For me, returning to South Africa felt like falling into a dream, some odd liminal space between past and present.
I didn’t realize how significant the country was to me until I was talking to my current, and frequent, travel companion, Gleb, on our way there. We talked about how it was the place we’d really begun our friendship. It was a wine tour to the north of Cape Town that bonded us, though we didn’t even know it at the time.
We didn’t realize that a day of riding around in a van and getting drunk on local wine would change the course of our lives, in ways that we couldn’t even imagine.
That goes for a lot of things in life. One day, one place, one moment can be the pivotal point that leads into the rest of your life and it’s only when you look back, years later, that you can appreciate the simplicity that helped to define a complex series of events that changed you into who you are in the present moment.
On a similar wavelength, during another moment of reflection that night (and after many gin and tonics during our 15+ hour flight), I also realized that South Africa is the place where Max and I truly solidified our friendship, on a trip up Table Mountain with our mutual friend, Jenna.
It’s funny, because as I’ve begun to spend more and more time in Chicago this past year, I can see these two friends (Gleb and Max) becoming even bigger parts of my current daily life. It happened in a way that would have blown my mind had I had a chance to glimpse into the future, from my station as a 19-year-old studying abroad, and exploring the world, with so many new people.
So many beginnings, that I never really connected until I was headed back to South Africa, for the first time in four years, had happened in this space.
Cape Town
This was my first time returning to one of the exact cities that we’d traveled together to, years ago on Semester at Sea, and our first night back saw us standing in a bar that so many of our friends had been to, including Gleb, but that I’d missed on that first trip. What a way to kickstart these odd, parallel moments that would take place, years after we’d all been students running around new cities each week.
After dinner, at the all-too-familiar waterfront, I finally got to experience a moment so similar to one that happened years ago, but that I wasn’t a part of at the time, and I got to do it with someone who was there, with so many of our friends, and got to feel that moment when it truly began. To Gleb, it was going back. To me, it was finally experiencing a night out from the past, with years of space separating two such similar moments.
On our second day in town, on New Year’s Eve, we sat at a sushi place that was a sister location to the one I’d frequented during my first time there. We talked about our year, as we looked ahead to a new one, and reflected on how the past few years had brought us back to this place that could potentially kick off a whole new chapter of our lives.
By New Year’s Day, we were once again on top of Table Mountain, spending an evening watching the sunset. I was back in the place where I’d first begun to truly develop one of my best friendships, one that led to the last year of my life being full of international trips, visits to Chicago, and all of the other creative endeavors that may have stemmed from conversations that followed that first day exploring the top of Table Mountain.
I marveled at the fact that I was witnessing the sun set from the top of a place where I’d last been shrouded in clouds and coldness, when an impromptu middle-of-the-night hike showed us that mother nature had other plans than allowing us to witness the sunrise that had inspired us to get up so early in the first place. That hike, climbing my first mountain, encouraged me to find more ledges, push more boundaries, and become more well-versed in the mountains of the world. Now, after 4 years, I got to reflect back on that morning that I had spent sheltering from the brutal wind with 3 of my other ‘new best friends,’ huddling in the shells of wooden waste cabinets whose trash cans had been locked inside for the night.
Now, the cold was a welcome, crisp addition to our time on the mountain. As I watched the sun fade, I felt time pass by. It occurred to me just how long it’s really been since we were barely adults, forming friendships that would stand the test of time, distance, and world events, and somehow become even stronger than they were in those moments when we were everything to each other.
Cape Town was a beautiful first place to kick off a trip full of reconnection. It broke barriers and rebuilt them, it changed the way we found ourselves talking about the world and our current stations in life. As we headed to our next destination, a new place for me, I knew that the complexity of this trip would only continue to grow.
Knysna
It was surprising to see how quickly a trip of reminiscing turned into something that felt entirely new, as we moved on to Knysna, someplace I’d never been, but that Gleb had. This stop gave him the chance to revisit one of the locations of his second study abroad experience of college, and I can only imagine what that personal experience was like for him.
On our first night, we went to a restaurant that he’d wanted to go to years ago, but that had been vetoed by his travel companions. The perfect bridge between new and old- someplace we both had yet to experience, but that held some significance for him, in some way, all the same.
