Day 12: Cape Crusaders

Yesterday, we woke up and took our sweet time. Brent had school in the morning, so Kyle, Mark, and I got ready for the day and did some research on the adventures we plan to accomplish while here in Cape Town.

Shark Diving is booked. Yes! It's going to be crazy. Table Mountain may have to be hiked. The cable carts up to the top are in maintenance during the exact time we are here. That's okay though, we'll appreciate it more.

After Brent got back from class, we did some shopping, came back to the house, had lunch, and then set out on our adventure. First, we headed to a fairly popular skate spot here and had some fun. Again, we ended the skate session with a game of "skate". Mark beat Brent and me...in switch.

We then went for an after session swim in the Atlantic Ocean. That is now three oceans marked off! it was freezing. Our bodies weren't happy.

After dusting the sand off our feet, changing clothes, and helping push start a car, we headed to a seafood diner called Ocean Basket. Brent told us that they have a special on Monday nights where you buy two fish & chips dinners and get to watch a movie at a nearby theater for free.

We went to dinner and had awesome fish & chips. I worked my magic with the waiter and got us some extra bread during dinner. The problem is that it was a waiter. The food was great though!

Later, we got peanut butter smoothies at Kauai. Full-on peanut...butter.

We then headed to the theater to watch the "Dark Knight Rises", which I enjoyed very much. Good storyline with some good twists. You should go see it.

We ended the night by going to a local jazz club and listening to some live music.

Day 10: George Again / Day 11: Traveling to Cape Town

Yesterday we got to sleep in! Oh, it was so nice.

We woke up to Jeff cooking. He made waffles! We had cooked apples to put on them. Also some bananas and other fruit if we'd like. It was a great breakfast.

After breakfast, we got ready for the day. Mark went and visited some friends nearby while Kyle and I stayed with Jeff and Lynn. We went to a little farmer's market area and did a little shopping. While there, we met a few of Jeff and Lynn's friends and had some cool conversations. The market had a lot of local cooks, bakers, and artists selling their work. I didn't even think to take pictures though.

Jeff and Lynn took us back to their home for lunch where we made sandwiches. It was very nice to just have a basic ham sandwich. Some tomato, lettuce, avocado, mustard, etc. I'm trying to make this post as exciting as possible. It was another relax day.

The good ol' Olympics captured us after lunch and we watched it into the evening.
"U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!" -Kyle

A little later, Jeff picked up Mark and some dinner. We ate on the couches and continued to watch the Olympics. Phelps isn't doing so well. I think all three of us had Skype sessions with Moms and Dads as well.

Soon after, I went to bed.

This morning, we had a nice breakfast before going to a church service with Jeff and Lynn. Since the speaking was in Afrikaans, I didn't understand much of the message. It was out of Mark 9 though. What did come across, is that we need to consistently be reminded of how to live so it stays on our hearts.

We had a great spaghetti and salad lunch at the Holder's, packed up, and headed to our BAZ Bus pickup spot.

The drive to Cape Town is awesome. Very scenic. Beautiful fields that lead either to the ocean or to mountains. Sunflowers are everywhere, making huge patches of land golden in color. Now that it's night we can see the Cape Town city lights. The area that the lights cover is giant. I am excited for Cape Town. We have been told numerous times that it is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Hopefully we've been told the truth.

Now we are at Brent's house relaxing. Goodnight.

P.S. Today, I almost entered a women's bathroom; enough to where people saw the mistake I was making. One of the people who saw was Mark. Another goof on Daniel.

Day 8: Another good day in Plett

It was good day.

After waking up and getting ready, we had a light breakfast and headed to the bridge.

When we got to the bridge, Kyle and I flipped a coin to see who would go first. Since Mark had already done it before, he was going to go last. Later, we found that we have no choice in the matter. Kyle was going first, Mark was going second, and I was going last.

