Maddy glad she didn't let reservations hold her back

We left for Cape Town about a month ago and I can’t believe how fast time is going and how many things we have already done. This weekend we went on the Garden Route. Driving through the towns of the Garden Route I noticed how different it was from where we have been saying. The towns we drove through and stopped in were small scenic towns that all seemed very safe and quaint. You didn’t see every house surrounded by a fence or piles of garbage alongside the road. In Cape Town, one must take extra precautions when walking on the streets such as keeping your bag close to you and not having your phone in your hand yet in these towns I didn’t think twice about it. I was also surprised when looking out the window that the people walking the streets were many different races. The towns in Cape Town are still very segregated and when someone names a town or township one can automatically know if it is a colored, black, or white area. However, in these towns it seemed like there was a mix of people at least walking the streets.

Though we did a lot of driving along the Garden Route, I did not mind it because of the beautiful places we went through. We would go from lush mountains to a flat, sandy farm with one single tree standing in the middle of it within minutes. Our tour guide we had was also great and shared fun facts the entire time, let us in on many of the local places he likes the best that tourists don’t know about, and even brought us to many places that weren’t included in the trip but he still wanted us to see. One of the highlights of the trip was bungee jumping. Many of us ended up going which I think made us all feel better. The guys who worked there were great and pumped us all up to jump off the world’s tallest bungee bridge. I knew all along I was going jump no matter what but I thought I wouldn’t actually like it. However, I thought it was so much fun and am so happy I did it. Time went so slowly as I was falling and it was almost peaceful to be in the middle of nature with nothing else around. Another highlight of the weekend is when I went to the Cango Caves. I have gone into caves before on a tour yet this one included crawling and climbing through small cracks and spaces in the caves and I am not always good with tight spaces. Once again it helped having others with me. At first, looking at the small cracks were intimidating because it seemed impossible for a body to fit through them but as I did it was so fun and I’m glad I didn’t let my reservations hold me back.