Apologies for my delayed blogging!!! I've been having such a great time and staying quite busy in Cape Town that with both work and fun I've been way behind on the blog! But here I am, back to tell you all about the music festival I went to last weekend called Rocking the Daisies. Known country wide by music fans and the like, Rocking the Daisies is an annual weekend concert featuring South African artists held at a Cloof Wine Estate, just 45 minutes outside of the city. It is very similar to the famous Bonnaroo Concert held each year in the Tennessee, except a bit smaller with about 11,000 attendees.
With three music stages, chill-out lounges and gourmet food vendors, there was never a lack of something to do. I can't forget to mention the ladies only Daisy Den with hairdryers and showers. Most festival go-ers camp out for the weekend on the festival grounds. Not wanting to miss out on ANY of the fun over the weekend, my roommates and I decided to camp as well. After inspecting our garage at home, we uncovered a 12 person tent purchased by last year's intern class. A trial set-up was held the weekend before by my guy roommates, Charlie and Andrew. They assured us that with a little bit of duct tape and some engineering, the tent would work just great at the Daisies. Rebecca (my other roommate who attended the festival) and I just smiled and said, 'Alright, lets do it!'
The most exciting part of the weekend was that we were being joined by six more of our intern friends, four from Port Elizabeth and two from Kimberley. I had not seen these friends since August orientation in the United States. I was beyond excited to catch up with them and hear all about their sites!! The four interns placed in Kimberely drove down seven hours and met us in Cape Town on Thursday night. They crashed at our house and explored the city on Friday while we were all at work. As soon as the clock struck 5 p.m., we bolted out of the office, ran home to gather our sleeping bags, tent, etc., then hit the road! Someway and somehow, a 45 minute drive to the festival turned into a three hour drive after going down numerous dark roads leading to no-where. Lots of empty fields, u-turns, and a few honks later, we finally arrived to our destination! It was 10:45 p.m. at this point and setting up the massive 12-person tent in the dark still loomed in our near future. We found some clear camping space, made some drinks, and got to setting up the tent!
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| Trying to put up a MASSIVE tent in the dark |
Putting up a 12-person tent is a laborious process to begin with. Add in the pitch dark, broken rods, and a few tipsy tent builders to the mix, the process becomes ALOT harder. Nevertheless, we were determine to have a place to crash for the night. The masterpiece was complete after forty minutes....a fabulous wilting tent half pitched falling to the ground. It would definitely work for us though. Simple living is what we are all about! Little did we know that in the daylight, we would become the laughing stock of our neighboring campers. We were proud of our hard work and knew the only way to congratulate ourselves was to start having a great time! We ditched our tent and headed to the performance grounds.
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| The 12-person tent is the wilting yellow one in the back left and the green canopy was our structure for shade over the weekend. |
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| Main Stage |
Friday night turned out to be amazing. Our Kimberly friends arrived around 1 am after a 10 hour drive and joined us at the main stage. We all had such a great time catching up, listening to music, and dancing the night away! Before we knew it, it was 4:30 am and a bunch of us headed back to the campsite to call it a night. As I was falling asleep, with the tent slowly deflating on top of us, I smiled to myself and couldn't think of any other place I would rather be at that moment. I was having a great time away from the city with all my friends....I knew it would be one heck of a weekend!
Having minimal camping experience under my belt, I was oblivious to the fact that whether you like it or not, the sun is going to rise in the morning. And its not only going to be early, its going to be BRIGHT! As I rubbed my eyes and rolled over to look at my watch, I was surprised to see it was only 7:30 am. I heard voices outside the tent and curiosity got the best of me so I slipped out of my sleeping bag, cracked my sore back, and headed outside. What a beautiful day it was! I could tell it was going to be one hot day out. My friends and I reminisced about the night before, exchanging excitement for what a great place this was and how much fun we were already having. Without any delay, we wanted to keep it all going.
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| Lake time! |
Saturday morning we gathered everyone together and headed to the big lake on the festival grounds for a refreshing dip. It was now 8:30 am but already about 75 degrees! By mid afternoon, the temp would reach 95 degrees!!! We certainly were not the only ones with this grand plan. The lake was fully crowded on all sides with tons of people, most in bathing suits and a few with inflatable rafts and water toys. We spent the afternoon checking out the music venues, the lake, and hanging back at the camp site sharing stories over a box of wine. The box of wine here in South Africa is surprisingly delicious! And cheap......which is the best part. After lots of swimming, music, sun and wine, we were ready for a nap by the late afternoon. All ten of us lounged on the ground outside our tent and took a nice, long, peaceful hour long nap. You could have heard a pin drop it was so quiet. This mid-day nap was to be essential in making the most out of the night that was ahead of us.
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Lake at Sunset
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Another Dance stage
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Needless to say, Saturday night was just as great as Friday. The music was awesome and I even bought a CD of my favorite performer from that night. He's a Cape Town native! Sunday morning came in a flash and six of us woke up by 7 am to watch the South African Rugby team play in the semi-finals game vs. Australia which was being shown on the mega-screen at the main stage. Rugby in south Africa is much like football is in America.....a big deal. The main stage ground was absolutely packed with viewers and there was little to no place to sit by the time the game started. Despite a hard fought match, the Boks (South African Springboks) lost in the last few minutes of the game to the Aussies. Everyone was pretty bummed out about the win since the SA rugby team are defending World-Cup champs at the last championship four years ago. Brushing off the loss, we headed back to the camp site to wrap up our things and head home. It was definitely a tearful good bye to all my friends who weren't heading back to Cape Town with me. However, we promised to make plans in the near future for another visit together. I'm happy to report that we kept our word and I now have a trip planned to Port Elizabeth for Halloween next weekend!!! Can't wait!
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My favorite performer of the weekend
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Luckily, we drove back to Cape Town with no mis-turns and made it in the usual 45 minutes. Rocking the Daisies is thus far one of my funniest weekends that I've had here in the past two months. Looking forward to many more great experiences to come!