We headed up to the bungee through a gated bridge and could see the ground below us. All of us were getting very anxious. My palms were sweaty and my hands were shaking. I began to wonder if I could actually get myself to jump off, but I knew that not jumping was not an option.

Kyle was the first of our group to go. I could barely stand to watch. I was getting very nervous. They strapped Kyle in and had him hop to the platform. We all started clapping and cheering for him. It was so intense. He gave a little "hang loose" or "chill vibes" sign and then they counted, "One, two, three, bungee!" and Kyle jumped with no hesitation. We watched him free fall for 6 seconds on the screen above the platform and then was caught by the cable. My body was shaking uncontrollably at this point. They brought him back up and we hugged.

Mark was next. Same process: strapped in, hopped to the edge, "1, 2, 3, bungee!" and Mark leaped out. He got a huge jump too. It looked awesome. Again, we watched the screen to see Mark free fall and again, we all hugged when he was brought back up.

Two more people went before me. A really funny German guy and a Danish girl named Louisa. The German guy was so pumped about the whole experience. He definitely showed the most excitement out of all of us and he had the funniest looking free fall. He was awesome.

It was now my turn. My heart was pounding and my body was shaking. I was taking deep breaths and fighting the thoughts of backing out. My fear of standing on the edge of the bridge had kicked in. The workers strapped my legs and had me hop to the platform (I'm feeling shaky as I'm writing all this). Kyle came over to the platform to try and comfort me by saying, "It's not even that high." I wasn't having it though. This jump was high...really high. I took a few more deep breaths and hopped to the edge. I was still fighting with myself about backing out, but it didn't even matter at this point. The workers were going to push me off even if I didn't jump. Before I knew it, the counting started. This was it. "1, 2, 3, bungee!" and I jumped.

The feeling is almost indescribable. Everything happened so quickly. 0-60mph in 4 seconds. The only way I can explain it is that my body thought it was going to die. My peripherals became foggy and I was focused on the river below. I began scrambling for something to grab so I could save my life. This caused me to have the second funniest looking free fall. The mixture of fear, excitement, and adrenaline was overwhelming. Then the bungee cord finally pulled and I hung upside down in relief.

The three of us could not stop smiling the rest of the day. We would talk about it and my heart would start to speed up again.

After the bungee, we went back to the hostel, went and got some lunch, and then did a little bit of shopping.

A little bit later, we went on our safari and saw tons of wildlife. We were incredibly close to some rhinoceros. That was my favorite part.

We ended the night with another braai at the hostel with a bunch of people. We ate, talked, and laughed. It was another good day in Plett.

Day 7: Plettenberg

We are on our way to jump off a bridge. THE HIGHEST BUNGEE BRIDGE IN THE WORLD.

Yesterday was great. We thought we had booked a safari for the day, but it is booked for today. So, yesterday was super chill.

We left Island Vibe at around 8:30am and got to our next stop; Albergo in Plettenberg about 11:30pm. This is a nice, chill vibes hostel in a nice, chill vibes town. We'll be here for two nights.

I'm gonna stop writing for a little bit. We are about to jump of a bridge.

I can't even explain what I'm feeling right now. I'm still processing it all. In the next post I will try to.

Back to yesterday. It was nice to not have any plans for a day. We had lunch at a small diner. The owner talked with us for a while and the conversation ended with talking about the death penalty in different areas. Kind of an odd way to end it. We met the actor, Andrew Wilson, while at the diner! He was here for the Durban Film Festival and was just passing through other towns while here. Luckily, Kyle recognized him and asked him to take a picture. He was really nice about the whole thing. Then we headed to the beach.

At the beach we had a very relaxing time. None of us talked much. We just enjoyed it. Except Kyle had a headache. That's why he didn't talk. I collected a bunch of sea shells.

Afterwards, we went shopping for a while and picked up some stuff for the braai (aka barbecue) we were having at the hostel; chicken, lamb chops, boerewors (a South African sausage), chutney (a really good fruit sauce), some seasoning, and some desert. It was all very good. The night was very low key and laid back.

