More weekend fun

This week I am going to show you lots of pictures of what I've been up to recently in my spare time, when I'm not busily attending to patient and staff needs at the care centre.  Why am I showing you all this on a blog about my missionary experience?  Two reasons.  First of all (if you haven't noticed this already, you certainly will when you see the photos below), the Western Cape is just stunning.  I don't know how it's possible to look at these vistas I'm about to show you and not think of God.  So in a way, my 'playtime' has been very much linked to my spiritual growth this year.  Secondly, the main reason I'm here, besides for filling a nursing role where it is crucially needed, is to make relationships, to be with people.  There is no better way to do that than having fun together!  

These first few pictures are actually from an overnight hike I did with some friends back in November.  In this photo, Hananja is wondering which trail we're supposed to take.  This was at the very beginning of the hike, but it was a situation we found ourselves in repeatedly over the next two days.  It was a really confusing trail.

We got some good views, though.  It was awfully dry and hot that weekend.

This was near Grabouw, which is about a 45 minute drive inland from Hawston, on the way back towards Cape Town.

Hananja and I went hiking in the Fernkloof Nature Reserve one Saturday in January.  Here you're looking down towards Hermanus from the mountains behind town.

Hananja is contemplating what a lovely area she lives in.

Here I am, posing for the camera.

Fernkloof has the advantage of a reservoir you can hike to, so after our walk we cooled off in this water.  Sadly, this wasn't quite as enjoyable as it sounds.  The water, like all the surface water around here, was that weird tea-colored brown that means you can't see anything.  The opacity of the water, combined with the steep cliff walls that you can see in this photo and the depth of the lake, made for a sketchy swim.  I had to actively tell myself that there were no sea creatures in that lake and that yes, the sides are steep, but they are climbable and I wouldn't be trapped in the lake forever.  At one point Hananja was swimming beside me and her arm accidentally brushed mine, and I think I might have damaged her eardrums with how loudly I screamed.  I thought she was an eel.

Best part of  the dam?  There was a puppy there!  He had taken his people for a hike, but he took a break and came over to visit with me.

On the way back from the dam, we passed this guy.  He's a pretty big tortoise.  I've seen bigger, of course, but only because I've been to the Galapagos, the home of the giant tortoises of Darwinian fame.  I use the word 'fame' loosely.  Darwin's giant tortoises are famous if you were a biology major.

Hananja really enjoyed meeting our tortoise friend.  I really enjoyed watching her try to get the perfect shot of him.

This is the De Bos dam.  It is up in the Hemel en Aarde valley (where the wine farms are), and it is one of my favorite places to go on a random weeknight (or Sunday afternoon, as it was when I took this photo), to jog and swim.  You can park at the edge of the reservoir and there are some great running routes right there.  You can even run through a vineyard!  Then when you're nice and hot and sweaty, you go cool off with a swim.  This dam is much better because it lacks the steep sides and you don't feel like you're trapped in the lake.

This was a hike of Babilonstoring, the biggest mountain in the group that forms the back side of the Hemel en Aarde valley.  I might should have warned my friends who hiked this mountain with me that they would end up on my blog, but I'm pretty sure none of them read it anyway, so I guess what they don't know can't hurt them!

This might be my favorite hike I've done.  Well, besides for hiking up Table Mountain.  And Lion's Head.  But Lion's Head had beer at the top, so that's not really a fair comparison.

Dewald apparently agrees.  He looks pretty enthralled with the view.

I see these flowers all over the place here, pretty much on every hike I've ever done in the area.  They look and feel like they're made of paper.  Actually I'm pretty sure their name means paper flower.

You can't help but smile when you're surrounded by such great scenery!

Looking down over the Hemel en Aarde vineyards.

From the top of Babylonstoring you can see the ocean!

Rod celebrates victory over the mountain.

This concrete pillar is South Africa's ghetto answer to a USGS marker.  But hey, it makes a great place to stand for a photo!

Megan on top of the marker.

A few weeks ago, I took a drive with my new friend Emy.  Emy is from Vancouver, but she was on an extended winter holiday in South Africa.  We took a road trip down to Cape Argulus, the southernmost tip of Africa, about a 2 hour drive away.  This is the Argulus lighthouse.

Since Argulus is the southernmost point, it is where the Atlantic and Indian oceans meet!  I was about 750 m east of the actual point here, so that, my friends, is the Indian Ocean!

I am standing in the Indian Ocean!  OMG!  It's amazing how much warmer the water is here than in Hermanus, even though it's only about 60 miles east.

Where two oceans meet.  That doesn't happen anywhere in the US!

I'm standing at the tip of the continent!  Ever wonder why I named my blog 'Unto the Ends of the Earth'?  It's because of this!  When you look out across the ocean from here (or from Cape Town or from Hawston), you're looking at Antarctica (several thousand miles away).  There's nothing there except penguins.  The Western Cape is literally the END of the earth!

On the way back from Cape Argulus, Emy and I got a little lost.  Mostly because I decided we should take the 'scenic route', and due to lack of signage and road work, we ended up driving down a dirt road in the middle of nowhere with no cell phone reception for about an hour and a half.  It was quite a trip, and while I don't recommend anyone else try that (if we had blown a tire or something we might have been in real trouble), I have to say I rather enjoyed the experience of getting a little lost in Africa.  And in the end we made it back to town in time for dinner, so it's all good!

This is from one of the wine farms in Hemel en Aarde.  Amelia and I had a girls' afternoon of wine tasting recently.

Then we went back to Hermanus and watched the sunset.

This sunset photo is actually from Hawston, but so colorful!  I just had to share.

Humm.  There seems to be a theme to my weekend activities.  Apparently I hike a lot.  But I think Everett Ruess summed up the strange pull of the mountains when he said:

"I prefer the saddle to the streetcar and the star-spangled sky to a roof, the obscure and difficult trail, leading into the unknown, to any paved highway. Do you blame me then for staying here, where I feel that I belong and am one with the world around me?  It is enough that I am surrounded with beauty."

No, I don't think you can blame me at all.