Colors and my inability to describe them

I’ll sleep when I’m dead.
Or when we hit Maritzburg.

About a week ago, it sounded like a good plan.
My body, however, has begged to differ.
And it’s begged hard.

To the best of my knowledge, I have a sinus infection.
It’s been pretty rough as of late. Antarctica’s still giving the coast a hell of a time, and the cold weather makes it increasingly difficult to get better. This last Thursday, for example, we had an all day excursion to Stellenbosch, a world-renowned wine country two hours outside of Cape Town, and supposedly one of the most beautiful places on the entire continent. Not that we would know. With another cold front and wall of heavy storms, Mother Nature decided to keep us guessing.

We did, however, have the privilege of dining at Moyo, one of the nicest, most famous restaurants in all of South Africa…

For future notice, unless I note otherwise, phrases such as “world-renowned” or “famous” should be understood as “places that rich white people from America or Western Europe in search of some authentic African experience come to be served and entertained by locals working to support families off of meager incomes.”
Just to clarify.

…Although either my state of health or guilty conscious kept me from indulging too much, the food was undeniably marvelous. There were so many new things to try—ostrich, springbok, some fish whose name eludes me—and so little room in my stomach. Curses to you, mile-long five-star buffet line! There was even a show to boot.

Just my luck, though, Moyo was outdoors. In all fairness, we were underneath a large tent, with heaters and blankets. But to someone with a fever and chattering teeth, it might as well be the Yukon.

You see, the thing about the cold here is that there is virtually no escaping it. Everywhere you go is cold. Inside. Outside. It’s all the same. In many cases, like mornings at Cornerstone, it is actually much colder inside than out. There are two contributing factors to this nation-wide phenomenon.

1. Every South African I have met is obsessed with air circulation. And I mean obsessed. It can be raining and freezing with brutal winds and every window in the house will be opened. At my home stay the difference between my bed and room temperature was just short of a thousand degrees. It took Jordan and I about a week to figure out that Denise had been re-opening our windows every night. I tell you the truth; South Africa will not rest until every single hallway in the country is a certified wind tunnel.
2. Heaters. It’s not that people don’t have them. They do. In fact, most every house I’ve been in has had the same little white heating unit in the living room. It’s as if the product became immensely popular at some point in the mid-nineties, sold in record numbers, and then suddenly everyone realized that they had no idea how to use it—like the old wooden Nordic Track skier that hid out in our garage until about 2004.

And its not like we’re just being California sunshine-spoiled babies about this whole thing. Denise and Jacob have both told me on numerous occasions that this winter has been the absolute worst they can ever remember. And they both have dentures!
I mean I hear people everywhere complaining about the weather.
And then they go home, open their windows, and invite sister winter and all her friends over for tea.
I tell you it makes no sense.

All of this to say that its been a bit of a struggle to get better. Being out al day in the bitter wind and rain on Thursday certainly didn’t help. I have more or less been shivering, sweating, and coughing up my lungs since Wednesday night.

There is however, a silver lining:
Although my dependency upon blankets has forced me to spend my last Friday and Saturday night in Cape Town cooped up in the dorms, it has finally given me the time to give you all a long-overdue update on life in Cape Town.

And I promise it is not all as grim as I have made it sound.
Actually, far from it.

There have been so many good things going on down here. Unfortunately, much more than I have time for. If there is one flaw about the Cape Town portion of our trip, it’s that there are so many things to do and see and so little time to do them all.
I have only three full days left in Cape Town.
Three big papers to complete.
About five people—including Tom—to spend time with before we go.
And dozens upon dozens of places and things that I am still dying to experience.

You understand how sleep could become such a low priority?

There are so many things to bring you up to date on: beach days, Cape Town nights, home brews in the townships, climbing Table Mountain, cross-dressing political comedians, penguins, more time with Denise and Japie, and a trip to the tip of Africa.

Things will slow down in Pietermaritzburg.
I promise.
I will do my best to catch up on everything.

But for now I will leave you with this:

A week of rain and wind and cold in Cape Town is absolutely, positively worth one day of spring and sunshine.
A million times over.
This morning I felt well enough to drive with Tom and some others through Cape Town to Camps Bay. The drive, which I have taken several times now, never ceases to amaze me. Though any type of description I give will be little more than cheap, trite substitute, for now these words are the best I have to offer. Please bear with them:
Colors are never so vibrant in any city in the world as they are in Cape Town. Of that I am convinced. When you take the road into town, hugging and climbing the short side of Table Mountain and Devil’s peak, it starts to hit you. The mountains are an incredible green—no, about six different shades of it. The sky ahead is the kind of clear and unadulterated blue that no other city in the world has the privilege of owning, and the wind has kept it that way. Table Bay appears on the right, where new fishing boats sit atop old shipwrecks and a rich yet violent history of world trade and colonization. The distant view of the western coast of Africa certainly doesn’t disappoint, but this early in the morning, with the glare of the sun, the water does not strike you just yet. Instead, as you round one final curb and descend, the skyline appears. Nestled between the bay and the mountains, downtown Cape Town is almost completely detached from the surrounding metropolis. Intimate, yet bustling, the dynamic reds, yellows, pinks, oranges, blues, and greens of the cityscape demand one’s attention, especially against its beautiful natural setting. Modest homes (in stature mind you, not price) ambitiously scale the side of Lion’s Head and Rump, painting the earth like Jackson Pollock on a green canvas. You drive through the city streets and climb once more through these neighborhoods, the sun batting her eyes at us like a love struck Minnie Mouse as we pass through the trees…

Now you have to understand that to fully experience the beauty of Cape Town, you must have absolutely zero idea of where you are. I’ll put it to you this way—exploring the landscape of Cape Town is a bit like watching a visually and emotionally provocative movie that you can’t look away from; the ending is heartwarming, fulfilling, and thought provoking, yet somehow completely unexpected (It’s a shallow comparison, I know, but it’s 1 AM here so work with me). The gist is this. Because the city is built on a mountainous peninsula, there is absolutely no telling, no way of predicting when the story will end and when you’ll meet the mighty Atlantic—or Indian—Ocean.

…So you’re winding through the trees and between the mountains, completely absorbed in the beautiful land and colors: the green of the trees and mountains, the blue of the sky, the God-knows-what-color of the homes. And then something else stops you dead in your tracks.
It is the ocean.
But not just the ocean.
The purest and deepest blue ocean you have ever seen in your life.
This is no Caribbean blue, mind you.
This is no South Pacific blue.
This is no warm water, snorkeling, Carnival Cruise Line, blue
This is a deep and mighty and majestic ocean blue.
The kind of blue the ocean would wear if he were a Crip.
Now I respect the work of the good people at Crayola, but even they have nothing on this blue.
It is something far beyond anything my limited vocabulary has the ability to describe.
Come to think of it, not even Webster himself could do it justice,

And so this is where I stop trying.

I apologize for my long-windedness.
But for those of you who know me well, it should hardly come as ay sort of surprise.

I will do my best to get back to you all in the next few days.

Love you all.