so i guess i skipped a few weeks.

Hey there...if anyone's still coming here. Maybe you're out of the loop, but I'm back in the motherland. I suppose I kind of fell off the radar once we took off for Cape Town.

I won't go into details. My last month in South Africa was absolutely incredible. I left off in East London. To cram several days' worth of traveling into a minimal number of words, here's what we did:

From East London, we went to Port Elizabeth, where we got to stop in the township that Reagen grew up in and even meet a bunch of his family. We stayed in a beautiful hotel right on the ocean, danced in the sand, put our toes in the water and saw a ridiculously large thing like a waaaaay too big comet move through the air and disappear behind the mountains.

From Port Elizabeth, we headed to George, but first we stopped at the Bloukrans Bridge. This is the location of the world's highest bungee (or bungy if you're South African) bridge. Most of us did the 216 meter jump, including yours truly. Defintely an exilherating experience that I'm sure I'll never forget, but let me tell you, I'm about 399% sure that I'll not be repeating that experience anytime soon (read: before I croak).

We arrived to George and stayed at an incredibly gorgeous Christian conference center called Carmel. Seriously, the location was beautiful...our 2 days there were really nice, as we got to settle down a bit. It was the first time we'd stayed more than one night somewhere since the safari/Zulu experience.

While in George, we adventured to the Cango Caves...jaw-dropping. As if God didn't create enough cool sights on land and under the sea, he decided to take it a step further and carve under what He'd already given us. The caves were huge, the caves were tiny. One chamber we went into was big enough to fit a couple buildings inside...then towards the end we went through the letter box and the devil's chimney. That last one was so small that i couldn't even bend my knees as I pulled myself straight up the tube.

On that same day, we went to an ostrich farm. Yes. Ostrich farm. Who knew such a thing existed? While we were there, we learned all about ostriches, their life cycle, ostrich products. And a few lucky ones (ME, ME, ME!) learned how to ride an ostrich. It was so much fun and I'd do it again in a heartbeat!

Once our time in George was finished, we headed out to Cape Town. We finished our last course there and got a lot of culture in those few weeks. For half of the time, we stayed at Bible Institute in a suberb called Kalk Bay. We made some friends there and wandered the harbor town in our free time. For the other half of our time, we lived with homestay families in a township called Oceanview.

My family was absolutely amazing! I won't do them any justice if I try to tell you about them here, but I have so many stories that I'd love to share in person! They were such a blessing to me and there were many, many tears upon our goodbye.

And then that was it. We were down to our last 3 days in South Africa, to be spent all together in the city center of Cape Town. We debriefed together, explored together and nervously talked about home together. It was a fun few days, but a sad few days at the same time.

Our last night in Cape Town, though, we got to have a nice dinner together. Luke and Katleho, some of our friends from Bible Institute even came! They stayed after dinner, too, and we got to spend out last night in South Africa with South Africans.

Now as I've been sitting in my living room, watching the World Cup coverage, I've found that memories are flooding back to me with each shot of Cape Town or Durban. Hiking Table Mountain, seeing the Cape of Good Hope, penguins on the beach, watching our backs for baboons, the beautiful Indidan Ocean, the Rainbow Nation of South Africa. I wonder if I'll be back someday.

How do I end a blog like this? I guess there's no good ending, because though that leg of my adventure is completed, my life goes on. To keep up on what's happening now in life, follow me at www.hilaryhall.blogspot.com

Salani kahle!