6 April (day 21)

Our plans for today were to go zip lining in the morning and then have a day of leisure in the afternoon where we could do whatever we wanted at Tsitsikamma. We started out according to plan.

We went to this zip lining place where you zip line through indigenous forests. It was sort of rainy when we were leaving, so I took off my glasses and left them with Antoinette so they wouldn’t be all rain covered. Probably not my best choice, since that meant my depth perception was screwy. I didn’t have much of an idea about how far up I was, but I still had SO much fun! The guides talked to us about the trees we were in and what we were seeing. They’re also an environmentally-friendly company, so none of the trees were drilled into, everything was held up by tension. A little scary but really cool.

Everyone was so into it, we all wanted to do it again. While we ate lunch we watched the DVD they made (the company records the whole thing) and we even ended up buying a copy. We had such a good time that Pierre actually found another zip lining company we could go to! We called them up and made an appointment to go there later in the afternoon.

While we waited we went to a little hotel for Don Pedros. Don Pedros have been the drink of the trip, Sandy loves them. They’re similar to Hummers in that they’re pretty much alcoholic milkshakes, but I always get mine with Amarula. The hotel had a little collection of classic cars that they showed us, too. They were all American cars. My favorite was the purple El Dorado. They also had those old school car-couches and car-desks and a bunch of Americana type posters.

The second zip lining place was very different from the first, but just as fun. This time we were in a valley, rather than a forest. The lines were a lot longer and faster, which was really fun. My favorite was one that went right between the rocks and just above the water. I took videos of everyone in our group this time, but I wish I had videos from the first place.

After dinner most people seemed pretty tired, but Jeff, Jake, Anna, and I stuck around and hung out with Sandy. We sat out on the ocean, which was really rough, and watched the waves break and just talked and hung out. It was really nice, I can see why people make such a big deal about living on the ocean.