More Photos

Hey everyone. Life continues at the same pace as before. In new news, my job search is fruitless, but I got a haircut and shave. That's good. Now I look like a contributing member of society once again. Hooray!
I just added a bunch of pictures onto my website, so if you find yourself with a bit of extra time, check out the link to the right to see how Lesotho, Mozambique, and Cape Town are. I have pictures of Swaziland, but haven't gotten around to adding those yet.

No Place...

I'm finally back. After 45 hours of being contained in planes and airports, my ship has come in. The reunion with the folks was heartwarming, and my first shower back was fantastic. Unfortunately, my bag didn't show up at the airport, but supposedly it's in Denver and will be dropped off tomorrow.
Speaking of tomorrow, my sister flies in and doesn't know I'm back yet, so that should be fun. I haven't seen her since May 2005 which is the longest ever. She's bringing her boyfriend, so that will be fun playing the 'getting to know you' game. I've met him before, and he's a nice guy, but haven't gotten to spend the quality one-on-one protective younger brother game yet. Sounds great.
In other news, after years of resisting signing up for something as foul and awful as facebook, I finally did it. If you want to look me up, I'm the brett pearson whose picture is that of an African garden gnome.
PS, I got a ticket to see Modest Mouse at the Val Air Ballroom, so if anyone is in DSM and would like to go, then pick one up yourself and we can go together.

Still Traveling...

40 hours done and I should actually be home by now, but I've only made it to Denver and then had the disfortune of my last flight (out of 5) being delayed. I suppose the good part of that is that at least it's the last one so my previous 4 flights weren't all screwed.
The day hasn't all been in vain though. During my layover in Washington D.C. I was bought a couple beers by this guy I was sitting next to after he found out I am a new RPCV. He told me I need to 'Save my money' so I did the obligatory offer to buy my own beers a couple of times but was thrilled to save my $15. I guess being an RPCV male is almost like being a female all of the time. This is the third time people have bought me beers just for being a Peace Corps Volunteer. If only they knew the reality.

Springboks Win!

Yesterday was pretty crazy here in Cape Town. Their beloved Springboks were facing the England Roses in the Rugby World Cup finals. There was the hum of electricity in the air all day as every South African anxiously awaited the 9 o'clock start time. I was walking around in the afternoon when at a four-way intersection all of the cars were stopped. One guy hooted his horn, yelled 'Bokke Bokke,' and then every other car sitting there started cheering and hooting their horns. Even ladies get into it. Not to sound sexist, but it's actually the only sport I've been around that the women are just as well versed in rules, players, tactics, et cetera, as well as being just as excited throughout the entirety of the game.
After the Boks victory, the city erupted. I was on Long Street, which has a sort of New Orleans feel with it's balconies and architecture, and there were parades of people marching up and down playing trumpets, waving flags, and just screaming nonsense. This went on throughout the night.
This morning you can tell that everyone is hungover. Or, as Zambians say, 'They have a case of the H.O.' I think most people were sleeping in today because there were hardly any people around when I got up this morning.
I've got two full days left here before having to return home. I don't have much of an agenda, just killing time. Today it's quite overcast, but I hope to get to the beach one more time before I take off.

PS: This is terrible. First the Cubs get swept, then I go and look how the Hawkeyes are faring, and they're second to last in the Big Ten. What the hell is going on?

Wine Tour 2007

Today has been one of the most stressful of my life. I woke just before 8 and did the usual morning activities of bathing and brushing my teeth before a quick breakfast at the wrap joint down the road from my backpackers. Right at 9 I (and 5 others) were picked up by Bruce Storey, our wineland tour guide. The other 5 were consisted of; a young couple of Bristol, England; an older couple from the Netherlands; and an idiot lady from Florida. I'm actually yet to meet a person whose company I enjoy that's from Florida. I don't mean to paint a whole state with the same brush, but I've met a bunch of Floridians and have been none too impressed.

Anyways, I digress. We departed and headed to the Fairview Estate and tried 6 (I got a seventh from the cute little lady behind the bar) different wines, followed by an unlimited opportunity to take part in their homemade goat and cow cheeses. Delicious. From there we continued on to the family owned Villiera Estate to tour their wine making process. This particular winery is known for their champagne, so we had a couple varieties of that. Actually, Champagne is a name that can only be applied to French wines (like Bordeux or Port) so in South Africa it's called a Cap Classique. After several wines there, we continued on to the Beyerskloof Estate to visit the home of the Pinotage grape. In the 1920s, some guy here in South Africa successfully cross-pollinated a Pinot Noir plant with a Hermitage plant to make the now famous Pinotage. After a nice lunch and a trip to the cellar at Beyerskloof, (and several glasses of wine, port, and cap classique, we continued to Tokara to try their wines. These guys were far more stingy on their tasters than the previous wineries which makes them lose a few points in my book, but their wines were pretty good.

At the end of the day, we finished at a Belgian chocolatier's in Franschenbosch. The chocolates were really nice and a good way to end a day of drinking.

All in all, today was pretty great and worth the $50 value. I got to try over 30 types of wines, ports, champagnes, got lunch, and ate some chocolate, so I can't complain.

