This week was the perfect time to go out and see more of this beautiful country.
I decided to do a four-day Garden Route trip, which tours the coast of South Africa. At the time of deciding to do this, I had really no idea how beautiful the trip would turn out to be. The first day we headed to Stellenbosch to visit the Lion park where we saw a variety of lions. Most of them were rescued from their abusers. I didn’t even know white and black lions existed until then.
The drive this day was so long because we needed to make it to our first hostile. This hostile was beautiful! It overlooked the beach and we were able to meet some really interesting people visiting South Africa from Germany.
The next day we went to the National Park. While we were canoeing, the natural beauty of the place took me aback. We were able to do more exploring when we hiked to the waterfall. The third day goes down as my favorite day by far. Somehow I talked myself into bungee jumping.
It turns out South Africa holds the Guinness World Record for the world’s highest bungee jump: it’s 216 meters high. I know that’s crazy, right?
The entire ride there, I was so terrified.
But everyone who had done it before had raved about how amazing it was and I kept thinking when was I going to get the opportunity to do this again? The walk to the bridge was definitely the scariest. We were walking to the jumping site on literally a net and it was so high up. When we got to the platform the crew were very friendly. Music was blasting in the background to calm the mood and lift the spirits of people who looked as though they were going to cry.
One by one I watched my friends jump. They all came back beaming. All of the sudden it was my turn.
I felt as though the ropes weren’t tight enough and kept asking them to make sure they were secure. When I got to the ledge I cried out that I couldn’t do it but the next thing I knew, I was falling and falling and falling. The free fall lasted seven seconds. When I was done falling I got a little calmer but since the bridge is so high, I was still so far off the ground. When one of the staff came down to get me I yelled that I felt as though I was slipping but apparently this is normal.
The feeling of conquering my fear and of feeling that rush, that weightlessness, is indescribable. I do not regret doing it at all.
Next on the agenda were the elephants. We were lucky to get to interact with them and touch them. They are the gentlest creatures, and much bigger up close than when looked at from a distance. When driving to our next hostile that night, I went through a sort of recharge. During the entire ride, there was gorgeous scenery.
My group was so fun and I started to think of how lucky I am to be able to see what I am seeing and do what I am doing.
Studying abroad has given me much more than I anticipated. I feel that my experiences so far have made me aware of how unaware I actually am. Being confined in the bubble of my hometown and in the Georgetown bubble limited my perspective and did not allow me to even fathom what exists in the world. Now, I am beginning to see how much there is for me to see…
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