As we spent our first full day exploring a nature reserve, Gleb made sure to be the first of our group to make it down the hidden steps that jutted off of our hike and led us to the ‘secret’ sea caves below. His ability to revisit the place with old knowledge created a more individual, memorable experience for my first time there.
Here, we also realized that we’d never actually spent so much solo time constantly together. I think it was an important moment for our friendship, as we worked to navigate a constant togetherness that hadn’t even occurred during all of my extended stays at his studio in Chicago over the past year. During those stays, we were busy with work and seeing all of our other friends, really only individually together for a few hours a day.
There’s a lot to be said for quality time, probably my top love language, but its also true that too much of a good thing can turn sour. It was a great opportunity to address some of our personal reactions and styles of coexisting, something that is a good inner reflection for everyone to have at one point or another.
We both work remotely, so we primarily spent our evenings during this trip working, and using the time difference from the US to break for ‘lunch’ and enjoy dinners by the water. Knysna was the first location where we experienced load shedding, the country’s response to an antiquated power grid, which leads to electricity (and internet) shutoffs multiple times a day. So, for hours at a time, we had to practice that idea of flexibility that we used to be so often reminded of on our trip around the world.
Those moments reminded us how much had changed, even since the last times we had both visited when load shedding was not yet in place, but instead, there was a drought that affected all aspects of the visit. Now, we had water, but the power was being conserved in its place.
Funny enough, it poured during the rest of our time in the town. We explored beaches that were emptier than usual and found a cafe that became a go-to spot for us to journal, and eat, and talk about life even more. It was a new place, but it was the same in many ways as all the others that have allowed us to reconnect with each other over the years.
Leaving was sad, but we talked about how we both know that it’s somewhere we’ll be back to- which is such a privileged thought, in its own regard.
Stellenbosch
In our next location, Stellenbosch, I was plunged suddenly back into a world that I used to be in, not only when Gleb and I became friends, but later on, as recently as 4 months ago. I had ties to this place through my first full-time job, post-college, where I worked as a program advisor with a study abroad organization sending students to the university located here.
It felt like I was doing a site visit for work all of a sudden, as I took notes to send to my old coworkers about a job that I no longer have, but still so strongly resonate with.
The Spice Route
Our first full day in Stellenbosch, after a first night of remotely working around load shedding and grabbing a late dinner, brought a flood of memories rushing back in.
We spent the day at The Spice Route, the winery that had been the focal point of our group wine tour, and the place that, ultimately, was the reason that we were back in this country together, with the friendship that we now have. It had been tripping me up to spend time in Cape Town, revisiting familiar places, but this was a different game altogether.
We were back at the source. We could pinpoint where this, our current friendship, my current lifestyle, and the inspiration for that exact moment of return, had been catalyzed.
That feeling is not an easy one to detail, because how do I describe being back in a place that directly impacted the course of my life in some odd way? Had I not been there in that moment, years ago, with that specific group of people, there’s a good chance that Gleb and I would have never become more than acquaintances. Later moments that helped to build our friendship may have never had that necessary basis to occur.
Had we not been together in that same spot over 4 years ago, I wouldn’t have one of my best friends, one half of my faithful Chicago hosts, nor the ability to even attend this trip that would cost so much money without the absolute gift of the United flight benefits that he’s so graciously letting me use.
It’s funny to see certain parts of your life come before you and to see how the little moments truly did build up to the bigger ones.
Anyway, we also got really drunk because we were having great conversations with the bartenders and, as a result, were getting lots of free drinks on top of the bottles of wine, beer, and gin that we’d tasted throughout the day.
Oh, and we also got the chance to order a certain pizza that we’ve both been dreaming about since then. Maybe it was all the alcohol, but it really did taste just as good as we’d remembered it from our first visit.
The University
The next day, we spent hours just walking. We explored the city of Stellenbosch and the university that I’d spent months working with and preparing USAC students to go to.
For me, it was something close to what I suspect Gleb was feeling in Knysna, reflecting on his experience as a student there. I was immediately plunged back into remembering my time learning about the ins and outs of this space, so that I could accurately represent it to my students. I always think about how different it is to hear of a place, or to see photos, or even to watch an interactive video of it, compared to the reality of just being there, and those thoughts were extra prominent this day.
I felt like I knew so much, but the context of feeling yourself standing in a place, seeing the way it moves, and getting a true sense of the environment, is so different than any preparation can make you ready for.
