A Wild Weekend

Well. I had quite the weekend.
A few friends and I went straight from work on Friday evening to the Waterfront cinema, where there's a fantastic South African film festival happening now. We saw a movie called "Umbilical Cords" about mother-daughter relationships across cultures. It was incredible! It seems like the film was rated well during the festival, so it will likely be coming to more countries soon. Keep an eye out for it! (P.S. hi mommy!! It made me think of you and miss you!)
Then Saturday morning we awoke bright and early to hop on a double-decker red sightseeing bus. We went everywhere from Camps Bay beach, where Leo DiCaprio vacations,

to the Constantia winelands. Groot Constantia is the oldest vineyard in South Africa. The vineyard is full of beautiful 17th century Dutch buildings and it's set in the rolling hills north of Cape Town. Unfortunately we had to catch the last bus back to Cape Town so we only had half an hour to rush through a tour and tasting! The wine guide thought we were quite hysterical and gave us free Groot Constantia wine glasses!

We ran back to the bus (bewaring of baboons, as per the signs posted all over the vineyard)

and an employee told us the driver wouldn't be there for an hour. While we moaned and groaned, he suddenly went up front and started driving. Capetonians love to make fun of us Americans..... we're so gullible.
We went down to the Waterfront for a ferris wheel ride and some dinner. One of my roommates got zebra and I tried a piece-- very tender but I'm not sure I'll try it again.
Sunday morning was the highlight of the weekend!!! We took the cable car up to the top of Table Mountain (1000 m above sea level) and then got hooked into harnesses and abseiled (repelled) down 362 feet! Insane!
We had a safety lesson and got to practice descending and jumping on flat ground.
Then it was time! We ambled over some rocks to get to the jumping off point. After we got hooked in, they had us lean over the mountain edge to test our safety harnesses------ terrifying!!!

I went down with my friend Melinda, who was even more petrified than I was. It took us both a moment to get going, but once we did, we had the most amazing view!! I got used to lowering myself and soon I was jumping happily down the rock face. Then, halfway down, the rock face just disappeared! We free-floated the rest of the way down. Yes, I did repel down THIS:

A little map to help orient you:

After everyone was safely back on land (albeit steep, slippery, rocky mountain land) we hiked back up to the top for about 45 minutes.

We were huffing and puffing by the time we got there, where we saw a sign pointing to the path up that we had taken, which read:

Oops. We took the hard path.
We had a quick lunch at the top of pizza and beer to celebrate, then headed back down and continued sightseeing the rest of the day!
We were all so sore when we woke up and went to work this morning, and I expect we will continue to feel this way for a while. Abseiling is tough work. It was a truly exhausting weekend, but I can't imagine having had more fun.
Soon I'll post about spending some time "out in the field" at work, interviewing grant recipients in some of the poorest neighborhoods around Cape Town, and also about more aspects of life here!
Stay tuned!

Oh, and we met a dassie at the top! It's closest relative is the elephant--- isn't it oh so obvious?
I may hike back up the mountain so I can get him and take him home with me. SOOOO cute.