CapeHoppin: From Cape Cod to Cape Town: vat da fook are dees cloods

last nights thoughts: i'm freaking out because i think everyone just figured out that they actually that like each other

this is my last day in Cape Town, South Africa. I left home on August 18th. It has been almost 4 months.

We just spent the past 3 nights at a river resort type situation where Ellen and i shared a chalet and made some incredible memories together. It was, in a word, wonderful. One of the most picture-esque places I have ever been, looked directly out of the cover of a children's book. Mountains in the distance, rocks all around, trees of all shapes and sizes and a casual river running through this sea of green. Our first night consisted of an artist/ hippie colony taking over Tori and Vijay's cabin, we listened to The Beatles and painted each others faces and bodies. It was quite a testament to how music and art can bring people together and make them happy. After we realized it was 2012 and came back to "reality"- whatever the fuck that is, it was off to our individual mosquito netted beds for a night of sweet slumbers. The purpose of this retreat was to wrap up these past few months and evaluate "re-entry", going home. We re-brought out the 12 year old campers in all of us and wrote lists of hopes, fears and expectations- as well as things we have learned. It was a lovely, slow and pretty free day filled with multiple naps and playing hand/foot ball plus soccer IN WHICH I SCORED A TOUCHDOWN!!! AGOOO ME!!!! THe night was fun filled with watching the Parent Trap- fuck yes! and playing more campy-like, fireside games.

the dream team....not at all

Now to yesterday. woah. So the main purpose of choosing this location to host all this sappy, sad, and oh so real talk was because of the river rafting option. So yesterday morning bright and early, cause god forbid we sleep past 8, we went to the river. I have been white water rafting before and was honestly pretty stoked about it. Gaby and I decided to partner up and carried our red, blow up raft complete with ores and foor holders. We started on as with everyone else and tried not to get too wet as we had been warned that the water may contain parasites. No big deal.....I am honestly not sure which of the following 400,000 events that occured to share with you that landed me here covered in scraps and a very high percent chance of having one of this dreadful parasites.
On the first set of mini-rapids Gaby and I got stuck in between two rock structures taller than Brett and had to be dragged out on a leash to meet ip with our friends who had been waiting for us upstream for the past 20 minutes. We were then seperated from one another on the account that we "not compatable" rowers together- so mortified, so mean, so just the beginning of failing at rafting. Now we were both in seperate rafts, me and Carlos paired up as the dream team. Next up was us getting stuck on a rock. When Carlos out to push us off the boat took off and i floated down the rapids screaming alone in the boat and Carlos walked down the river to hop back in and save me. Then there was a rest, a.k.a lets wait for Brenna take 14. I was extremely dissapointed that this was not the end of this much too challenging adventure.

rest stop with candy necklaces
what more should I say?

We carried onwards and were doing quite well keeping up with the rest of the successful 12 other rafts and floating on, just as Modest Mouse tells us to do. This is where things actually hit the fan, as we entered our next set of rapids we veered quite a bit to the left and my teeth nearly got knocked out by a tree as low as our boat, but then the rapids sped up and our boat crashed directly into a fallen tree flipping over and landing us both underneath the water. So now I am just in the parasite water fully and completely with my raft floating away as I hold Olivia's waterproof camera in one hand and my oar in the other. I proceed to scream Carlos at the top of my lungs for the next 30 seconds and then just shut up and relax to enjoy the ride I am on. They told us to lay flat with our legs in the air if we fall out and that is just what I did, floated with legs flailing in the air as rocks attempted to crack my spinal cord and machete my butt. The rapids ride continued for about another minute and at that point I was just so done with this entire activity. We got home washed the 150 leeches that were stuck to my entire body off and said a prayer that I didn't get a parasite....here i am 24 hours later still praying for that.

After that it was an afternoon led by Becca our camp queen who gave us the most beautiful gift in leading us in an excercise of sheets of paper covered in notes from one another that I will cherish forever cause people wrote some nice shit about me. Last night was almost identical to that of the last night of camp- we watched the video montage Gaby made and then finally the slideshow. A few week back I was asked to make the slideshow and have been working on it pretty obsessively for the past few days and holy mother of god is it perfect. I have no clue how iPhoto does it, but literally they arranged the photos in such a matter that I myself could not have beat if I even knew the littlest bit how to. I picked the songs and they were pretty perfect- starting with Some Nights into Semi-Charmed Life into our group song, Wagon Wheel and into the closing tear-jerker set of Float On into Awake my Soul into All these things I have done into Home- which just so ended to end just as the last photo came on. Man it was beautiful. I can already predict watching in bed alone next semester and crying myself to sleep.

We are on the bus back to Cape Town for my last less than 24 hours- HOLY SHIT I HAVE NO TIME LEFT HERE, ITS OVER AND I'M FREAKING OUT! This people I have met have really, truly changed me and although a few may suck sometimes and love them all for being a part of these experiences and whether I like it or not they are the only 23 other people on the earth who get what I just went through and that is truly awesome and kind of unbelievable. I don't really know how to deal with the truckloads of emotion that are about to drown me so I'm just gonna run away to Kenya with Vijay tomorrow. k cool? BYE!