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| A beautiful African day |
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| Afrikanos Pool |
BEN - Today was a pretty lax day at the backpacker’s. After breakfast, Gabby and I were able to
finish our mosaic table, and it looks beautiful. It will surely be a prized artifact for
backpackers to marvel at for decades to come.
At lunch time Corinne, Gabby, and I decided to go try out Lenmore’s, the
local store/restaurant that is just a few minutes walk down the road. We ordered tramazzinis, our favorite foccacia
and mozzarella sandwiches, and wolfed them down hungrily. The entire Alderman family was off doing this
and that in the afternoon, so the three of us held down the fort at reception;
which actually meant lazing on the front lawn in the sun and reading. I was actually able to finish painting the
final door frame before joining in the tanning session. Eventually guests started arriving and we met
two Dutch guys who had been working in Khayelitsha for 3 months, and knew of
the orphanage Gabby volunteered in while she was studying abroad there. We bonded over this and made friends with
them quickly. It turned out that it was
one of their birthdays, so we decided to go to the local farmer’s bar which was
notorious for rednecked, beer-bellied locals with mullets.
Corinne, Sarel, Kait, the 2 Dutch guys, the 2 German volunteers, two
other random guests, Gabby and I all crammed into the small and drove to the
Addo hotspot, Afrikanos. We walked in to
find a completely empty bar. “No stress”
(a Sarel-ism) we would just have to start our own party. We hung out, had a few drinks, and played a
lot of pool all enjoying each others' company and having a blast. Eventually three locals about my age came
over and started talking to me. Two of
them were pretty cool, and had actually traveled the States a bit. The third was a pompous ass who was obviously
very wealthy and could only talk about his multiple houses and seemingly
endless riches. All three of the guys
were sons of, or owners of some of the big citrus farms in the area. The Addo Valley is one of the biggest citrus
producing areas in the world, but almost all of it (about 90%) is exported to
Europe, making many rich Afrikaners in the valley. After becoming sick of their douche-baggery,
we decided to head back to the backpackers.
Somehow the 3 Afrikaners got invited to come along for a coconut
bonfire. We hung out for a bit before
calling it a night and retreating to our white concrete palace.
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