On to Kenya! After sitting in a bus for about 10 hours (for about 10 USD) we arrived in Mombasa. The roads are terrible! You would think that the main road between the capital and the main harbour would be first class, but that wasn’t the case. Mombasa is busy and crowded, like a city should be. The bus dropped us off right in front of the mosque and we walked the rest of the way to our guest house, or something that bears that name anyway… It’s been a while since I have last seen any kind of hostel in such a state, but we survived, especially dad.

Walking around town there’s hardly any white people in sight. They are all occupying Fort Jesus on the eastern shore of the island (the hart of Mombasa is in fact an island), a leftover from the Turks, whom first set foot here in the 16^th century. It doesn’t amount to much, but when you’re walking around here and think about all the years of fighting that have taken place here between various opponents, it does breathe a lot of history, so to speak.

The rest of the action in town is next to the ruins of the fort: the old town. The small alleyways and streets resemble the ones in Stone Town in Zanzibar, but never quite reach the same vibe. Most memorable will be that there wasn’t another white person walking around and that Rashid was kind enough to cut my hair. Somehow African hairdressers have got a problem with length… He probably has got no idea how else to cut someone’s hair but in a navy seal kind of way.

With my new GI Joe hairdo we jumped into a taxi to Tiwi Beach, one of the beaches along a nice stretch to the south of Mombasa. Relax before we take the train to Nairobi, and get some colour on our skin, preferably red, when is concerns my dad. Or so we thought… One way or another we managed to have landed in a Dutch enclave. I assume they don’t read the papers and therefore had no knowledge of the violent attack that had taken place just 1,5 kilometres down the beach, and had robbed and injured one of the tourists staying there, otherwise they would have been lying on the beach like they were. But the guard was keeping an eye on things.

Anyway, lets just say they helped me along in my transition of going back home. But talking about help: they decided to help me out on the train as well! More than half of the people in first class was actually Dutch… it must be fate! We are now in Nairobbery, a city of millions, to relax and walk around for little more than a day before my plane leaves for Schiphol. If all goes well, I’ll arrive on Sunday evening at about six o’clock (flight KL 4340), and I expect that all of you are willing to give me a warm welcome when I set foot in the arrivals hallway!!

See you back home

Without a shred of doubt I can say that in the past few days I have seen
enough sand and dust to last me a lifetime, but it was definitely worth it!
The Serengeti has earned her Maasai name meaning the eternal plains. Our
driver Eliamani (yes, we had our own personal driver) had no difficulty what
so ever with taking on the sandy and bumpy tracks, sometimes speeding up to
about 90 kph past the small Maasai villages just next to the road.

Even tough everything was about as perfect as things could have been, I must
confess that I felt a bit uneasy when we arrived at our campsite in the
Serengeti the first day. We were just supposed to sit down and relax, while
our aforementioned driver and our ‘mpishi’ (cook in Swahili; and yes, we had
our own personal cook on this trip as well, it keeps getting better, doesn’t it!) were busy setting up camp for the night and preparing our lunch. This feeling
disappeared as soon as we had left the camp for our first game
drive.

All in all, I never would have thought that I would have been able to
see as much wildlife as I have in these few days… We have seen a cheetah drinking out of a pound just 10 metres away from our vehicle; we have seen 4 lionesses preparing themselves for the hunt, while bringing along 2 cubs to teach them the trade; we have seen a hippo tumbling, showing of a very big and very
pale belly; and we have seen the migration of a vast herd of zebra and
wildebeest to the Maasai Mara (in Kenya, to the north)... there were so many
of them, I wont even try to make an estimation. It was breathtaking!! Other animals we have encountered are baboons, African buffalo’s, dik dik's, elephants, gazelles (Thomson and Grant), giraffes, hartebeests, hyenas, hyrax, impalas, jackals, leopards, mongooses, topis, velvet monkeys, waterbucks, warthogs and a wild cat… and then I haven't even mentioned all the bird life, from flamingo up to ostrich! I have taken loads of pictures, so ‘hakuna matata kabisa,’ you’ll get to see all when I get back.

The last weekend that Gijs was in this country, I went to visit him in Jo’burg to finish our city tour in South Africa. Maybe it’s me, but I didn’t feel that this place had that much to offer. It supposedly has the best nightlife, or at least one of the best, in southern Africa, but that wasn’t the reason of our visit. There are some interesting features, the Apartheids museum for one (big up!) and of course the Gold Reef City just across the street from there for another! This is an amusement park build around one of the old gold mines in Jo’burg that has become a tourist attraction. But I must say, after working on a lot of impressions in the museum, it felt good letting of steam in something as simple as the Anaconda (something Dutch people can compare with the Python, there’s something about snakes that apparently drives people wild).

After this mental en physical thrill we decided to look for a place to chill, and we found just the place! Coffee & Couch, a really laid back bar in Newtown near the Central Business District.

Another lasting impression was made by Soweto. We went on a tour that took us through the northern parts of the town, showed us the old house of Nelson Mandela and the houses of Desmond Tutu and Winnie Mandela (at least, that’s what the guide said, strange but pleasant character) and we went to the Hector Pieterson Museum and Memorial. This thirteen-year-old boy, who got shot and killed during the Soweto uprising in June 1976, now serves as an icon for the battle against Apartheid.

 
The picture below on the left shows the power plant that was built in Soweto, but never provided it with power… It all went to the houses in Jo’burg owned by white people. It’s been closed down now, but to Sowetans feels like De Dom does for Utrechters. The picure on the right shows a shack in an informal settlement in Soweto. It’s been constructed by ramming four wooden polls in the ground, fastening pieces of a bus to the wooden structure and putting a piece of corrugated iron on top. Bricks, or anything heavy that the can get their hands on, are put on the roof to prevent it from flying off.

