_First of all, thanks to everyone for giving their opinions/e-mails about traveling abroad. Keep the opinions coming.

_Anyway. After I’d rinsed my mouth out a few times and gotten the taste of soap out, I took a nap and then headed to the braai. The Afrikaans word “braai” is their word for barbecue and it means the event, the actual barbecuing structure and the action all at once. They’ve made an art out of it. I didn’t have any meat to throw on the grill, but I figured I’d hang out and see who turned up.

_It turns out that most backpackers in South Africa have bars and/or some access to alcohol attached to them so that I could take advantage. So I’m sitting there around the fire, drinking a beer when an Australian/English/French/Irish overland adventure group turns up with their ostrich burgers. So I’m talking to them (and Sexretary, I totally understand all of your criticisms of Australian guys now), watching the fire when the Norwegians, Dutch and Germans show up and throw their kebabs on the grill. So I found myself getting drunk with a representation of the entire English speaking world and about 2/3rds of the European Union. I had a couple beers, many glasses of boxed wine and then passed out about the same time that the adventure group started playing Uno.

_The next day I found the BazBus full of Americans, some of which are at Rhodes on study abroad. It’s a small world. The next leg of my trip was to take me to some place called Mossel Bay. I had no idea about it, but I figured there would be a beach involved, so that sounded right to me.

_Along the way we got to witness one of the natural wonders of South Africa: the shanty town. And I mean shanty. We passed these hills, not ten minutes outside of beautiful cosmopolitan Plettenberg Bay covered in nailed together wooden shacks that looked like a strong wind would blow them down. Every once in a while we’d see a sign for a soup kitchen or a shanty with a sign that said “Office” on it. Welcome to Africa.

_So we kept going along the Garden Route. And this is why I hate travel logs. What am I really supposed to say? “The scenery was beautiful. In Wilderness you can go parasailing. In Mossel Bay, just like the rest of the world, the sea is blue. In fact, the sky is blue as well. This may come as a shock to you since you’ve never opened your eyes once since you’ve been born.” As it turns out, Mossel Bay is like every other family vacation beach town ever. There are kids and grandparents. There are some cute girls watching the surfers. There are overpriced restaurants with underpriced lunch specials. There are kids riding bikes and teenagers driving around playing their music too loud. There was a guy sticking fliers under the windshield wipers of the cars in the parking lot. So enough with the boring details that you can imagine. I’ll post some pictures once I get my disposable developed and you can see for yourself.

_On to bigger and better things: drinking stories.

_Once I got settled at the backpacker in Mossel Bay, I went out looking for something to do. Most of the town was either quiet or closed, but as I passed one pub I noticed two girls walking in so I figured it was my best bet. When I got inside, the girls were dancing at the bar and laughed when they saw me watching them. Then, without saying a word to me they bought me a shot. I like Mossel Bay. So I introduced myself and we started talking and playing with the one other customer’s dog. The girls also bought me a beer, so I snagged the guy who was selling those cheap plastic-sheathed roses and I bought each of the girls a rose. I couldn’t tell whether they were really flirtatious or really drunk already. It was either or. They said that they were going to watch a movie and then come back to the pub to meet me, but I was kinda skeptical that any movie viewing would actually happen. After they left I went back to the backpacker.

_The braai at the backpacker was the receptionist’s boyfriend and his buddies talking about surfing while the receptionist’s kitten ran around the yard. I bought myself a beer and watched the cat for a good twenty minutes since I had nothing to add to the surfing conversation. Inside I met the other two people in my dorm room, who happened to be two Canadian school teachers. We talked for a bit over our beers until some random Afrikaans lady came in and started telling us her life’s story. She told us how she went four days through the Nambian desert on only one liter of water a day. She told us how after one day she traded the rest of her water to the other travelers for their stash of beers. My kind of lady. Then she told us how if global warming continues, most of South Africa will be under water. Then she left us on that happy note.

_The Canadians and I decided that we needed a drink. We decided to kill two birds with one stone and go to the pub where I was supposed to meet the rose girls later. Of course, in South Africa, the term “a drink” translates roughly into “get wasted out of your mind.” The one drink turned into a couple drinks turned into shots of Jaegermeister turned into shots of Stroh, which is the best way not to remember how you got to bed the next day. I told them all my best stories, we talked about the differences between South African sports and American sports, we pretending to support Manchester United as they played Porto FC (who the hell is Porto FC?) We got very drunk. The rose girls never showed up, but who knows. After a shot of Stroh on top of six or seven beers and an empty stomach, standing up is kinda hard, so I stumbled home kinda early. They might have shown up later and I had no idea.

_I woke up surrounded by school teachers from Michigan and had breakfast with them in the backpacker. I had some time to kill before BazBus got there, so I went out to get some food, buy a disposable and take some pictures. I went back to the same pub, cause hey, it was open, and knocked a couple back while I waited to be picked up and taken to the final destination: Cape Town.

- Kid