This week wasn’t action packed like prior weeks. No dead bodies, no safaris, and more time in the local Knysna area. We did make a trip to Plettenburg Bay (day 277) which was probably the highlight of the week.

Travel Log: Day 276 (3/30), South Africa

We shifted our schedule 30 minutes later again this week, trying to prepare for Europe and our eventual return to Colorado. Otherwise the morning was typical. I went to the gym after math but couldn’t find a parking spot after circling a few times, so I went back home. I tried again after lunch and the gym was really quiet which was nice.

JC and I both feel kind of achey today and we aren’t sure why. We are feeling tired of living in this condo, and maybe that’s just getting to us. We made a list of things we hate about this place:

1. The whole condo is much smaller than the pictures led us to believe
2. It smells like piss because we aren’t supposed to flush just piss due to the water shortage
3. Our showers blow since we turn them off while washing due to the water shortage
4. We can’t take walks outside of our condo complex because we will be asked for money
5. It’s not safe enough to leave the kids in the condo while JC and I do something else
6. Roaches and scorpions are in our condo
7. The internet access is a joke and just as bad as Sri Lanka
8. The bathrooms being in the bedrooms with no door separating them is way worse than expected
9. It’s both cold and muggy in the condo

Travel Log: Day 277 (3/31), South Africa

I felt better today after sleeping good last night (86 score). We used one of our school days off today to go to Plettenburg Bay. The plan was to go to stores and walk around the town, and then hit the beach. We drove to central beach and parked there, but we only took a peek at the beach before walking over to the town.

In the town we went into several shops. AC was looking at swimsuits, but the rest of us weren’t after anything specific. The prices were pretty high relative to the low cost of South Africa. That’s one thing we’ve noticed everywhere this year is that the prices will be high if tourists are around.

We walked back over to the beach and spent some time there. It wasn’t as pristine, calm and vast as Buffalo Bay, but it was definitely beautiful. It had some very picturesque mountains on the far end of the bay.

At lunch time we went to the restaurant right at the beach. It took AC forever to pick her food, which is becoming a recurring problem now. Then it took a while to get our food, and it took BC forever to finish his food, and it took a while to get the check. We ended up spending an hour and a half on the way to and eating lunch.

I wanted a take back on the entire trip to Plettenburg Bay. I guess you don’t know it’s not worth it until you do it. A third trip to Buffalo Bay would have been much more enjoyable.

The rest of the day I worked on Spanish.

Travel Log: Day 278 (4/1), South Africa

I slept really badly last night so I’m kind of in a fog today. I’m just doing my usual thing of worrying about our next location and what difficulties that might bring.

Sometime during school I took a nap, which didn’t really help my alertness. I still managed to do all of my usual language learning stuff.

In the late afternoon we went to Coney Glen Beach. It was much busier than usual, and I think people must go there later than we have been going. There was a lady doing the parking lot attendant hustle. We tipped her 20R and then she showed us things she was selling. We bought a plane made out of wire and aluminum can for 50R.

The rest of the night we were just around the condo. I did the March budget, and then JC and I watched half of Invictus.

Travel Log: Day 279 (4/2)

This day was largely a repeat of yesterday, although I slept better and felt better. School and gym were on the normal schedule. I did a lot of language stuff through the day, including modifying the Portuguese content to have better grocery store questions.

We had coverage of the Nasa Artimus II mission playing all day. It was cool to hear them going about their activities out in space. They fixed a toilet, dried out some suits, worked through microphone issues, made temperature adjustments because they were really cold, etc.

In the very late afternoon, at around 4:30pm, we went to Coney Glen again. We saw the same parking lot lady again today, and she seemed to have no idea who we were. I noticed this time how yellow her eyes were, and she mentioned being in the clinic. She appears to have a serious illness, and went into a story about how bad off she is. She says her house burned down, her mom died, she is homeless and doesn’t even have food. I have no idea how much of that is true. We bought two small things from her for 50R, a duck and a seahorse. They are both actually impressive art pieces period, much more given what she is working with.

Travel Log: Day 280 (4/3)

We didn’t leave the condo today except to get FAC stuff.

At the gym I had contact info ready to give to Kylie, but didn’t give it to her. She will be at the gym tomorrow and I’m waiting until the last minute to give it to her. I figure if I’m about the leave the country it eliminates the angle that I’m trying to hook up with her.

I’m still debating even giving her my contact info because of that perception. This would be much easier if she were a dude, seventy or just unattractive. I would like to keep in touch, as it would be great to have a contact in South Africa. With things like Trump claiming that white farmers are being systematically exterminated, I could just send a question over to her asking if that’s true.

I did all of the usual language work today, but not quite as much as normal. That is typical for an FAC where the last part of the day is lost to FAC festivities.

Travel Log: Day 281 (4/4)

We woke up late today, and it set the rest of the morning up for a late start. Breakfast was after 10am, and that combined with my back feeling tweaky I decided not to run.

We attempted to go for a hike at a trail called Fisherman’s, not too far from Coney Glen beach. There was a security booth before we got there and the guy told us we couldn’t go farther unless we lived there or we were playing golf. So we gave up on the hike and made yet another trip to Coney Glen. It was the first weekend day trip we’ve made there and it was more lively than usual. There were many young adults there climbing the rocks and playing in the surf.

We stayed in the condo the rest of the day. I practiced a lot of Portuguese, and then I watched the Nuggets play the Spurs later in the evening.

Travel Log: Day 282 (4/5)

Today we were all kind of bored, and we really didn’t do much. I spent a lot of time practicing the Portuguese phrases for the grocery store, and have them mastered. I then worked with Claude to refine the list of questions and responses for cafe and restaurant settings. I rebuilt and deployed those and will start them today.

I also worked on a cold proactive opener I can use walking into any setting which I feel better knowing I have as a tool. I’m going to initiate conversation with a Ola and bom dia/boa tarde/boa noite, then if it’s not clear if they speak english I’ll ask “desculpe, fala ingles?”. I had Claude give me the equivalent of “I’ll do my best” for if they respond with “no”.

For dinner we went to the waterfront and ate at 34 degrees. The food was good and the portions were large, but my hake wasn’t as good as the other restaurant we ate in that area.