, grab the beginning of the game and head home early so we could get to bed and be well rested for our 5 a.m. wake up call for day two of our safari didn’t go as planned. But we had fun!

Full album from safari day 1 here.

Day 5: Over the “Mountains” and Through the Woods

Up early today for our drive to Kruger Park. We tested the GPS out and I think Micah was telling me not to listen to it and take a different route more often than he was telling me to follow its directions. I think that was mostly due to us taking the recommended scenic route here, apposed to the freeway.

The scenic route was, in fact, rather scenic. We went through some nice little foothills, which I’m wondering if the locals call mountains, forests of what looked like eucalyptus trees, and some cool little towns. The drive actually reminded me a lot of taking Vernonia Highway from Scappoose to Astoria with the forests, little hill passes, and little towns, with the exception the kinds of trees.

There was a little town called Sabie that we drove through, but didn’t stop at, that reminded me a lot of a small Swiss village. Just in the way the buildings looked and the vibe I got rolling through town.

We pulled in to our time-share and walked through the door just as Ivory Coast and Portugal were kicking off, which is what we were aiming to be here in time for. And it didn’t take long to realize something was wrong with Marcos. The man who is always hot, the guy who runs his A/C at night when it’s sub-20 degrees outside, was cold. I was sitting here in shorts and my CR7 (Cristiano Ronaldo) t-shirt while he was putting on his jacket, wrapping himself in blankets, and still complaining that he was too cold. We put our expert medical knowledge to work, which is limited to what we remembered being diagnosed with in the game ‘Oregon Trail’ which we used to play in fifth grade. So, at this point we’re pretty sure Marcos has cholera, scarlet fever, and dysentery.

Just finished watching the Brazil vs North Korea game, which was definitely not what I was expecting but a great game no doubt, and I think it’s bed time. Up at 5 a.m. to go wrestle the big 5 tomorrow. Hopefully Marcos is able to calk the wagon and float to kick what ever this bug is that he has so he can go wrestle a rhino tomorrow.

Just a couple pics updated to the random album here.

Day 4: Clockwork Orange

Had to get up early today so we could meet up with some friends and catch the train to Soccer City Stadium for our first of four Holland games. When we entered the train station the, “You guys need to be safe,” warning we were given by the ticket lady was certainly a little disconcerting; especially since she said it in a “you guys are going to get mugged/robbed/killed” kind of tone. But we didn’t, South Africa is nothing like the media plays this place out to be. I’ve never seen such a happy and friendly culture before, I can certainly get used to it. And I’m now hoping nothing happens in the next two and a half weeks to have me eating those words. The train ride certainly didn’t take the most scenic route to the stadium, but we did get to see some kind of industrial area and a few more slums! I was also happy to see I’m not the only person fascinated by them, the Dutch fans we were going to the game with were snapping just as many pics as me. Aad, one of the Dutch fans, and I had a conversation about how you don’t see places like that in the U.S. or in Holland and how here in South Africa there’s such a huge difference between rich and poor.

Carlos had quite the trek from the train station to the stadium on his crutches and got quite the work out from it, but we were happy to be escorted to an emergency fire elevator that took us up to the fifth level where our seats were. It was a great game, the Dutch definitely play some beautiful soccer. The first half wasn’t the best I’ve ever seen, but Denmark came out of the half looking to score and that caused the Oranje to kick things up a notch and get after it.

Holland won 2-0. The first was an own goal from Denmark and the second a nice passage of play that lead to a shot by Elia that he curled perfectly around the keeper that went just wide and bounced off the post but Kuyt was right there to tap it in to the back of the net. I think the play of the game was from a Danish defender who didn’t give up on his run and did a bicycle kick on the goal line to deny a goal that was fractions of a millimeter from crossing the goal line. Simply amazing.

The train ride back was pandemonium. There was only one train to the game and one train back from the game, at least that was free for game ticket holders. Either way, the results was massive hoards of people mobbing towards the train station, exactly the kind of thing Carlos loves maneuvering around in with his crutches. We made it back, found our car (which we were able to conveniently park outside of the towns main police stations, for free,) and made our way home.

After a delicious pizza and beer dinner, for the second night in a row (same pizza chain even, Romans) Micah and I ran to the airport to pick up a GPS. Between having to listen to three different people tell me three different directions at every intersection, maps as detailed as the continent of Africa with a dot labeled “Johannesburg” on it and a road and freeway system that seems to have absolutely no logic or order behind it, I think I’ve lost at least five years off my life.

