A few weeks ago we took a trip to Plettenberg
Bay. The area is a few hours outside of Cape Town and is known for its natural
beauty and tourist attractions. After spending weeks here immersed in the study
of human rights it was nice to have a change of pace. We left on a Thursday
after our classes at UCT and stayed through Saturday afternoon. Those few days
were packed with a bunch of visits to various places and a lot of fun.
After our first night staying over, we spent the
morning touring a cavern. After exploring the different chambers and rock formations
we continued on to an elephant sanctuary. It was a relatively small park where
a herd of elephants is protected from poachers and trained to interact with
tourists. This was one of my absolute favorite parts of the trip. I love
elephants, and was ecstatic to be able to feed and touch them. Even though we
had seen them at Kruger, it felt surreal to me to actually stand next to one.
Something about it seems so a part of the quintessential African experience
(which, granted, is an artificial construction of what Africa is all about but
nonetheless is pretty cool). The next day was the one everyone had been waiting
for—bungie jumping. I, however, did not go. Instead, I went zip lining with
Janiel, Gerard, and Brianna. It wasn’t quite the same adrenaline rush, but I
had so much fun! I was energized and relaxed at the same time, and got to
experience the natural beauty of the place.
As fun as all the things we did were, for me the
best part was being able to spend a lot of quality time with everyone. This was
one of the rare times where almost everyone from the trip got together outside
of a planned program activity. When I first sat down to write this entry, I
planned to comment on how privileged we are to do fun frivolous things, and how
even some people who worked at these places were unhappy because they don’t get
paid a decent salary. While all of this is still true and was in the back of my
mind the whole time, I really see this experience as a time of bonding rather
than a time of grave reflection. I am so thankful for the people on this trip
I’ve grown close to and couldn’t be more excited for these friendships to
follow me home.
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