After the barbecue, we got some hammock action and headed up to the room after that. We talked for a while with one of our dorm mates. A lot of jokes about unicorns were made. We went to bed soon after; all of us anxious for the jump the next morning.

Day 6: Jeffery's Bay

This place is awesome. Purely awesome. I loved Jeffery's Bay so much. Our hostel was right on the ocean.

We woke up at the hostel in Port Elizabeth called 99 Miles, which looked like a house that MTV's Real World would use, had a quick peanut butter on toast breakfast and some coffee, hopped on the BAZ Bus and were on our way to heaven on earth (Island Vibe).

We arrived about 8:00am, checked in and booked our surf lesson for the day. All of us gained a huge respect for surfing after it. It was tough and tiring, but we had a blast. We all got up on the board and had at least one smooth ride. Our instructor was cool as well.

After our surf lesson we went into town and had lunch with Brad, a friend of a friend of Mark's. We all had a Portuguese chicken sandwich at Nina's, which was awesome. Brad is a cool guy with a passion to teach skateboarders about Christ. It was a good talk and a good meal.

Right after lunch we went to the Element skatepark in town. The skatepark is on a roof! This was a really fun skate session. During it, I wondered why I stopped skateboarding. Mark told me I was stupid for doing so. I fell so many times trying to land this one trick. My body is pretty mad at me. I then realized why I stopped skateboarding. We got some good filming done and played a game of skate with a new friend of ours named Skittles to end the session.

Back story to Skittles' name: He came to South Africa in January from California to do an internship with Christian Skaters (the organization Brad works for). While here, he had the cream soda called Spar-Letta. It's green. He said that it tasted like candy. So his friend named him Skittles. The funny part is he didn't know that he had been given the nickname for two months. He also didn't even say that the cream soda tasted like candy, he just agreed with someone.

We then went shopping at the outlets and found no good deals.

We headed back to Island Vibe, made some tea, and walked to the beach from the back of the hostel. The three of us talked and laughed. This trip is amazing.

Soon we were hungry again and went to order some pizza from the restaurant at the hostel. The pizza cook was missing so we decided to order our own. We found a place that gives you a free pizza of equal or lesser value when you order one. The menu had some awesome pizza choices and the decision was easy; the Seafood Supreme (shrimp, calamari, mussels, and cheese) and the El Supreme (peppers, onions, avocado, feta cheese, and maybe some other stuff).

While ordering pizza, other people in the hostel found out about the deal we got and joined in. The people there were very nice and we all became friends very quickly. We shared food, stories, would-you-rathers, had debates, and laughed a lot.

The night ended with Kyle and I streaking across the beach. We couldn't be at the bottom of Africa and not do it. "Our bottoms met. Our bottoms to Africa's bottom." -Kyle

P.S. I got 99 miles but a beach ain't one.

Day 4: Durban / Day 5: Travel to PE

We have been driving to Port Elizabeth since 7:45am. It is now 11:32pm and we just arrived at the hostel. Another long day of traveling. We had a couple free days though, which was nice. I'm going to tell you about our second day in Durban.

Mark gave me the bright idea of writing the blog for "Day 4: Durban" during the drive by actually making fun of me. He said, in a sarcastic tone, "You could be writing the blog right now if you didn't only have ten percent battery life left on your phone" (I wasn't able to charge my phone last night at the hostel). But since I'm so tech savvy with my knowledge of gigabytes and such I responded with, "I could just write the blog out on your iPod's notes app and email it to myself when we get to the next hostel". Chew on that for a while, Mark.

Our second day in Durban was a little more interesting than the first.

We went to a church service that morning with Tinus and Meisie. The minister hit home when he talked about not letting your emotional state be swayed by circumstance. God doesn't want that for you. The minister also spoke about smiling more, laughing more, and living more. This trip with Mark and Kyle has really helped with that. It's been an awesome few days with these guys.