Like I said, Jo’burg left a lasting impression, but it isn’t a city I would like to go to again. The central business district has a bit of a creepy feel to it and even if you would like to walk around there, you won’t find that much exciting to see, ‘apart’ from the people of course.

Firstly, I just wanted to thank everybody who showed me his or her regrets; it means a lot guys, thanks! I’m still struggling a bit, but your support and writing this piece has helped immensely…

The last match Monde played on May 28 was a bit of a mess... Due to all kinds of circumstances, only eight players, of which two keepers, got to the pitch in time to play! One of them was Monde. You can say what you want about that guy; one of those things would be that he was always late, but he always got there! That’s more than I and about six other oaks can say... we only arrived after the whistle for halftime. I in debt to the guys who managed to keep standing the first half! They somehow held the fort, leaving a one all draw to be cleaned up after the break. In the end we won the match 3-1, and guess who scored? Monde got the second, I got the third...

His accident took place early in the morning on the first of June. I still don’t know what happened, but I don’t want to bother the people that could know with it, because they’re busy with their own process. I went to the memorial service in Pretoria on Friday, and, just like Monde would have done, we got there late! It looked kind of messy, but I think it was supposed to be like that. The choirmaster, a good friend of Monde’s, said a few words and invited a couple of people to do the same. Afterwards, the table was opened for anybody who wanted to share his or her feelings. Some of them had prepared something, others had not, and you could literally see that they were struggling, not only with the loss of Monde, but also with their loss for words... It didn’t seem to bother anyone; the stumbled words filled the chapel, as everybody was busy cooping with their own feelings and emotions.

The match on Sunday we dedicated to Monde, and it was the biggest win of the team yet: 7-0 (hattrick by yours truly). It was never an even game though, because we now had 12 players on the pitch... We’re still on top of the league with only two more matches in hand before the winter break, the same time I will be leaving South Africa. I hope the guys can manage on their own. Otherwise I’ll have to come back and kick their asses some more, it seems to work miracles!

Leaving Cape Town behind, Gijs and I drove a rental down to the Cape itself taking a road on the west side of the peninsula. We started of with bad weather, but that did however not change our best of moods that day. The view from Signal Hill was clouded yet amazing. This picture came out best; you can still clearly see Robben Island on the left hand side.

After that we took on the normally overcrowded beach of Camps Bay… Not in this weather, and on top of that we saw some really funky stuff floating on the sea just 20 metres out. I think it was some sort of seed, but I didn’t really fancy a swim to find out if I was right.

From there on out we went to Hout Bay and took Chapman’s Peak Drive, a really scenic road with broad views over the beaches and the Atlantic Ocean, down to Kommetjie (for the Dutch readers: it’s pronounced ‘kommekkie’) and finally to the third most southern cape of the African continent, Cape Point – to the ignorant and the interested: Cape Agulhas, roughly about 200 kilometres away from Cape Point, is where the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean meet. Cape of Good Hope is the second most southern cape, but it only beats Cape Point by a second, for those of you who are eager to know all the facts.

Despite Cape Point not being the most southern point of the peninsula, it is far more accessible than Cape of Good Hope. They even installed a funicular railway up to the top of the rim, for those who wont or can’t make their way up the old-fashioned way. After our practise a couple of days ago – walking up Table Mountain without food and water – we felt confident enough to take on this hurdle. And the view was most rewarding!

Keen on seeing more we drove to Cape of Good Hope and saw a much smaller parking space than at the Cape Point. And again we weren’t disappointed… 

Fulfilled we drove back up the peninsula to Simon’s Town, a place renowned for being near to Boulders Beach and the animals that inhabit the beach: penguins! You know, those stupid looking birds that walk funny and can’t even fly… and one thing most people don’t know: the smell, I don’t mean like a little funky kind of smelly… If the wind would catch the odour just right to get it straight in your delicate nasal passages, believe me, I would rather spend a day with a hundred pigs in their puddle!

And so, because the way to our lungs was already contaminated, we figured we could we might as well contaminate the other way down. I don’t think I’ve drunk that much since my arrival in South Africa! But although we couldn’t even see straight anymore, we somehow kicked everybody’s butt playing pool…

And guess what was on the programme for the next day… wine!! Gijs and is hangover couldn’t enjoy the thought of drinking wine as we got up the following morning and I was really struggling. Maybe that’s why we had to drive back and forth to get to the vineyard ‘Vergelegen,’ not because it was indeed ‘vergelegen,’ but because Gijs’ navigational skills weren’t all that. Strolling around the estate was breathtaking and relaxing at the same time, let alone the wine tasting!

The cheapest wines cost two and the most expensive one cost ten South African Rands (respectively 0.25 and 1.25 Euro) and we wouldn’t be proper students to let a cheap sip of an expensive wine get away from us, of course. And when I get older I want a cellar like this too!

Last stop of the peninsula experience was Stellenbosch, a lovely city just 50 kilos away from Cape Town. It really had a nice old ring to it, the kind of feeling that only a city with a certain history can give you… how can I explain it: Utrecht has it, Almere does not! We wandered around the place a little bit and decided to chill out the rest of day in the Stumble Inn, a really relaxing backpackers unit in town, with a pool table on its veranda in the back.  

Gijs settled in Stellenbosch’ backpackers to make arrangements for his travelling yet days to come as I left for Cape Town Airport, because my holidays were over… I had work to do in Pretoria, because there was an inter-provincial tournament going on there. Because I’m trainer/coach of the Potchefstroom University men’s side, I’m also trainer/coach of the provincial side – It’s the same team, but that doesn’t have quite the same ring to it... It’s a terrible job, but someone’s gotta do it (wink wink, nudge nudge)!!