Tomorrow I'll probably walk to a beach and sun bask for a few hours before getting ready for the Rugby World Cup Finals. I've yet to decide who I'll cheer for, but it promises to be a pretty good game.

Mountains, Aquariums, and Winelands

My last several days have been enjoyable. Keira and I hiked Lion's Head on Monday morning, had a few cocktails (myself, Lynchburg Lemonades) on a deck overlooking the ocean, and had a nice dinner with her roommates that night.
On Tuesday, we got up early and met for some breakfast then went straight to the beach in Llandudno. (I hate to admit it, but my affinity for snow and mountains may be shifting towards the beach. I think if I could learn to surf then it would be locked in, but of the three times I've tried now, I can't get the hang of it yet.) After several hours of tanning on the beach and getting brown, a friendly right whale came about 50 meters from the beach and was just splashing around with his pectoral fins and tail for 30 minutes or so. It was pretty funny to just sit there and watch him faff around for the whole time. That late afternoon was spent shopping on Long Street before having to get ready for Keira's going away party. That night we went to a nice sushi restaurant for supper. Despite its attraction as a serious tourist desination, Cape Town is really quite cheap. That supper cost me $10 for 12 rolls, and a double T&T.
Yesterday, Keira flew to the UK to visit her family for a week, so I've lost my traveling buddy and tour guide. Shame. In the afternoon, I went to Two Oceans Aquarium down by the waterfront. It was fairly nice, but rather small actually. The neat thing about it though is that I'd seen several things in the aquarium as I had whilst scuba diving in Mozambique, so I think I enjoyed it a lot more. It's kind of nice walking around Cape Town and the aquarium listening to music like your own personal soundtrack. (It's been a lot of Elliot Smith, Beta Band, Radiohead, and Grandaddy as of late).
Tomorrow I head to Stellenbosch (the winelands) for a full day of wine, cheese, and chocolate tasting. I'm hoping for just a brushing over of the last two but more intense and involved investigation of the first one.
Saturday is the Rugby World Cup Finals between England and South Africa, so this town should be going insane on that night. This is like one step behind having their country in the Soccer/Football World Cup Finals. For fear of getting accosted, I'll be sure to cheer loudly for the South Africa Springboks.

M in Africa

As I'd previously stated, I spent a couple of weeks traveling with this guy Chris that left England 9 months ago and drove from there, to South Africa. He's had a lot of crazy stories and things happen to him, so if you'd like to see his story, or a map of the route he's driven to get here, click here to check it out. He's named his Land Rover 'M' in case you were wondering the significance of that.

Whole New Words

Since I've been traveling and hanging out with such a wide variety of cosmopolitan characters the last 6 weeks, I've been learning all kinds of words that are apparently in the English language that we don't have in the United States. Many of the words are fun to say if nothing else. Below is a short dictionary for those of you who'd like to expand your vocabulary and learn something new today.

Lekker: adjective: this exciting word is used to describe something as awesome or sweet, e.g. 'This weather/song/party/coffee is lekker, bru.' This is a word mostly used by South Africans.

Bru: proper noun: this word replaces the American words of bro or dude, e.g. 'Hey Bru, can you pass me the salt?'

Faff: verb: to muck around or waste time, e.g. 'Women are always faffing around in the bathroom doing who knows what.'

Potter: verb: synonymous with faff: 'I've just been pottering around the house all morning.'

Ming: adjective: to be disgusting, e.g. 'That towel is minging. That towel mings.'

Slapper: noun: a woman of loose morals or values, i.e. a floozy or skank, e.g. 'Look at that group of slappers that just walked in.'

Hoot: verb: to honk your car horn, e.g. 'The guy behind me is hooting at me.'

Cape to the Town

So here I am in Cape Town, South Africa. This is a very beautiful city located on the coast of the ocean and surrounded by mountains on the other side. I just got here yesterday after my ridiculously long bus ride (that really wasn't too bad) and got moved in to a backpackers. I got all cleaned up after a couple days of being unbathed and disgusting and then met up with two girls that I met in Mozambique to watch the England/France rugby match in the World Cup. I knew nothing of rugby a few weeks ago, and now I'm kind of getting into it. Tonight is the South Africa/Argentina game which should be entertaining to watch since the Springboks are the equivalent to the 'Dream Team' from Atlanta 1992 as far as excitement is concerned. People here love them.

Continuing with my lucky streak, one girl that I met in Moz, Keira, is from here and currently has no job so she's volunteering to take me out and be my tour guide to show me around the sites of Cape Town. I think we have a hike up Table Mountain and up to Lion's Head planned, and then I hope to go to the aquarium and botanical gardens as well. Since I have so long here, I'll probably leave the city and head out to the hills to go on a wine tasting tour in Stellenbosch and perhaps some spelunking at Canga Caves. As my mother always says, 'What vacation is complete without a bit of spelunking?' I don't know mother, I don't know.

As usual, I'm fine and healthy and look forward to seeing you soon.

Much love,
brett

Lesotho, Finished...

