After the safari adventure it was time to spend a weekend in Durban. Durban in July is the largest horse race in all of Africa and it was this weekend. The theme was "Posh? Oh my Gosh!" and it was quite a fashion parade. This also meant living on Florida road - the club district- was like living in a mad house. July weekend had people covering the street and every club packed. It happened to be a girl in our programs birthday so the group of us braved the crowds for a sit down dinner. The venue was nice, food so so, and service was slow, all things to be expected during this chaotic weekend.
The next week at K-RITH I collected infected as well as drug treated mouse lung tissue to examine its metabolite differences. I have been working closely with Jon who's set up the MS for analyzing patient serum samples. His past experience as a professor teaching analytical chemistry has made him an incredible help for my project. With some extensive literature research and Jon's help I had an effective method set up to discover the unknown importance of my particular metabolite in TB infection.
This weekend's trip was to Cape Town. Several lab mates are from the city so of course they shared all the best places to visit. A couple friends were joining me and I had planned to stay at a hostel in city center. The backpack as it was called turned out to be a lively place and my roommates were from Canada and Great Britain. Since the best way to get around the city was by rental car and the cheapest option was a manual, I had a quick right hand drive lesson with a lady in the lab the day before I left. It wasn't as confusing as I originally thought. When we landed we rented a little Toyota Aygo and were off to explore the city. I picked up one of our friends who had landed the day before and drove towards cape point. The scenery is beautiful beyond description and is definitely a place everyone has to visit. One of the running jokes among south africans is how so many tourists wear khaki pants and hat around the city like their going on a safari. I definitely avoided doing that that but the second joke, that tourists describe cape town almost orgasmically, was harder to avoid. It's definitely a one of a kind place that stick with you.
Day one we visited boulder beach to see the penguins, I had the best Hake (fish) and chips in my life, saw cape point, the lighthouse lot of baboons, the cape of good hope, drove on the most amazing cliff side road and watched the sunset at Hout bay.
Day 2 we visited Stellenbosch for wine tasting and a city wide festival in Franschhoek with more incredible drives in between. In Stellenbosch we visited a winery called waterford that had the most inviting and comforting atmosphere. It was a typical rainy cape town day but wine and chocolate tasting (apparently the first winery to pair chocolate with wine) in front a fireplace with their super friendly rhodesian ridgeback (lion hunting dog) made you feel like royalty. That night we checked out long street (entire street with neighboring bars, clubs and quirky shops) for its famous nightlife.
Day 3 we visited Muizenberg for their sunday market and drove to a local township where you buy the raw meat and they braai it for you at incredibly cheap prices (~ 17 ran per kg meat = $1.70). It was probably one of the risker places we visited on this trip but thankfully we made it back with all of our stuff. That night we relaxed before our 6:30 AM flight back to durban.
Note to others: an early morning flight into cape town gives you an amazing sunrise.
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