Diving in [off] at the deep end [of the bridge].

Day # 3

After six hours on the train, 15 hours of flying and a six hour lay-over, I finally got into Cape Town Saturday lunchtime. I’m staying with a lady called Eleanor in the ‘Heathfield’ area, which is predominantly coloured (as is Eleanor and her granddaughter Carryn), about 40 minutes away from central Cape Town. There are six of us girls living in the house in total: Italian, British, Swiss-German and Australian-all participating in different projects around the city. The girls took me out to late lunch that day in ‘Camps Bay’ on the western coast of the city and we discussed their upcoming trip up the garden route to Blookrans Bridge to bungee jump off of the worlds biggest bridge bungee. They asked me to come along and by 10pm we were all piling into Michelle’s boutique hotel room-sleeping bag in hand-to get our heads down before the Garden Route drive at 4am.

I watched the sun rise against the black of the Cape mountains and gawped at every ostrich-inhabited field pretty much from Cape Town to Plettenburg Bay (some 324 miles). Spent the whole journey battling with myself as to whether I would actually throw myself 216 metres from a bridge, but with such a fantastic atmosphere out on the ledge created by the guys at ‘Face Adrenaline’ and my new housemates, I managed to rise to the challenge and conquer my fear of heights. And wow, what a feeling! The guys said I screamed quite a lot, but in all honesty most of it was that kind of exhilarated yelp like you’ve just realised you can perform magic or something.

We drove back to the house in time to get enough sleep for my orientation the next day-which was an absolute hoot! There are some really nice people on the program and, even though some will only be around for a couple of weeks, people make friends and bond really quickly. We spent the day picking up home comforts and things that we had forgotten-as well as getting out trendy new 100 rand mobile phones (less than £10) [can you detect the sarcasm in my voice?] but it’s better than getting thumped around the head for the sake of an iPhone.

Dinner at Eleanor’s house is always good. She’s such a fantastic cook, especially considering she caters for eight of us almost every night. Her butternut soup is to die for and it’s always a really homely atmosphere-all of us muck in with the washing up and laying of the table and as a treat one of the girls may have bought dohnuts or a milk tart for us all to share for desert. So tomorrow I start my first day at the Projects Abroad Human Rights Office (PAHRO) and that’s when the hard work starts…