I was so grateful for the moments of reflection here, as I thought about how my first study abroad led to me doing two more, which led me into a role that I truly loved, and still often find myself missing.
To be standing there at the university, in a period of time when all of those experiences are already in my past, was a strange feeling. It was like I belonged, and was always meant to go there, but it was also clear that I had already moved on from what had tied me there, so much more deeply, at one point.
Aquila Game Reserve
Our final ‘day in Stellenbosch’ saw us going back to one more place that deemed this location the true champion of my sentimentality and reflection during the entire two-week trip.
We returned to Aquila Game Reserve, a place that we’d each visited in 2018, but separately.
I remember that my first sunset safari there was a trip that Jenna, Hanna, Max, Kelsey, and I all took together. It was also the same day of my first visit to Table Mountain. That was the day that Max and I also kicked off our friendship in a more real way, and the day that cemented us as a trio with Jenna that still holds strong today.
Funny enough, looking back, even though it was in a completely separate location, Aquila Game Reserve, and that sunset safari, feels like a bridge in a lot of ways between my two similar early experiences on Table Mountain, which turned out to be oh-so different.
First, Jenna, Max, and I had explored the mountain on a sunny morning, after taking the cable car up. The next time, Jenna, Hanna, Kelsey, and I hiked it, in the middle of the night, for that sunrise that never happened.
So, to be back at Aquila now, with Gleb, was entirely new, but I know that it also left us both reflecting on the ways that it had helped shift the dynamic of some of our other friendships back there in the early days of building the relationships we all have now.
This time, we had more of a ‘luxury’ experience, choosing a full-day safari and getting access to the entire spa facility, including both its indoor and outdoor plunge pools, after getting an accidental couples’ massage.
Stellenbosch, the town itself, was beautiful, and there were so many little moments in between those bigger, more prominent ones that inspired us to take it slow and reflect even more on how this trip had been for us each.
Camps Bay
We ended our trip back in Cape Town, but in an area called Camps Bay. Here, we had views from left to right of Lion’s Head and then Table Mountain, in the opposite order of how I’d always seen it from both the waterfront (where our ship sat docked) and from the greater Cape Town area that I’d spent time in.
Before we’d left his place in Chicago, Gleb excitedly had me watch an episode of Black Mirror that was filmed here, so that he could show me his inspiration for visiting this portion of Cape Town.
This part of our trip felt much more like a beach vacation, and we were immediately seeing more Americans and higher prices, even in contrast to all of the German and British tourists we’d encountered throughout South Africa, so far.
We took it all in though by really relaxing (reading books by the pool and renting chairs on the beach) and letting the personal growth, and remote work, that we’d been doing over the trip fade into a period of more reflection and rest before we headed home.
Gleb realized, at one point, that he’d actually been in the area while on SAS, as he suddenly recalled a certain drunken evening that didn’t leave him with as much context to remember that he’d been here in the same place, so long before.
So, I guess that everything on this trip came full circle, for at least one of us, in one way or another.
Cape Town (Again)
Camps Bay had been slated to be our last location before heading back to the States, but, as we know by now, plans often change.
We extended the trip to try to get onto a better flight, which ended up having the exact same seating options as the original flight had (shoutout to flying standby!)
Not to worry, though, because we ended up checking something off of both of our bucket lists, that we had almost missed out on.
We went on a sunset hike at Lions Head, which proved to be the perfect goodbye to our entire trip of chaos and calm, of work and play, of sun and rain.
Much like the day, years ago, when I’d hiked Table Mountain for sunrise, this elevation point was shrouded in clouds. We got lucky at the peak to find that the clouds had dissipated, except for a few strays that rolled beneath us.
Table mountain, though, at its slightly higher elevation, was capped in the same mist it had been on my original hike. In the same vein as before, we didn’t see the sunset. It was the final full circle moment, that had me laughing of the irony of our timing, yet again, because the last few nights had brought us stunning sunsets. We did still get some amazing views, and sufficient light to get down the mountain, thankfully. It was all we needed it to be, and for that we were grateful.
So much of this trip tied us to points in our past, to moments that were so much more developmental than we had realized until we had returned to the spaces where they’d taken place.
There were so many new moments, new experiences both good and bad, and new memories, that I know we’ll look back on someday in the future, as ones that further changed us.
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