laliandra | Under African Skies

I went to South Africa and as promised, bring back tales of Adventure. And I even managed not to cause any kind of international crisis (aren't you proud of me

mathsnerd ?), though not through lack of trying...

What you may or may not know about me is that I was actually born in South Africa, in the vibrant city of Johannesburg, to two half South African half British parents, and we left when I was three-ish. I have lots of family over there, now including my Dad who is currently on some sort of Gap Year slash extended jolly slash who knows. This meant that I got to go on a family visiting, cricket watching, showing the boyfriend the homeland and most importantly escape to the sunshine kind of a trip. And it was glorious.

Of course, first we had to get over the trial that is long haul flying. We went via Dubai, which is cheaper, but longer, but meant that I got to see the sun rise over The Gulf of Persia, which has to be one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. And there was the usual constant feeding and more movie choice than you could ever know what to do with. Me and Nat only spoke at meal times!

Nat: Oh hey, what are you watching?
Lal: The Star Trek reboot. It's so awesome! You?
Nat: The September Issue. It's about Vogue magazine. It's pretty cool.
Nat and Lal: *look at each other*
Lal: This is why we confuse people.

After almost 24 hours of travelling we arrived Cape Town, utterly confused by life, and met my Dad who seemed in a similar state, only without any such excuse!

We arrived at our guesthouse and so began the theme of having all South Africans everywhere inform us of the weather back home. The guest house was pretty cool by night, but in the daylight it was even better because, look! Table Mountain!

We spent three days in Cape Town, which is a pretty amazing city, between the sea and the mountains as it is. We went to the cricket to watch England be mediocre, we drove to where two oceans meet, we sunned ourselves under palm trees.

One day we went to Boulder's Beach and we saw PENGUINS. Real little adorable penguins, that you can walk about with on the beach and see their little penguin houses!

We spent that evening having a braai with my unofficial god-father, who is now retired from his job as South Africa's foremost black drag queen. Also present, two singers, one actor/director, who later on fetched the leads from the play he's putting on in Cape Town, and Dad's friend Michelle from drama school, who was in a South African soap opera until very recently when she was blown up in a gold Mercedes (job hazard, apparently). My godfather tried to persuade me to move to Cape Town and become a French dialect coach. I was very tempted, y'all. Nat not only survived but held his own against the sheer force of personalities present, which was no mean feat, I can tell you. Sadly, he did not join in with our impromptu performance of the hits of Guys and Dolls and A Chorus Line.

My Godfather: You have got to teach this boy more about musicals!
Dad: Just when you thought this evening couldn't get any gayer...

The next day Nat and I ~~got rid~~ said goodbye to Father and got our tiny hire car and set off out Epic Drive. We spent a day in the Cape Valley district, which contains two of my favourite things HISTORY and WINE.

We went wine tasting and church viewing and I gave Lawrence the condensed version of The History of South Africa aka Why Everyone Hates Everyone, With Added Massacres and Diamonds The Size of Your Head and Look, It's Just Complicated, We Have Eleven Official Languages, okay.

The next day we drove the Garden Route, which winds along the southern coast of South Africa, through forests into bays that all seem to be trying to outdo each other for beauty. Sadly, our soundtrack to this adventure was South African radio, which, well, it's not good. They like a lot of really bad 80s rock that the rest of the world has tried very hard to forget, and a lot of RnB. Also Afrikaans music. Try to imagine really low budget country and western, sung in Dutch. Oh yes. Se we listened to the Top 40 a lot.

Car:*rounds corner*
Lal: *squeaky noise of delight*
Nat: I know, best view yet, I think.
Lal: No, no! Adam Lambert is at number 5!
Nat: ...
Lal: *sulkily* The internet will think this is cool.

FYI, this was the view. And yes, it was FYE at number 5...

Then we stayed for three days in the lovely, lagoon-side town of Knysna (that n-eyes-na, btw) in the most amazing guesthouse. I mean, it already looked amazing and we'd got it on the cheap but when we arrived the owner informed us that they were really sorry but they had to upgrade us. To the honeymoon cottage. With its own private pool.

I know

Lal: You do realise eveyone else here thinks we're married?
Nat: I can put up with that for my own pool.

Mostly what we did in Knysna was sit by the pool and read and chill out and nap and sunbathe. Let me tell you how very, very much we did not want to leave. There were dogs that came and lay by the pool with us and they made different kinds of pancakes every day for breakfast. And did I mention the pool?

Nat: Do we have to goooo?
Lal: We have to see my family. Stupid family.

So we drove. Drove away from Knysna to the Free State.

The FreeSate looks like this. Which is incredible, I love African Skies and the vastness of it, and the colours. The way the road goes on forever on.

But after 10 hours. Hmmm. We played Eye-Spy about half way across the Free State. It turns out you can play ten rounds. There are ten things to see in the Free State.

Still, we got to Jozi, Johannesburg, and met my charming, crazy family. In Johannesburg there is my Dad's brother, his wife and my two cousins. The last time I saw them they were adorable, slightly bratty tweens. Now they are full on teenage girls, aged 14 and 16. They still let me call them by the nicknames we gave them when they were tiny though, and they are pretty cool. Of course.

10 mintues after we arrive
Cousin Belle: OMG, your boyfrind is MEAN. I'm putting him on notice.
Lal: On notice?
Cousin Belle: Yeah, like Stephen Colbert!
Lal: *<3*

There is not a great deal of tourist stuff to do in Johannesburg, I'll be honest. But we hung out with various relatives, played with the dogs and trailed round giant shopping malls. Me and Nat also starred in an advert for concrete! My uncle is a camera man and needed some people to walk around in front of things made of concrete looking charmed by the world and specifically the concrete parts of it. Joburg is mine, my home city, but it is messy and dangerous and full of problems and crime. But oh, it's mine.

We also watched a lot of TV, my personal highlight being when me and my cousin Millie conspired to watch the Bad Romance video three times in a row because we felt that we still had a lot to say about it.

We also went to another day of cricket. England versus South Africa is always fun for me because I get to cheer for both teams. Ah, dual citizenship! What was cool was that they let you onto the field at lunchtime to mess around and inspect the wicket. From a respectful distance, of course.

Sadly, then it poured with rain, a proper Joburg thunderstorm where you get 6 inches of rain in half an hour. You could see it coming over the city.

That's the Hillbrow Tower with the football on. The World Cup has taken over my country in an all consuming way. I just hope we're ready on time...

And then we had to come home. Which was extremely upsetting. England is cold, y'all. Luckily we missed most of the Snowpocalypse, but still. I had a wonderful, wonderful time, even though I missed you all very much.

In short, South Africa I &hearts U