Up early tomorrow for our three-day safari. Heather, the lady whose been so kind as to put us up these last few days, was able to get us in the Kruger National Park. We tried to schedule a safari a month or two ago and after an initial response from our safari travel guide asking what days we’d like to go on the safari, we never heard back. But I guess we’re such terrible guests that Heather wanted us out of her house as soon as possible. I guess I can’t blame her. Bummer since I never bothered to get Malaria pills since I didn’t think this safari was going to happen. But, on the plus side, I’d rather die of malaria than have to hear another one of these damn vuvuzela horns!

Check out the full photo album here.

Day 3: Chill

I never thought I’d be able to get a full night sleep on a concrete floor, but I proved that thought wrong last night. I was beat before we left the stadium and still had a two-hour drive, with no post-game traffic, ahead of me. Needless to say by the time we made it to our friend Trevor’s house it was only a matter of seconds before I was out, once I headbutted the pillow.

We spent the day just relaxing on the couch watching all the games from yesterday on his fancy World Cup satellite package, four channels dedicated to nothing but the World Cup 24 hours a day. We cooked some sausages on the “braii” (bbq) for lunch, which were mighty tasty and ordered a monsterous portion of pizza for dinner – which was also quite delicious. I think this American eating splurged was justified by a halftime walk around the block just before sunset.

Our first Holland match is tomorrow against Denmark at Soccer City Stadium in Johannesburg, this is the main, big, stadium and should be pretty exciting. It holds something like 85,000 people and is typically the stadium they show in advertisements and things. It’s an early game (1:30 local time) but getting up and finding the stadium and all that is quite the project, so we left Trevor’s around 7 pm and headed back to his moms house, where we’re staying. In a nutshell, that drive made us all agree that renting a GPS was in our very near future. From what we can tell there is no theory behind how highways and freeways are numbered and half the time they’ll just randomly change numbers when you’ve never turned or changed direction. I think my job as driver is taking weeks, if not more, off my life every time we attempt to venture anywhere that’s not just around the block.

In all, I’m having a hard time picking a highlight for today, but I think I’m going to give the award to my shower. After all, it happened at 8:30 Sunday night and the last one I had was around 8:30 Thursday morning before I left my house for school and then the airport. In my defense, we were flying for 24 hours, didn’t get to bed until 2 a.m. then up at 7:30 and immediately out the door to Rustenburg. We’d thought we were coming back that night but ended up staying at a friends on the opposite side of town (30 minutes if you know where you’re going,) so none of us brought a change of clothes. Then more friends arrived at Trevor’s plus we had to wait for Trevor’s mom to get home so we could get in once we got back. Definitely gross, but it was such a glorious moment once it happened.

You can check out this album for random photo uploads of the trip. Big days will probably require their own albums. http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=57375&id=1017235286&l=dd5d1647a6

Day 2: USA vs England

Nothing cures jet lag like having to wake up early and making the two-hour drive to Rustenburg for the USA vs England match. Especially when the match isn’t until 8:30 p.m. and you realize you realize, once again, you won’t be getting to bed until 2:30 a.m.

We were fortunate enough to be able to follow Mrs. Davies, the lady who has generously been putting us up for these past few days, to a place just outside of Rustenburg where we were meeting up with some friends for lunch before heading to the game. Being able to follow someone certainly helped take a load of stress off and was a nice opportunity to get some more wheel time and settle in to this whole driving on the wrong side of the road and wrong side of the car business without having to worry about where I was going. Of course, we were following two ladies and had they not pulled over every ten minutes or so to inform us of how much more lost we were than the previous time they told us, we would have had no idea we were lost at all.

