South Africa, and home!

Ladies and gents, a quick note from a mildly bashful world traveler:

I love South Africa. Now, I believe my opinion on everything, from public transportation to the quality of food to the English language is entirely biased by the fact that I've spent most of a year in absentia from most of these things... but WOW. Cheese and wine? Ham sandwiches? Dare I say, chicken burrito and nachos? Oh, and busses/trains that have schedules that are actually followed, and coffee shops that serve cute little lattes in cute little mugs, and (wonder of all wonders) menus and street signs that I can actually read!!!

Yes, friends, yours truly, the seasoned, hardened world traveler who would rather sleep in a bed that smells slightly of cat than pay $2 more for a nicer hotel room... has been ever-so-slightly (ok, head over heels) charmed by the wonders of modern cities. With slight embarrassment, I admit, I have been drinking aforementioned lattes at least 2x a day, sitting in little window fronts watching people with a little voice providing commentary inside my head: "Wow, so that's what a fashionable person looks like (mental note: boots and tights)" and "Look at all the white people (mental note: can't say that out-loud anymore)!" and "I wonder how long I can sit here before they kick me out (mental note: yep, 5 more minutes)?"

So, yes, I'm very much enjoying my time in S Africa. After a week spent in Johannesburg, hanging out with a girl I met while working in Greece, I flew down to Cape Town and have been absolutely eating up this adorable city and surrounding suburbs. (About that flying, lest you think I'm getting lazy [or, more generously, classy] in my old-traveling-age, I DID try the bus and the train first, only to find out they were sold out of economy class train tickets -- I will take the economy class back to JoBurg -- and flying was actually CHEAPER than sitting on a bus for 19 hours. Which after the 36 hour bus-ride-from-hell that was my trip from Malawi just wasn't going to happen.) So, back to what I've been doing in CT, I spent a day wandering around the bookshops, cafes, and fish-and-chip-eries of Kalk Bay a lovely seaside town, after visiting the penguins (cute!!!) down on the coast. I spent another day on a lovely wine and cheese tour of Stellenbosch and surrounding areas, accompanied/led by one of my best Couchsurfing hosts ever, a lovely woman names Svea. who I stayed with for the past few days. Another day I wandered around the Botanical Gardens (I am going to make the best old person, I've decided, since I already have such a love for little manicured gardens with information tablets and knitting and tea and going to bed early after watching the evening news and well balanced meals and sweaters...) and Cape Town center and waterfront. Which brings me to today, a day to be spent looking at the nice view from my new CSer's place and planning my assault on Table Mountain tomorrow (to be completed by cable car if I can't find anyone to hike with me). Saturday I start that 27 hour train ride back to Joburg, and Monday...

I leave to come home!! Friends, marking my 13th month-i-versary, I shall be embarking on a more-than-24hour long trip to return to the USA (via Cairo). I'm excited, nervous, unsure what to expect. and a number of other emotions I can't seem to pin down. My former WT companion Em has given me a little insight as to what to look forward to, since she did this a few weeks back, but I can honestly say that I expect the experience of being back and seeing all you wonderful people to be like nothing I've done before... and I'm super-stoked to get it underway. I knew that as soon as I bought a ticket, those few weeks back in Malawi, I would be extremely focused on my departure date (honestly, I don't know how WTK held out for so long after knowing when she'd be back)... and it's true, I've been struggling to maintain a connection to this world-traveler thing since knowing that I'd be leaving this lifestyle (a hiatus, not permanently, of course) in less than a month. I figured, well, if it was going to be over so soon, why not NOW... and kept figuring that. My final month was split into such clear sections, and so few of them... that it was so easy to focus on that ending sequence of trips before The Flight...

But anyway, here we are. I'm almost finished with this stage in my travels, I'm excited to see all of my friends and families... and I'm relieved that I have another adventure planned only a month after I get back. Because I can't see myself settling down quite yet (surprise surprise), and think it's about time that I give the states some of this wanderlust energy. Plus, I'm going to gain like 12 kilos eating everything I haven't seen in over a year, including sushi and American breakfast, and I'm going to need this long-ass bike trip to work it all off.

I'll be embarking on a rather ambitious series of phone calls when I get home, so if you want to be on the list, drop me an email with your number since I don't have any anymore!

Lots of love, and see you on the flipside...

WT Scott