This is a lovely article written by Zoe Patterson. Zoe is a secondary school student here at AAESS and recently went on the cultural and DofE trip to South Africa.

This is Zoe’s take in what sounds like the trip of a lifetime!

There are not enough words in a simple article to describe the amount of love, admiration and respect one can have… for a huge gourmet (avocado) pizza.
Allow me to explain.

The Duke of Edinburgh (DofE) award is a program that challenges young people to explore their interests and push themselves through difficult physical and mental challenges. Last year, I finished the highest level of the award, which is gold, and had completed my journey in Nepal in 2014. Nepal was a brilliant experience, but one of the toughest of my life, and I had vowed that I would never again lace up my hiking boots for such a difficult trek.

But alas! Al Ain English Speaking School presented a temptation I couldn’t resist- a fourteen-day trip to Cape Town, South Africa. The trek seemed so easy, only five days of hiking, around 10k per day, and then the rest would be spent exploring one of the most beautiful parts of the world. Penguins, shark cage diving, a safari, Table Mountain, stunning beaches, adorable seals. I signed up immediately.

The ages of students on the trip ranged from fourteen to nineteen, but the excitement was universal as we drove towards the airport. Our brilliant teachers, Sonja Nel and Luanne Cash somehow kept everyone in line, even keeping their cool when a student forgot a passport and only just got on the plane. As we descended into Cape Town after a ten-hour flight we could see the mountains ahead and the clear blue water below, a landscape that would only become more beautiful as we got closer. As soon as we landed in Cape Town we took a cable car up Table Mountain, and discovered why it has been declared a wonder of the world. After exploring and taking in the stunning views, we went to the hotel to prepare for the trek.

It wasn’t long before we were on our way to the Cederberg, a wilderness mostly untouched, only three hours outside of Cape Town. We were to be guided by a company called Venture Forth and we had been warned that we would need to carry our food, water, cookers, sleeping bags and tents for the five days. However none of us truly understood what that meant. After packing our bags they were so heavy that weaker members of the group, such as myself, needed someone to put their backpack on their back because they couldn’t lift it themselves.

Nonetheless spirits were high as we looked ahead to the top of a (seemingly) small mountain, our destination. Our packs were heavy, but on a small incline we could chat our way through the pain. That was until it became a very steep incline. Disaster struck as the bottom strap of my backpack, the one that takes the weight off your shoulders and makes the bag not so painful to carry, had broken. It was then that the real spirit of DofE came through.

I have to mention two of my peers, Ryno de Bruyn and Hamza Dean who halfway up the mountain knew I was struggling and must have been struggling themselves, but offered and then insisted on taking my bag from me. They carried it, and their own bags, like it was nothing and continued in high spirits to chat to me and to other people who had a hard time that day. They were the first ambassadors of everything DofE is about and earned the respect of not only myself, but the rest of the group with their kindness, generosity and energy.

As night fell and it started to rain, we still hadn’t reached the campsite. Everyone was freezing and wet and sore, and when we finally reached this shack we were supposed to stay in, we collapsed inside. Only a few braved the weather outside to pitch tents, and the rest of us braved the likelihood that the hay floor inside the shack probably had mice and slept on it anyways.

The next day we woke up to a stunning landscape around us, and mist rolling in. A few adjustments to my bag and with some expert knot tying I was ready to go. It’s impossible to capture with words how the Cederberg really looked with craggy rocks, grasses and stark, tough-looking trees. We joked about it being the perfect setting for a zombie apocalypse movie. The mist did present some problems, making it cooler than we had prepared for, and giving our guide a hard time navigating. In fact we took a wrong turn and ended up going all the way down a mountain. While we played games and slept our guide re-routed for us.

Day three was a group favourite because we left early and got to the cave we were going to sleep in while the sun was still high and the Dassies, a cute African rodent, still scampered in and out of rock crevices. We explored the caves, ate lots of food and sunbathed on the rocks, relaxing from the exhaustion of the hike. Some of the group wanted to go with the guide to explore another rock formation, but the rest of us stayed behind to relax, and watched the stars start to peek out from the comfort of a sleeping bag in the cave.

We were woken up at three in the morning the next day to try to meet the sunrise at our halfway point. We collected water from an underground spring in the dark, and hiked happily in the cool air as the sky started turning pink. The hike was long, but games and good conversation made it fun. Over the last few days, and without even knowing it, we’d become so close as a group and were so used to supporting each other and making the hard circumstances easier with jokes and games.

We got to our final campsite, jumping over a river to do so, with the smell of cooking steak propelling us there. It was our last night, and Venture Forth was providing a traditional South African Braai on a fire, and a campsite with a real bathroom. Some of us cried. For the whole trek we’d been using this little spade nicknamed ‘Doug’ for our bathroom needs… I don’t think I need to say more.
We played games of ‘mafia’ late into the night, laughed, and got inspired by the people from Venture forth who told us their stories under a sky full of stars I could never put into words.

The next day we had a very short hike up to the road, and said goodbye to the Cederberg as we drove back to Cape Town. Now, here is where the admiration, love and respect for gourmet pizza comes in. I can assure you, nobody has ever appreciated pizza as much as we did that night. Looking around the table as we ate, it became clear that our little group had shared more than hardship and sore shoulders and a little spade. Our trip had just started, but we were linked with a shared experience that nobody else would ever truly understand. As one of the oldest people on the group, I was shocked at my ability to become close with people younger than me who I never would have talked to in school. As a group we came to know each other so well, and as our trip continued we only became closer.

The rest of the trip was action-packed and fascinating. We got to learn how political prisoners, including Nelson Mandela spread information and continued their activism in Robben Island during apartheid. Through this we realized the very real existence of prejudice and real hatred and racism in our world today, but also the triumph of human spirit over oppression. Similarly, the feeling of being tackled and hugged and kissed by children who live in informal settlements but still have so much love and affection to give was an indescribable feeling. We got to volunteer at their school and plant trees with them, but the real gift was what they gave to us- a new perspective on the world and appreciation for what we have, and that’s better than anything we could have given them.

To have a great white shark swim right past you, or to learn about poaching and the conservation of rhinos, lions and elephants while they stand right in front of you makes you realize the beauty of the world and the need to protect it. Exploring a new city with its art and culture and music and food brings a new energy and excitement that only travelling can bring to your life.
These were all things that opened our minds and hearts and in my opinion built our characters better than any other education could. On top of that, we made life-long friends that know us in a way that so many other people never will. We were so lucky to be educated in a way that is different to being in a classroom, but teaches so much. Not only did we learn about the world, and about each other, we learned about ourselves. The shared love, respect, and appreciation for a huge gourmet (avocado) pizza, is a bond that is seldom broken. But, it is the love, respect and appreciation we have for each other and for the world that has changed our lives.