During lunch, I talked with Tinus and found that it would be easier for us to go back into Durban from Tongaat (where we were staying) and stay at a hostel that night instead of having to be dropped off at the BAZ Bus stop that next morning. As easy as this sounded, we had a bit of a task ahead of us.

We headed back to Durban in style this time...sitting on some crates in the back of a two-seater truck. Timba and Wiseman, our new friends, were in the cab. It was a great time! We got some great footage as well. We had a bit of a rap battle, the usual spooofin' and goofin', and just plain ol' fun. After speeding down the freeway, wind in our hair, and driving through some back roads, we got to the hostel we planned to stay at, but we had an issue...
(We also saw a monkey nearly become the victim of a hit and run... Almost. -Kyle)

No room. We found where the next closest hostel was, hopped in the truck and went. With our fingers crossed this time, Mark asked if they had any room. Nope. We asked them where the nearest place was and went. Once again, no room. We began to lose hope. Luckily, Mark remembered his list of hostels that he had in his backpack. We called around and finally found one. Hippo Hide. Timba and Wiseman were kind enough to take us there as well. They're awesome. The place was nice and super cool looking, but the service could have been a lot better. The lady who ran the place didn't seem to care and it bummed us out.

After we got settled in the dorm, we took a taxi to the beachfront to hang out for a while. Skating up and down the beachfront was fun and relaxing. We grabbed some dinner next to the ocean and just talked. Afterwards we skated back down to the North Beach skatepark, had a little mini skate session, and took a taxi back to the hostel.

Back at the hostel, we took advantage of the cool hangout spots and picked a little balcony to chill on for the night. A little later we headed to bed.

Today has just been a long day of traveling. Mark will tell you about it.

Nevermind, he was just kidding.

Today we:
-Drove a lot.
-Stopped a lot.
-Found peanut butter.
-Saw a cliff that early tribes used to throw people off of as an execution tactic.
-Saw Nelson Mandela's house.
-Drove some more.

P.S. Being on a bus ride this long, we realized that Mitch Bertrum was the last person we talked to while in the states.
(If we die tonight, he should get to speak out our funeral or something- Kyle).

Day 3: Durban

Today was a good day. The weather was perfect.

We started off the day with some breakfast at the mission. It was a nice and quiet meal outdoors. We had eggs, sausage, tomato, apples, muffins, and some bread. The people here are very welcoming. It's been an awesome place to stay.

After breakfast we helped unload some donated bread out of a truck. Soon after, we left for the main part of Durban with our new friends, Tony and Rafael, and passed out some jackets (aka jerseys) and blankets to some homeless people in the city. During this, we ran into a bit of a hectic situation.

A lot of people started to crowd the van and were getting out of hand, but Tony, our driver, did a good job of getting us out of there. Later, he explained to us that the people who fight over the clothing and crowd the van are the ones who are using the clothes and blankets for alcohol and drug money. He said that we need to find the people who actually need these supplies. And we did. It was a good experience.

Tony decided to give us a little tour of the coast after we were done passing out the supplies. He took us to a boardwalk area and dropped us off to explore. We went to some shops and later, walked around for a while next to the ocean. It was a short, but very enjoyable walk.

After the walk, Tony drove us to the North Beach skate park where we had about an hour long skate session. This park was great, but it was really crowded so Mark didn't get to do as much as he wanted. We still had fun and got a little video recording done.

Tony then drove us to and dropped us off at Gateway, a huge, huge, huge mall in Durban; the largest mall in the southern hemisphere, actually. This mall never ended. I honestly can't say we got through it all. Kyle and Mark had milkshakes at a place called Wimpy's and rubbed it in my face. Literally, they rubbed the milkshake all over my face. It got weird. I had what I think was called a Classic Brikkut Sandwich, which was an egg and ham sandwich. I also found a nice hooded jacket...at Wimpy's...that place had everything. Just kidding; I found the jacket at another store.

