In Plattenburg Bay off to Natures Valley

Woah okay so it's been a while since I posted last. Soooo much has happend. The Baz Bus was pretty fun there were only 4 other people on board at first, it's about the size of one of those "Special Access" RTD buses you see cruising around boulder, pretty comfortable cause there weren't many people but it could get crazy if it was packed. The driver of the bus had some seriously rocking tunes going. Most I didn't recognize but there were some jamin oldies that I knew. The music was a mix of old school, house beats, and downtempo stuff, quite the groove salad. I was really surprised at the mountains once we got out of cape town. I expected that S. Africa would be mostly flat but there have been hills and mountains virtually everywhere I've been. The drive over took a long time, like 6 hours, but it wasn't bad. i read, slept, talked with some Brits etc. The Hostel in Wilderness was awesome, the only description I can think of is if you took a nice house say in vail and made it a hostel that was what this was like. The two brits that I had spoken with on the baz bus where in wilderness as well at the same hostel so it was cool hanging out with them. They were Welsh, not british, as they would say. They left the following day, I think that was two days ago? So I linked up with a German couple, the guy was a surfer staying in capetown for a few months and his girlfriend had flown down for a few weeks. We went on a hike to a waterfall probably about 2 miles on the trail, but it seemed much longer. One it was really hot, two really humid, and three the germans smoke like chimneys and though I wasn't moving fast they had some difficulty keeping up. Ha, flatlanders. The whole hike we were conversing in german and they were correcting my german, at my request. That evening we cooked dinner together had a nice red wine and some pasta with homemade sauce. We ate on the balcony with four girls, also from Germany so the conversations in german continueed. Anyhow as it ends up I caught a ride with them from wilderness to Plattenburg Bay, where after checking in at the hostel which was actually a really nice B and B that we got cheap, we went Canoing up a river. I must confess I've never seen "canoes" like those before. Think of a kayak crossed with a canoe and what you get is a very little single man craft that is open on the top , very unstable, but a double bladed paddle. I was in the single, the girls all paired up and were in doubles. We went probably 2-3 miles upriver against the wind which mos def I feel today. Dad, I was reminiscing about being in Alaska, and cruising around the bay there. needless to say it took us probably 1.5-2 hours to get up there and about 30-40 min to come back down. I took some pretty good pics. I still haven't been able to host those online yet. And so you have heard my tale up until now. for the next couple hours I'm just going to chill cause it's raining here but them I catch the baz bus over to natures valley where I will hopefully do more swimming in the ocean, hiking etc. The german girls are on their way back to cape town but I am supposed to email them before I got back so we can chill. Likewise with the surfer, he has offered to put me up for a few days. Oh yeah one last thing, last night I had my first braai, or barbeque. It was over a wood fire, we had butternut squash, sweet potatoes, and ostrich steaks. Okay sorry to rewrite the Illiad here. I'll catch you all later. Happy trails.
W.