One of the things I found rather exciting, though it’s truly quite sad, about taking the scenic route was my first exposure to slums. I’m strangely fascinated by them. These shacks are built out of left over scraps of metal and wood, they have no electricity or running water (at least I can’t imagine they do, I sure as hell wasn’t about to pull in and ask them for a tour,) and are smaller than my bedroom. Knowing that a family lives in there sure puts things in to perspective about how well off some of us are. Especially once we got to the house where we were meeting up with our friends for lunch: inside a gated community, floor to ceiling retractable walls, a beautiful back patio sitting just off the fairway of a golf course, giant wall mounted HD flat-screen, and a wet bar with multiple bottles of Johnny Walker Blue Label. Unfortunately I didn’t have the nerve to pour myself a drink. What really got me about the slum village places we had passed through were the people walking around inside some of those village; dressed in pristinely clean and fashionable clothes, smiling, laughing and appear as happy as can be. I’m freaking out that I’ve yet to find free wifi in the past two days, I can’t even imagine not having electricity to be able to keep my laptop charged ­­­– or not having lappy at all.

The town of Rustenburg looked like a city that was put inside a time capsule around the 1950’s to 1960’s (and I say this based off of movies I’ve seen set in this time period, I know I’m old but I’m certainly not that old.) We were tired, but jacked off adrenaline realizing the fact that we were not only in Africa, and at the World Cup, but also on our way to watch England play the USA for the first time in 60 years! So, we were on a mission to get to the game and since the stadium was about 13 km north east of the actual town of Rustenburg we just drove straight through the main drag and didn’t stop.

Once we finally found the park and ride lot we claimed the second to last spot. A bit of advice learned from that adventure, never trust that the pack of cars ahead of you knows where they’re going; stick to what the signs tell you. Once we parked and rode the walk from the drop off point to inside the stadium was nothing shy of a Mecca. Carlos was shedding clothes and claiming his armpits were on fire having to make the entire trip on crutches. Once inside we found our seats and realized how epic they actually were. Eleven rows from the pitch, just off the half way line and so close to the beer vendor and mens room that we barely had to get out of our seats! It was exciting seeing all the players that we’ve seen on TV and in pictures for the past few years in the true flesh and blood. And after looking through the pictures I took at the game I’m beginning to think my obsession with Wayne Rooney, the player whom I dubbed as the “Best Player in the English Premiership” yesterday before escalating to the “Greatest Multi-Celled Organism Ever” today, might be bordering on the unhealthy side of the spectrum.

The game was fun, the result was tolerable, I obviously would have liked to see The Greatest Multi-Celled Organism Ever score rather than having a fairly quiet game, but I guess that just means I’ll need to go to England next year and watch him play for the mighty Manchester United at Old Trafford. The guy to my left was a Limey and certainly passed my test without me ever having to ask him any questions. I’d said I watched more English Premiere League soccer than anything else to which he asked me, “So do you like any of these over-paid assholes then?” Before going on to admit he was a rugby fan and soccer players were nothing more than celebrities. Steven Gerrard’s fourth minute goal was nothing shy of brilliant, while Dempsey’s happened with an awful lot of luck, thanks in part to the English keeper. Either way, the result was pleasing.

Check out the full photo album here.

South Africa 2010 - Day 1

Johannesburg – Day 1

After 24 hours of traveling, three dinners, two breakfasts, two bags of peanuts, three security checks, layovers in Amsterdam, Holland and Nairobi, Kenya, we made it! Powering straight through from Portland to Johannesburg in one go of it certainly had its advantages and disadvantages. The major advantage being that we got here sooner, while the major disadvantage meant 24 hours straight of traveling. By the time we arrived in Johannesburg I’d been in the air so much, on my feet so little and had my feet up approximately zero times within that span that my ankles had completely swollen. Once we arrived at our friends moms house and I was able to take my shoes and socks off, my ankles had swollen up around my socks, which resulted in my feet looking like mushrooms.

Traveling as a cripple also has its perks and setbacks. The major and quite possibly only setback, other than being a cripple, of course, is the amount of time it takes you to get through security. Other than that, it’s all perks. You get all sorts of attention, you get to board the plane first (meaning there’s always room in the overhead for all your luggage), and you approach large crowds like Moses approaches the Red Sea. Another thing you’ve got working in your favor is that you get to cut every line imaginable: security checkpoints with roughly 200 people in front of you, don’t mind us. We left those same 200 people, and quite possibly even a few more, jealous of their superior health and physical conditions jealous when we were escorted to the front of the line at immigration and passport verification once we arrived in Jo’Burg.