Tinus picked us up from the mall later and brought us back to the Mission in Tongaat. Here's a cool history fact: The house we are staying at is an old plantation house. It was owned by a man named Tongaat. The town we are staying in is named after him. Anyways, we got back to the house and had some awesome sandwiches that Tinus saved for us. We made jokes and became less cranky as we filled our stomachs.

It is so awesome to be a part of this trip. I'm going to get some sleep now.

P.S. Mark had a little surprise for us tonight that he hid most of the day. I'm going to hide it from the readers of this post because I can't remember the whole name of the surprise.

Day 2: Traveling to Durban

Yesterday, we traveled all day from Johannesburg to Durban. It was quite a long trip.

Not much happened except that we started and did not finish three movies along the way. The DVD player on the bus kept stopping the movies at a certain time. The movies were: "The Diary of a Mad Black Woman", "Unstoppable" (ironically), and a gangster movie about a lot of money and a lot killing that had the word "Empire" in it. Maybe I'll finish them someday.

There were a lot of goofs, a lot of spoofs, and a lot of laughs while on the drive. We just tried to enjoy the ride the best we could.

Tony, of Mission Ablaze, picked us up from the hostel that BAZ Bus dropped us of at in Durban and brought us to the place we are currently staying at. It is a super cool and old house that has halls that never end. We might do some filming of that. The owners of the home are Tinus and Meisie. They are very hospitable and are taking good care of us.

Tomorrow has already happened. I'll be posting that next.

P.S. I am now up to five movies that I have started and not finished watching since the trip started.

P.S.S. Our trip to Durban was nine hours. We only realized about eight and half hours into the trip that the two girls in the seats behind us may have been lesbians.

Breakfast and Sleep Talking

Kyle and I sleep talk quite a bit, if not every night. Sometimes what we say is understandable; a lot of the time it makes no sense. At times it's subtle, and at other times it gets a little crazy. But, all of it is funny.

Last night at Bob's I had a conversation with Kyle that went something like this:

Daniel: I need you to go to the bank...
Kyle: What?
D: Go to the bank and the checking.
K: Daniel, what are you talking about?
D: Mom! Mom, I need you... The bank.. My credit card is... I need you to go for me...
K: Dude, I think your sleep talking man.
D: Huh?
K: You're sleep talking to me.
D: Oh, okay.
K: You were sleep talking, right?
D: Yep. Zzzzzzzzzzz

Thanks to Kyle for writing the conversation out.

Kyle woke me up twice with incoherent, crazy sleep talking last night. Both times I had to calm him down by patting his head and saying, "Kyle, calm down man." The reason I patted his head was because that's the only part of him I could reach from my bunk.

This morning we had toast with peanut butter and jam and apples for breakfast. We did some filming, took a picture with Bob and Joan, said our goodbyes, and hopped on the BAZ Bus (our mode of transportation).

Durban is our next stop. Looking forward to a couple days at the beach and some skateboarding. Should be good!

P.S. Riding on the BAZ Bus reminds me of letting Martin, my younger brother, drive for the first time; being on the left side of the road and a lot of swerving.

Day 1: Johannesburg

Today was super relaxing. A great start in South Africa for us. Bob's bunkhouse has been a great place to stay.

We all had a nice long nap and woke up to beautiful weather. The beds here are awesome by the way. We've been in good conversation with Bob and his wife throughout the day which has been really cool. They are super nice.

Our first meal in South Africa was Chicken Licken. Not exactly what we were hoping for, as we were expecting to eat lion or elephant. That was a joke. I am excited to try some new food though. Mark has been saying that there probably won't be anything surprising to us food wise, but Kyle has been arguing that his research shows there will be since there is such a diverse culture here. We'll see who wins the battle.

