I’d been on the road for roughly three months. My arrival to points south could be looked at as a mini vacation from my vacation... and Jim’s arrival marked the beginning of an extended period with a trusted and known friend. Meeting people on the road is great... there are so many interesting, amazing, quirky and passionate personalities. But getting to know all of these people typically entails a lot of similar conversations, over and over again. With Jim coming to town, I didn’t have to follow this kind of protocol... he knew me and my tendencies, and I knew his...

As I referenced in a previous post, there were two sides to my time in Capetown... The revelry, resulting in compromised, if not obliterated, brain cells, and then there was exploring the natural beauty, dark history and presently thriving culture that has come to define Capetown. In this post I am going to get into the revelry, and to do so, I’ll tell you a little bit about my travel companion and good buddy Jimbo.

Jim and I have shared a lot of unique experiences. We grew up together on the Jersey Shore (yes, this is true, but we never looked or acted like douchebags... at least from my perspective), and as we’ve grown up (and avoided responsibility), we’ve come to realize that we share a desire to explore the world. While we have separate interests, there are times when our desires to travel cross paths. We’ve skied misty Japanese mountains, hiked high altitude Peruvian rain forests and sledded down snow covered roads in the Swiss Alps in the pitch black of night. We’ve explored medieval Japanese castles, partied all night through a cold weather carnival and celebrated together at too many weddings to count. And now we were off to Africa...

Jim crushes life... in everything he does... eating, working, drinking, hiking, talking... there is no low gear with Jim. I fell asleep at the house in Camps Bay while waiting for him to arrive. At about 10:30, he wandered in the door and was ready to head into town for a few drinks... now this is not out of the ordinary, and to be fair, this is my fault. There was one thing I promised Jim upon his arrival, a cold beer waiting for him.... and I did not deliver. Unfortunately, you can’t very easily buy alcohol to go anywhere in Camps Bay, which is really kind of a bummer. I did manage to secure a bottle of wine, but to do so the wait staff had to open the bottle, let me taste it, and then cork it back up for me to take with me. So before walking down the hill to town, we caught up over the bottle. Things didn’t get too out of hand, just a few drinks at a local dive followed by a few drinks at one of the clubs. We were both pretty beat so we headed home.

The next day, Christmas Eve, started innocently enough. We figured we would set off to explore town, so we walked along the waterfront all the way from Camps Bay into Capetown. In doing so, we turned our exploratory hike into a southern tip bar crawl, stopping in an establishment in each little town along the way. There was a beer at Caprese in Camps Bay... then another in Clifton. Then more stops... in Bantry Bay and Sea Point... a brief stop to purchase a couple of blinking christmas hats, another beer with a snack at the waterfront... Eventually we wound up in the Spar Supermarket, a bit buzzed, and ready to stock up on beer and wine for the next 8 days... soon we were stuffing 8 bottles of wine, 3 cases of beer, heaping bags of groceries and one (unsuitable, as we would come to find out) canister of propane, into the boot of a taxi. (That’s right... I said boot... not trunk). We cooked up a feast that night... we ate, we drank, and we were merry... until the next morning.

Christmas day... I was struggling. As usual Jim was up early and ready to crush. We exchanged gifts... Jim giving me a sweet football jersey from his current home in Guinea, West Africa, wrapped in toilet paper, and I giving him a really great high five. Now there is a part of the story here that just doesn’t make much sense to me. Jim was going out to pick up some booze... why, I am not entirely sure... It is possible that we may have gone through all of the wine the night before, but I honestly can’t remember... go figure! Anyway, Jim went out to find some wine... an hour and a half later he walks in the door and says ‘OK D-bomb, game changer... get dressed, I have a cab and we are heading into town!’. Still groggy, and perhaps a bit drunk from the night before, I threw on some clothes and headed down the hill to the bars.


After a few drinks we went across the street to the beach to take our awkward family Christmas photo. Then we decided to go for a Christmas swim. So we dug a little hole to put our shirts, flip-flops, wallets, phones, etc into so they wouldn’t blow away. While in the water the wind really picked up (it tends to do that in Capetown), and when we came out of the water we had to search for a half hour to find it all as it had been covered by wind blown sand! We caught a taxi back up the hill and went out to the end of our street with a few drinks to enjoy the view of the coast line and the sunset... this became a bit of a ritual. We cooked up some steaks on an open flame, and if memory serves correctly, engaged in some drunken video chats with my parents and family and Jim’s parents and family.

This was it for me. I really had nothing left in the tank. I was tapped out... there were some dinners out, some barbecue's, a trip to Long Street in town, and a quiet (for me) New Years, but I was really counting the days until we left for Kilimanjaro. After just a few days I felt like a trailer home tossed aside in a tornado, left in Jim’s boisterous and good natured path.