Still waking up obscenely early thanks to jet lag, but at least I'm not wasting half my day sleeping anymore, I suppose. Got up, read by the pool for a while (I love how its actually winter here and we're still by the pool. Winters in Africa are sort of like spring everywhere else.) then I got the rest of the family up and we headed out up the coast to Ballito, which is just the name of the area.
It should now be noted that I'm pretty sure my uncle and I got to our first stop, Sibala, in record time. My uncle happens to own a silver porsche boxer, which I have now decided to name "the silver bullet". The state of my hair, which, at the beginning of the ride was lying tamely on my shoulders, and by the end of the ride was in one huge knot on the top of my head, is a testament to how fast it can really go.
As I said before our first stop was Sibala, which is actually a casino-resturant-spa type deal. We just stopped there to have a look around, casinos not really being my thing. It was very nice, everything was beautiful. It was kinda funny though because obviously everything was African themed and the spa buildings we're designed to look like huts and all the workers were in costume- essentially it was Africa without the Africans.It is for all thoes tourists who want to come to Africa, but are hesitant to mix with the locals. Don't you just love our integrated culture.
As we zoomed up the coast to the resturant we were having lunch in, el pescatore, I couldnt help but marvel at the country side. On my left was the Indian Ocean, which was about a 100 different shades of blue with the waves crashing on the golden shore. To my right were fields of green with sugar cane swaying in the breeze and a river winding amongst the hills. And I'm not even making this up! It was beautiful. The beauty of the natural land made the degredation of the city even sadder, because it is obvious that South Africa is a beautiful land, but with such a high poverty rate most people are more concerned with where they're getting their next meal from as opposed to where they throw their trash.
The resturante was nice, it was on the top floor of a building that was on the beach front, and we sat on the balcony over looking the water. It was a little windy, but the view was worth it.
I brought with me this trip my manual film camera, and a ton of black and white film so that I can take pictures and then develop them in the dark room and print the images using an enlarger. I had an idea to create a mini book with the picture of a person, most likely a head shot, and then just their name and age underneath. The pictures hopefully will speak for themselves. But the people pictured in the book arn't going to be any old people, well actually, technically they will be. What I'm trying to say is I'm not aiming to photograph models here, I want real people, exactly how they are, but the people I photograph have to catch my eye. Something about them has to speak to me, to make me want to photograph them. Who knew my first subject would be a random waitress at the resturant. I saw her as she walked by our table, she looked youngish, with very fine features. I still don't know why she was someone who I needed to put in the book, but she was. So after our meal I got up and tracked her down and polietly asked her if she would mind if I took her picture. She was a bit taken aback, but she agreed. Her name is Agnes and she is 18 years old, she looks about 29.
After lunch Carlie and I played on a bunch of the large rocks that dot the shore and they've created a ton of natural tide pools, which always have lots of interesting stuff to look at.
The rest of the day was spent back at home, reading, writing, listening to music and washing the porsche. Apparently we have to wash it every time we take it out. Obsessive much? I think so...
