Short Break Part 1: Back To De Hoop

I’m not sure how it’s already possible that we’ve reached short break (a four-day weekend for me since I always have Friday off and Monday was a national holiday, Women’s Day) and that mid-semester break is under four weeks away. While almost everyone else I know on my program decided to drive the Garden Route to Port Elizabeth (stopping to do bungee jumping and hiking along the way), I went back to De Hoop Nature Reserve with 9 of my other friends. In case you didn’t read my earlier post about De Hoop, it is the single coolest place I have ever been. I’d describe it as Death Valley (endless sand dunes that are bigger than you could ever imagine) on the Indian Ocean with whales. The whales. We must’ve seen upwards of 15 different whales in one day sitting on the dunes. CIEE is taking us whale watching one weekend (which, again, I don’t see the point of) but I know it cannot be better than what we saw this weekend.

The weekend went off without a hitch. I drove one of two cars, and although it was strange at first driving on the left side of the road I got used to it quickly. The worst part of driving was right when I started – I stalled three times before realizing that I was trying to start the car in third gear. Not well played, but easily remedied. The drive was really easy and smooth – until we hit the dirt road to get to the nature reserve. Even then, it wasn’t as bad as I remembered. We ultimately got to our mansion (which they called a cottage) across the vlei around 8:00. This was one of the mansions we saw last time on our hike and wondered what they were used for. The cottage had no electricity and had a gas-powered fridge (which they failed to turn on for us, spoiling all of our meat) but was still amazing. The stars out there were some of the coolest I’d ever seen – you could see the Milky Way and Mars – and it was just incredibly peaceful. The two nights I slept at De Hoop were the best sleep I’d gotten in memory. This has got to be due to my horrible sleeping situation in the dorms: not enough sheets (just a bottom sheet and a comforter that isn’t big enough to fit over the bed) and the incessant road noise, which wakes me up by 9 almost every single morning.

We spent all day Saturday down on the dunes and at the beaches (just to the left of the dunes). Everyone had a great day, highlighted by beautiful weather and straight chilling. A few things I found out: the ocean takes no prisoners, music can change your perception of an experience in a split second, tourists are penguins, and I had no idea a moment could be so perfect. Long stories behind each of those, it’s not even worth it to explain. We explored the dunes a lot more than I did last time, and found some truly breathtaking scenery. We found an untouched sand bowl, kind of like a half pipe made of sand, and ran around in there / jumped into it for a little bit. One of the coolest moments of the day was running down the very edge of a really long sand dune. We had hiked to the top of it and found the sand bowl, and when we got out we all knew we had to run it. Running on the edge of a 15-meter high (50 foot) sand dune towards the ocean, where I could see four different whales at once, for about 300 or 400 meters while listening to music (“One Way Out” by the Allman Brothers, to be specific) and feeling the wind in my face is the single most free I have ever felt in my life. I hope to go back to De Hoop one more time before I leave South Africa. It’s just that damn cool. More to come about the Township Tour I did yesterday…