Wonderful Week 3

Freshly Ground Concert
All I want to say is “I’m Obsessed!!!!!” Freshly Ground is a band from South Africa and they played Thursday February 14, Valentine’s Day, at a bar in Obs called Armchair. It was awesome! Me, Ashley, Kalyn, and Renee were like in the second row, there weren’t really rows but you know what I mean, we were close! It was hot and sweating in there but it was totally worth it. They sing mostly in English but they have songs that are in Xhosa and the lead singer is this short, cubby African girl who is absolutely beautiful (and she is bald and still beautiful. I wish I could have no hair and look so good!) Anyways I will attach a link to their website so you can see how awesome she is. And they sang this song about being cubby and still being a ‘good lover’. It was awesome! They had such good energy on stage. They danced together and had any amazing connect with each other. I have never seen a band that seemed to be so in sync with each other. They are coming again in April and I’m definitely going to go. I don’t know how else to describe how awesome it was but if you every get a chance to see them its totally worth it (and it was only 60 rand, which is less than ten dollars in America!)
!Khwa ttu
This we went to on Saturday morning. It is like a reserve that teaches people about the bush people, the people who still live like they did hundreds of years ago, they hunt and live in huts (If you ever get a chance see the movie “The Gods Must Be Crazy” and you’ll see what I’m talking about). Anyways so they have this reserve that is dedicated to a specific group called the San people. It was kind cool. We got driven around in this safari looking thing that was pulled by a tractor. We got to see some animals, the spring bock which is South Africa’s national animal, zebra, and then some other animals which I don’t know the name of. Then we walked along a trail and looked at how they hunted, what they looked for in the sand and then how they set up traps to catch the animals. Next we got to see a mini village with like six huts which would be typical of one of their tribes. They showed us how they made their clothes, food, and jewelry. There were a million ants around though so it was hard to pay attention. Finally we went in this tent area and they taught us the different languages of the bush people and how to use the different clicks they have in each language. It was pretty cool but I still suck at doing the clicks. I better get it by the time I come home.
Canyoning
The highlight of my week! Sunday we woke up at 6 in the morning and all pilled in a van to drive an hour and a half to this mountain range. There we got all our equipment and had breakfast before we headed up the mountain. So what we were doing is starting at the top of a river and following the river all the way down the mountain. When there was a waterfall we would abseil down it, which is like the opposite from rock climbing. It was beautiful. There were 5 waterfalls that we went down and the second one you had to go right into the falling water. At the bottom of the second waterfall they had a really deep body of water that you could jump of different level cliffs into. You had to jump off the lower cliffs before they would let you jump of the 15 meter (45 feet) high cliff. I decided that I wanted to jump off the high cliff. So they keep telling people to make sure to keep their arms in so they didn’t dislocate their shoulder but they didn’t tell us that at the top you had to have your arms out for balance. So when I was jumping I was really paranoid that I wouldn’t keep my arms in so I crossed them right away. This made my body turn and I ended up landing in the water on my side. Man did my butt hurt! The girls still at the top said they could see how red my butt was from there. Also one of the lead girls told me about how she almost busted her ear drum jumping off the cliff and so because of the pressure I couldn’t hear anything when I came up and I thought I had busted my ear drum. But I hadn’t and in the end it was really fun! I can’t believe I jumped off a 45 feet high cliff!!!! Hey man I’m just getting ready for the bungee jumping. Anyways it took the entire day to get down the river and we got to see the sun set behind the mountains, which was gorgeous! Overall it was a phenomenal day with nature! I’ll have pictures up ASAP!