The Spare Time Dilemma

After my usual work day, I go to the cottage where I do a number of little things to occupy my time. Mostly, I study. But since I moved into my new place, I have acquired a collection of movies which have helped entertain me; I try not to watch too much. I also have Rant and Haunted written by Chuck Palahniuk which are a couple of fantastic books for a guy who doesn't read enough. In case you don’t know who Palahniuk is, he is the writer of Fight Club and many other dark, twisted plot lines. I absolutely love his stories. Completely unpredictable and always something new. 

When I’m not reading or watching a movie, I could also be found writing these blogs, working on other writing assignments, or becoming a master at all the solitaire games and minesweeper. I’m just about an expert on them all. To accompany these activities, I have come to "fancy" a cup of rooibos tea every morning and night. Rooibos is the national tea here and can be found worldwide. It is pretty big. It is supposed to be super beneficial by helping prevent cancer, protect the liver, boost the immune system, relieve allergies, and treat digestive disorders. I gave in and purchased some “biscuits” or cookies to dip in the tea. Actually, the locals have a special biscuit called rusk. Rusk is a fairly stiff, thick, heavy block of a cookie. It’s actually really good but it clearly is made for dipping, otherwise it’s a bit hard and dry to bite into if you don’t.

On the weekends when I'm not busy being rained in, I choose to hike the mountainside. After I hike, I usually do Insanity-Cardio Abs workout which has become an every other day routine, typically on the days I take my baths because I have one towel and it needs to hang dry. Anyways, the cottages I am staying at are right on Kirstenbosch estate. The estate consists of the garden along with the surrounding mountainside. I generally go up and hike contour path which stretches across the middle of the mountainside. It seems like flights and flights of stairs to get up to the path but there are a lot of great views and trails that split off to take you up the mountain or down to the gardens. Last time I went, I had to bring my camera with me to photograph some cool stuff like the view of the Cape Flats, some shelf fungi, and obviously the native flora I encounter. Not too many insects to be found for me to really include them in the list of things I was observing. The coolest thing about this mountain is this specimen here:

This is Erica hirtiflora. It was on our plant list in week 1 and now I can really understand why it’s so important. If you look up at the higher elevations of the mountainside, you can see it is painted with pink. Kind of difficult to see in my pictures, but in person the pigment is very noticeable. All the pink on the mountainside is Erica hirtiflora. This is one of the erica’s with remarkable panicles of urceolate flowers which create bright dense structures of color. Similar to Erica formosa, which actually make a shaking sound in the wind. Absolutely stunning to be able to observe them up close and personal.

One weekend I am planning on hiking up skeleton gorge with Corona and reaching the top of the mountain. I think that will take place in a couple weekends. We are waiting for the rain to let up and the path to be less slippery. The pathways up the mountain are seriously just staircases.

I also go to the stores every now and then. We mostly go to Claremont which is a pretty nice area with a sizable mall. In the mall they have all sorts of food shops, apparel stores, electronic stores, vendors, the typical things you see at the mall. We tend to go mostly for the Pick n’ Pay (grocery store). I have stepped foot in Woolsworth, but that store is a little pricier and displays a fewer selection of food but a larger selection of clothing and other accessories.

Pick n’ Pay is a fairly standard store with a few minor exceptions. First off, when you select produce, someone weighs, ties, and price stickers the bag for you. Get this, 20 Rand for 5 massive avocados. It’s like saying, 2 bucks for 5 softball sized avocados. Yeah, I’ve been chowin’ down on those. Next, the bread section is consists of 2 options: Brown or White. That’s pretty much it. They do have a bakery section for fresh baked goods, just like the have a meat department and pharmacy as well. Here’s the third interesting change at this store, alcohol sales. In the store, you can buy wine, everything else is sold in an extension/Pick n’ Pay liquor store located just outside of the main store. Okay that’s not too bad. The big change, alcohol is only sold between 9am and 6pm, Monday through Saturday. No sales on Sunday. Apparently alcoholism is a big issue in South Africa and the Western Cape is the only region to implement this law.

The other day, my cottage had a dinner party where we cooked woerst and beans with pup and chakalaka. I guess this is a typical South African dish. The translation of that is: sausage in beans, with maize meal and…chakalaka. Chakalaka is like a spicy and delicious veggie stir-fry with onions, carrots, chilis, tomatos, masala, and peppers that can be a side dish to your meal to add flavor and kick. The meal was super good. I definitely got that recipe togo. When Ryan and I went to the mall to get the drinks for our party, he also took me to a biltong vendor. Biltong is similar to beef jerky but the meat is uncooked before you dehydrate it. It’s like eating jerky shavings. I got springbok, kudu, beef, and beef with chili. Really delicious stuff. Ryan actually bought some ostrich biltong and beef woerst…something which is like a dehydrated sausage. It looked funny, but tasted great.

I figured I oughta announce what I’m drinking here too. I’m really trying to live the typical South African lifestyle while I’m staying here. Like buying local beers instead of imported. Things like Windhoek, Tafel, Castle, and Hansa. I have yet to try Black Label though which apparently gets you really wasted, really fast. I hear mixed reviews about it. As for hard alcohol, Ryan had me buy Sherry. It’s sweet and tastes a bit like a brandy malt drink. The locals drink that to keep warm in the winter. Another local favorite is Amarula. Amarula is a liquor made from the fruit of the Marula tree. It’s a thick, creamy liquor and is one of South Africa’s top exports. It tastes great in your morning coffee or, how we are drinking it, with hot chocolate. You can’t even taste the alcohol, just the taste of the marula fruit. Fun fact, the fruit falls off the tree and begin to ferment rather quickly. So all the wild animals hang out by the marula trees during the fruiting season to eat the fruit and end up getting completely inebriated in the process. The same guy that made the honey badger video on youtube has a similar post on this subject as well.

That seems to be the usual daily activities. Unfortunately, Kirstenbosch is a little out of the way for a lot of cool things and the weather has kept us from doing a lot of adventures as well, but hopefully it lets up in the next few weeks.