We certainly can’t forget the “assistance” the Dutch gave us in Amsterdam. Once we got off the plane, sporting our brilliant orange Dutch national team gear, we were immediately offered seats and asked to wait while they got us assistance to help us get to our next gate. We arrived around 9 a.m. local time, which would have made it midnight back home. Help arrived in the form of a four-seater go-kart looking vehicle with a wheelchair somehow attached to the very back. Carlos called shotgun while I hopped on the back, there wasn’t enough room for the freaks Marcos and Micah who weren’t carrying any injuries.

Our go-kart driver was a nice woman who gave us many helpful tips during our commute on the Dutch and their soccer team, and judging by the way she was hanging corners and weaving through pedestrians I’m next to positive she was on he amateur rally car circuit, if not the professional one. She told us they absolutely despise of the Germans and they are their rivals, think USA and Mexico; she even elaborated on that by trying to teach us a chant, in Dutch, about how much better the Oranje were than the Meinschaft. She then asked us who our favorite players were on the Dutch national squad to which Carlos promptly answered, “I like (Arjen) Robben.” Robben, not only being injured, is one of two players who plays in the German Bundesliga for his club team, Bayern Munich. I took the classier route and said I liked Wesley Sneijder, Inter Milan’s star midfielder who just lead his club to a Champions League victory over Bayern Munich and were crowned Kings of Europe. She then tricked us by slyly informing us it was a trick question; apparently her neighbor was Dirk Kuyt, Dutch national team and Liverpool winger. Before delivering us to our gate, where we were dropped off at the front of a 174 person long security check line and escorted straight through via some secret door, she went on to inform us that Holland has so much pride in their national squad that all of the toilet paper in the airport was oranje.

Things got progressively more exciting from that point on. We were now on a flight of 174 people, 70 of whom were continuing on to Johannesburg for the World Cup and all of whom still spoke flawless English, with the exception of some technical medical terms I suppose. The guy who checked us through security coined my new favorite word for crutches when he asked Carlos, “Can you walk without sticks?”

Unlike our flight from Portland to Amsterday, we were all split up on this leg and didn’t have our own personal TVs with a selection of on-demand movies to choose from. Mom and Dad you may want to skip this next sentence and carry on as though I’m still following the life advice you gave me as a little kid. The lack of entertainment and fact that we weren’t all sitting together meant I had to talk to strangers to keep myself amused. Well, The New Yorker I picked up before departing Portland helped as well. Strangely though, and I don’t know what it was about my appearance, everyone spoke Dutch to me. I don’t know if it was the way I looked or smelled or perhaps just the fact that I was decked out head to toe in Dutch national team gear. Whatever it was, they’d always start in Dutch then switch to English once I responded with a blank stare. My favorite rebuttal was from a stewardess who asked, “You’re an American but you’re a Dutch fan?”

“I’m a fan of beautiful football,” I responded and was treated like a King for the rest of the flight.

We got off the plane in Nairobi, Kenya to catch our final flight to Johannesburg around 7 p.m. local time. Now, I don’t know if it was the fact that we were on the equator or the fact that everyone around me on the previous flight was blasting their a/c which froze me out, but as soon as I stepped out of that plane and on to the jet way it was hotter than Africa. This is where things REALLY got kicked up a notch. I think it’s safe to say of the roughly 200 people on that flight, everyone was going to the World Cup. Of those 200 or so people there was a group of Nigerians who had no problem setting the atmosphere. If you weren’t Nigerians fans they’d give you a hard time unless you cheered for the right club team, Manchester United. We got along just fine. There was no air conditioning on that flight and it remained hotter than Africa from Nairobi to Johannesburg.

We got in just before midnight local time and had a laundry list of things to do. We went through customs, got our one checked bag full of guns, knives and grenades…or liquids and non-carry on items; Marcos (who, clearly, never was a boy scout) bought a Holland jersey, we rented our car, a Volkswagen Polo (Jetta,) exchanged fat stacks of cash, and around 1 a.m. local time headed for our friends moms house, that’s when the real adventure began. I was nominated to drive, Micah would have had to put his contacts back in and we’re the only two allowed to drive. After Carlos and I exchanged quizzical looks as to why we were both standing on the right side of the car and about to get in the front seat, he did call shotgun after all, I thought to myself, “what better time to learn how to drive a car with the steering wheel on the right side and traffic moving on the left than when I’ve only gotten about 5 hours of sleep in the last 48 hours?” Luckily it was 1 a.m. and with the exception of a quick check of how things looked on the correct side of the road, after making a right turn, everything went smoothly.