How well do you know the Carpenters? See if you can figure out which of the following statements is NOT true about our extremely wild days in Capetown, South Africa!
Did the Carpenters….
1) Stride into a wildlife habitat to pet a 16 month old CHEETAH, with only a 115 pound female cheetah trainer and a nerdy high school intern protecting us from becoming Chester’s lunch?
2) Zoom around Capetown in the sidecar of two crazy motorcycle drivers while competing in a Capetown Amazing Race? (Chris and Marcy vs. Jeff and Ellie). We escaped from dungeons, built sand castles, raced on planks through the heart of the city (with dozens of school kids cheering us on and “helping”), decorated cookies… all against the clock!
3) Zipline 400 meters over water… falling at the end into ICE cold water wearing nothing but the speedos we bought in France? Then watching Marcy wakeboard around a lake at 20 mph, pulled by a complex set of pulleys 50 feet above her head? While Dad ate nachos?
4) Cycled through a wild pack of BABOONS against a 60 mph wind on the way to the southern most point of Africa, where the Indian and Atlantic oceans meet? Here’s the 411 on the baboons: if you don’t have food on you, you’re fine. If you have food on you, you’re toast. Luckily our guide told us this before we put on our helmets, so I remembered to pull the beef jerky out of my back pocket. FYI, that 10 seconds riding through those beasts was the biggest OSM (oh… shoot… moment) I’ve had on the ATW trip. Or ever.
5) Watched southern right WHALES breach, flap their fins in the water, and generally show off 50 feet away from us?
6) Looked out the same prison window that Nelson Mandela stared at for 18 years on Robben Island? Our guide was a former political prisoner who spent 7 years in the same wing as Mandela. It was an extremely moving and inspiring experience.
7) Stayed a short 9 iron away from the only 6 star hotel in Capetown (The One and Only… really, that’s the name), where big stars like Meryl Streep, Jeff Bridges, and last but not least, TAYLOR SWIFT!!! OMG!!! are currently staying? They’re filming a movie here now (The Giver), and we almost bought a high powered telescope to spy on their rooms. But then we figured it’d be too tough to fit in our backpack later.
8) Negotiated for priceless authentic (?) African artwork on the side of the road? You should have seen Marcy in action. She said, “How much?” They said, “1,000 rand (about $100 US). Marcy got them all the way down to $97 US. She asked our guide Ebrahim if she got a good deal, and he had the line of the trip: “Next time.”
9) Ate REAL Capetown wild animal cuisine such as SprinkBok, Wildebeest, Kudu, and Impala? Wish I could say more than it all tasted like chicken. But it all tasted like chicken.
10) Abseil (another term for “jump off”) over a cliff travelling 110 meters straight down from the top of Table Mountain, the highest mountain in Capetown?
11) Met the nicest, friendliest, most interesting people on the trip? From our trusted guide Ebrahim, who waited for us with drinks after our brutal 1.5 hour climb straight up Table Mountain, and helped make the trip 10X times better with his presence and talks about Apartheid and growing up in Capetown; to our cupcake-making coach Candy, who nervously confessed upfront that we were her FIRST ever clients, but who made the morning our most memorable with her sense of humor and passion for starting her business; to Willem and Candace, who taught us how to cook a real African meal over an open fire, and who were waiting for us with “surprises” at every Amazing Race stop.
The cheetahs and whales and baboons were awesome, but it was the PEOPLE of Capetown who made our visit so wonderful and beyond our wildest expectations. We will never forget it!
5 Responses to Ten Truths and One Lie in Capetown