Well, I’ve been back on the ship about 3 weeks and in the
country of Benin for 4 days now! I have much to share but first I thought I’d
give a little update about what’s happened in the past few months between
leaving Madagascar and arriving here.
A few months before departing Madagascar, myself and a group
of 5 other nurse friends decided it would be fun to plan a trip together as a
transition between ship and home life. We also figured we would be ready for
some relaxation after 10 months of hard work! We flew straight from Madagascar
to Cape Town, South Africa and enjoyed about 10 days of exploring the city.
On our first day, we headed a few hours north to Aquilla Game
Reserve where we spent 1 night in a gorgeous stone bungalow, ate delicious
South African meals and enjoyed 2 safari tours of the reserve to see giraffes,
antelopes, elephants, buffalo, hippopotamus, cheetahs, lions and more! This was
the biggest splurge of our trip but it was so refreshing to be pampered for 24
hours and experience the nature of South Africa up close.
Back in Cape Town, we rented an Air BnB house to have room
for us all to stay together. It was lovely and spacious and basically felt like
a mansion after 10 months on a ship in Madagascar, haha! From our location we
had bird’s eye views of Table Mountain above and the city below. Over the next
week or so, we hit up pretty much all the major tourist sights Cape Town has to
offer: Red Bus Tour of the city, Robben Island, Cape Point, Boulders Beach and
Penguins, Winery Tour, V&A Waterfront, Table Mountain, plus lots of great
food, shopping and exploring.
One of the days, we took a long detour a few hours away from
the city to go Bungy Jumping!
Bloukrans Bridge is the tallest commercial bridge bungy jump
in the world so, of course, we had to do it! The views were amazing and it was
definitely a once-in –a-lifetime experience…but I don’t know if I’d be up for a
repeat any time soon ;)
Cape Town is a beautiful city with SO much to offer and I’d highly recommend it as a vacation destination! (Good thing I liked it, because just about 6 weeks later I was back in the city again, this time when the ship stopped for a visit on the way to Benin - see future posts for more on that!) It was also relatively inexpensive, which made it a perfect transition for volunteers with no money coming from very low cost Madagascar. Those 2 weeks with friends will be remembered and cherished for many years to come, but by the end I was ready to head home and excited for the summer of ‘catch up‘ ahead!!