Jet lag has hit us hard. Right now we are watching a soap opera in the TV room at Bob's. It's 2:40am. We got some funny filming out of it though.

Tomorrow will just be a day of traveling to Durban from Johannesburg, so not much will be happening and I probably won't be posting anything.

London Calling

I am unbelievably tired right now. We just flew into South Africa from London on an 11 hour flight. I wasn't able to post yesterday due to the lack of wifi (short for not being able to access the electrobytes and download the megapixels on the mainframe motherboard). We are now hanging out at Bob's Bunkhouse and getting some rest.

Yesterday (or was it? I don't even know anymore), was awesome. We were actually able to get out of the airport and go into London for a little bit. Our flight to London from Chicago was delayed, so we were cut short an hour to spend in London but we still got to see it anyway.

We saw Big Ben! It was pretty awesome. The video we got coming up from the subway to seeing the clock tower is great thanks to Mark. We also have a short cut of Mark skating in front of Big Ben.

After that we went straight to South Bank; a famous skate spot in London. This is a place that I've seen in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater for years. Getting to skate there for a little bit was surreal and awesome.

We didn't get fish and chips, which was a bummer. But maybe we can on our flight back.

I still can't believe we are only 2 days into our trip. Everything has been awesome so far and we feel like we've already done so much. We are so excited about the weeks to come.

For now, I am going to take a nap.

P.S. When Mark started talking with Bob, of Bob's Bunkhouse, his accent kicked in. It was awesome.

Chicago

We had a pretty long layover in Chicago, so we decided to get out for a little bit.

We ate at a cool little place called Miller's Pub & Grill. Mark and I had a classic BBQ burger and Kyle had a good ol' corned beef on rye. All were solid eats.

After that we had a good discussion with a homeless guy named Frankie outside the pub. He was super nice and let us film some of the conversation.

We got some more good footage for the video as well. Mark did a little trick in front of the big bean pictured below. He was super pumped to skate through Chicago for a little bit. Mark also felt like he was going to throw up, but he didn't.

This was an awesome start to our trip. We are really glad that we got to get out of the airport. It was super relaxing.

Next stop, London.

P.S. The missing wallet incident from this morning has definitely become a joke for the trip.

About to Fly

We are taking off now. Here is Mark's reaction.

Leaving

We are currently in the airport. We will be flying out at 12:25pm. We had a pretty big scare of me losing my wallet (& not my watch) and I almost had a panic attack. We even called Walmart to see if they had it. Luckily, I found it exactly where I put it the night before. This will definitely be an ongoing joke for the rest of the trip.

This morning, Sue, Kyle's mom, made us French toast and bacon for breakfast and forced us to eat until we popped. It was awesome.

We also did some filming for the video this morning. It should be a real treat.

P.S. We didn't even go to Walmart last night. We just called to see if they had it miraculously. Just kidding. We did go.

PREGAME

Today is our (Mark Dewbre, Kyle Blair, and Daniel Brouns) last full day in America. Tomorrow we'll fly into England. Hopefully we'll be able to get out of the airport for a few hours and go get something to eat at a local restaurant. Maybe hang out with Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey. Who knows? After 8 hours in England we'll fly into South Africa and start an amazing trip.

Last night we started a list of what we needed to get done before our trip. It was on the back of a tithing envelope. We got through a good portion of the list and then lost it. Kyle couldn't stop searching for it last night. Understandably, he was pretty attached to it. I (Daniel) wanted to take a picture of it and post it with this blog posting, but sadly, that will not be happening. So another picture will be posted.

We will spend today:
-Packing
-Shopping
-Calling
-Skating
-Swimming
-Packing

I started this blog to keep family and friends updated during our trip. Hopefully, that will be possible. Stay tuned.

P.S. I went to look in my photo album on my phone for a picture that I could post and the most recent picture is one of my butt after Ryan Blair smacked it as hard as he could. There is complete definition of his hand, like it was traced.