WILDLIFE!...reserve

So I never did make it to East London as I mentioned in my previous post. Due to some crazy bus schedules and high fuel prices I wound up back in Cape Town, back at Paul's. It wasn't a total loss though as I helped Paul maintain - as he calls it - his "stasis of post-collegiate hedonism." Let me explain; Paul will be 42 next month, he doesn't work, he mainly does what he wants to do on his schedule. God I admire him for it.

Now allow me to illustrate: The scene is last Saturday July 5th, 4:00 PM. I am sitting on the couch reading my book and in enters Paul.

PAUL: Hey Chris, was Lawrence of Arabia raped in prison?
CHRIS: I don't know, I never saw the movie.
PAUL: No, I mean the actual guy. He spent time in a Turkish prison, don't guys get raped in Turkish prisons.
CHRIS: (inner monologue, "Lawrence of Arabia was a real guy?") I'm not sure, I believe rape is a service provided in all prisons regardless of if they are Turkish or not. Why do you ask?
PAUL: Dave's party is a costume party and the theme is famous traitors and revolutionaries. I have this sweet costume I bought when I was in Turkey so I'm going as Lawrence of Arabia.
CHRIS: When is the party (thinking it was next week)?
PAUL: At 5 tonight.
CHRIS: Am I invited? And who's Dave?
PAUL: Yeah come along. Dave is the British guy from the other night.
CHRIS: Oh yeah, he's a cool guy. What am I supposed to wear? (thanks for the advanced notice)
PAUL: Oh, the guy who owned my flat before me in 2001 was in the navy or some shit, he left a bag full of uniforms and shit in the attic.

Paul walks out for a moment, returns with a ladder then ascends through the attic hatch. Thirty seconds later a big duffel bag falls from the ceiling and hits the floor with a resounding thud accompanied by a cloud of dust. Like when the Wile E. Coyote hits the desert floor. I'm thinking, "There is no way in hell I'm putting anything in that crusty bag on, there's gotta be some toxic mold or ebola in it (this is Africa)"

But after looking through the bag and closely sniffing the garments for deadly pathogens (great way to detect them by the way) I found the perfect ticket. Along with a cheesy drawn on mustache and that little bottom chin hair thing that douche bags grow in, I was ready to rock. Here we are heading to the party.


Now I have no idea what type of uniform I was wearing; FARC rebel, neo-nazi, a member of the South African Village People, but I need the answer to the question, "Who are you supposed to be." Scanning the hilarious part of my brain that houses my wit I came up with, "I'm a deserter from the Salvation Army." Lucky for me the Salvation Army is an International organization so no translation or explanations were necessary. Everyone understood clearly that I'm a putz with a corny sense of humor.

Dave's party started at 5, and quickly filled with tons of people. By 4:30 in the morning, I was DJing, a water fight had been going strong until someone broke out the garden hose in the living room and Paul was nowhere to be found.


In the next 20 minutes he reappeared having been on the upstairs balcony "meditating" as he proclaimed to be doing. I imagine the mantra he repeated was something close to "Blaaaaachhhh!" As we headed out I made plans to rent a car and visit wine country with Anthony (pronounced On-Toe-Knee), a French guy who is a friend of Paul's friend's friend (making him a friend of a friend's, friend's, friend of mine).

The next morning I woke up and I knew instantly that I would not be going wine tasting, nor renting a car. Then again it wasn't morning either, more like late afternoon. So I took the day to reflect. I thought how arbitrary is it that I just dropped in on these peoples' lives. If I never left the US all of this would have gone on with out me. I thought of the nuances I've incorporated into my diet and language. Do you know that they call traffic lights robots here? I saw a sign a few day earlier that said "Robot 100M ahead" I thought, "Awesome!" as I expected to see C3PO thumbing a ride up ahead... what a let down. Then I thought, my head is pounding, I need to curtail the partying, it's been non-stop since I left, I think I may be dying.

So with Sunday as a recovery day I decided to head to near by Stellenbosch on Monday with Anthony for some mild wine tasting and to get out of Paul's apartment. We had a map with a nice country route plotted along with a place to stop for lunch. While it was rainy, the landscape was beautiful.



We took turns driving and almost running angry fist shaking locals off the road. Who drives on the left side of the road? Over the 4 hours we only stopped at one winery, to be honest I was not in the drinking mood and there was something odd about going wine tasting with another dude.



It would have made for the perfect afternoon with a female companion (there's a bunch of guest houses and B&B's in the area), but Anthony, or Tony as I defaulted to, being from Jersey, was just fine. I enjoyed a nice ride through the country, driving a car for the first time in weeks and my conversation with Anthony. He is a laser welder that makes precision parts for Formula 1 race cars and jet planes.

We got back to Cape Town and headed to the water front for another cafe and some coffee. The next morning (Tuesday) I packed my stuff, headed to the airport and flew to Johannesburg or Jo'burg as the cool kids call it here.

I'm staying with Iris with whom I've been friends with since 6th grade. I'd post a picture but I haven't taken one yet and she is in the shower right now and probably wouldn't appreciate the intrusion. While she went to work yesterday I went to the Apartheid museum. I highly recommend you visit if you are ever in the Jo'burg area. It was sad and somber but informative and uplifting. It really helped to put much of my South African experience into context.

In closing, Thanks to Kelly the web chick back at Quest for teaching me how to track my blog. My last entry with the shark vid was wildly popular. In fact, the blog as a whole is attracting way more people than I know. If you were expecting some wild kingdom shots in this post rather than my musings into my; decent into alcoholism, hedonism and veiled homophobia I apologize.

I am heading into the bush tomorrow to embark on my 5 week volunteer project to track top level predators (lions, leopards, hyenas and wild dogs), so the next post should have some sweet pics and videos like the last one.