Right now I'm sitting in Bloemfontein, South Africa after having woken up at 5:30 this morning to get here. After my Maseru post, I got a ride to Semonkong where the lodge I was staying at was located. The 3 hour drive out there was great because we were driving through mountains the whole time. (Did you know that Lesotho is the only country in the world that is completely above 1000m in elevation?) It was nice to be in the crisp mountain air again for the first time in a couple of years. One thing I didn't count on was the cold factor since they just got out of winter. The first night I was in my tent, I slept for maybe an hour and a half or so because it was about 40 degrees farenheit.
That's ok though because the next day I went pony trekking for most of the day. Before you all laugh out loud, these ponies aren't like shetlands here, they're more like stunted horses. There was a large group of Dutch folks at the lodge and a few of them were in my riding group so that was entertaining hearing them speak the whole time. We spent the morning riding over some hills to get to this huge gorge with an 800 foot waterfall coming over one side of it. That afternoon I went out with the guide (the Dutch's bums were too painful for them to go back out)in the other direction over some mountains to see some other sprawling valleys and the spiral aloe plant that can only be found in Lesotho.
My second full day provided me with some of the funniest minutes of my trip thus far. I was heading out to hike to the bottom of the aforementioned gorge to watch some of the aforementioned Dutch abseil (rappel) along side the aforementioned waterfall (The longest abseil in the world according to Guiness). On the way out to the gorge, the lodge manager likes to play some music to pump up the abseilers. One particular song on the list was 'Paradise City' by G n' R. I don't know what could be funnier than sitting in a vehicle listening to five goofy Dutch singing as loud as they can in their goofy American accents to Paradise City. The whole time they were laughing and slapping each other on their backs. Axl Rose must be some sort of god in Holland.
From here, I must kill about 10 hours of time before getting on a bus tonight to head to Cape Town. Then, only 13 short hours to be confined on the bus and I'll be there. Luckily, I've made a couple of friends along the way that live in Cape, so I'll be able to meet up with them once I get there and they'll be able to show me all the hot spots. I reckon I'll update again in a day or two.

Help Wanted

Hello everyone-
Now is when I appeal to all of you to keep an ear open for me. Seeing how I've decided to return to Mozambique to do my Dive Master's Training, I've figured out that I need to make some money while I'm back home. I'm pretty easy to please, so if any of you hear of really any sort of job that I could work from late October until mid-January, that'd be cool. Seeing how I'm desperate, I'd be willing to work 60+ hours/week if that's what the job requires. Anyways, if you can help me out, I'll be forever indebted to you.

Maseru, Lesotho

Nothing too exciting has happened since yesterday. I was traveling from 10am till midnight when I finally reached Lesotho. I was really excited to sleep in today except for the fact that the ladies who ran the guest house (I was staying at the Anglican Church) woke me up at 6:15 to write my name in a book, 7:30 to see if I was still in the room, and again at 8:30 for the same reason. It was the closest I've been to losing my temper in a long time.
Oh well though, I finally got up and am now getting a few groceries before heading out to Semonkong to start my pony trekking adventure. It's actually pretty chilly here, but I'm looking forward to getting into the mountains where it will be undoubtedly colder. Luckily I've brought my stocking cap.

PS, the Cubs suck.

On The Road Again

Today I finally take off from Swaziland. We got Chris's Land Rover fixed and he'll be headed off to meet his family in South Africa. My time in Swaziland has been calm and relaxing. A couple of nights ago I went to a wedding party of a guy Chris and I met whilst playing pool at a local watering hole. We were playing for about 8 hours when the guy told us he was getting married and that he'd be honored if we attended his party. How could we pass that up? They had a cookout, music, and beer. Sounds like a good party to me.
I'm starting off to Johannesburg in an hour or so and hopefully will be able to jump on a bus headed to Lesotho immediately thereafter. I do not want to spend any unnecessary time in that city. Anyways, for the next several days I'll be riding across the mountains of Lesotho on my trusty steed, so I'll update you later on.

In The Royal Kingdom of Swaziland

As I type this, I'm sitting in Mbabane, Swaziland, the capital. I arrived yesterday with my three new friends, Chris, Jenny, and Keira. Unfortunately today, Jenny and Keira needed to proceed on to Johannesburg, so Chris and I have spent the day trying to fix his vehicle because he had a drive member on the back half shaft get worn down. Many of you are thinking, 'But Brett, you know nothing about fixing cars so why are you trying to use this technical jargon?' Right you are friends, but I've learned a whole lot in the last day whilst trying to help him fix his Land Rover.

Mbabane is a beautiful city surrounded by mountains at an altitude of about 3000 feet. It's weird because the last month I've been living at sea level on beaches, then just yesterday we left Mozambique and made the several hour drive here to Swaziland. Thus far, these are the most friendly people (the Swazis) I've met in all of my travels in Africa. Every single person I've talked with has been very kind and helpful. Tomorrow we'll get the parts we ordered from Durban, and in the afternoon go cliff jumping in the Ezwalu Valley about 30 km from here. I reckon I'll spend a two more days here before starting the trip to Lesotho.

As usual, I'll update whenever I get the opportunities. Take care and keep in touch.