Projects underway as we take a Birds Eye View of Cape Town

Increbible view, originally uploaded by Ticket to Ride - Worldwide Surf Adventures.

Day 5 on the Adventure, and we're maintaing the spead and high energy levels that we started off with.

Sunday...

An early morning session down at Africa's famed learn to surf spot of Muizenberg, this is the third lesson of the trip, and with the group all starting at a similar standard it's great to see them develop from session to session. None of the group had much if any surfing experience, so these early sessions are vitally important. We need to make sure that every session takes on something new, but that we don't go too fast and let people get left behind. We covered the basics of turning today, which everyone took to like a cheetah on a lame Springbok.

The wind swung the wrong direction for the afternoon which meant that we couldn't head in for our second session, but we instead went to watch some of the countries top young surfers battle it out in 'The Volcom Qualifying Series' contest at local beach 'Long Beach'. With the sun shining, a hot dog stand close at hand, and some high performance surfing this was not a bad way to spend a Sunday afternoon!!

Monday...

Early start today as it was the first of the many Community Projects that we get involved with, and being situated in the middle of Cape Town this meant a drive right through local rush hour. This project is called The Salesians, and it is an institute set up by Don Bosco in the late 19th Century. Among other things it is a haven, and educational facility for the homeless street children of Cape Town. The owner was telling me some horrendous stories about what these young children have been through and experienced. Our aim here is to not only broaden their minds and give them the opportunity to communicate with people from overseas, but also to realise that there are people out there who care what they are up to, a lot of these children are highly involved in street crime, but after spending the morning with them you quickly realise that they are just young children as we all once were, but they have had to fend for themselves in desperate measures. There smiles are very touching, and it is always a warming and eye opening experience getting involved with them.

After a quick bite to eat outside on a sunny Cape Town boulevard, and a tour around the shops and local African market we headed over to Table Mountain. We had planned to climb it, but a lack of footwear, and a tight schedule meant that we had to grace the Cable car, something which everyone seemed happy about! Table Mountain has to offer one of the finest views in the world, not only can you see all over the stetching suburbs of the city, but you also have one of the finest sea views and are able to see 2 oceans, the Indian and Atlantic, on either side of the Peninsula.

We rushed back, as we had an appointment with the 'Cape Town Juventus', a small local football team. This is one of the most heart warming projects we get involved with, a local man Thomas, runs this team, and they meet at 6 every night to play football on a small patch of land covered in stones, rubbish, too much glass, and it is so uneven that you can't see how they don't beak their ankles in every session! They only have 1 ball, no whistle, and are all in the same kit as when we were last here, in January. But despite this lack of facilities they absolutely love the game! They are all smiles, and laughter, throughout the session. Last night we had a quick 5 a-side tournament, with the 4 TTRide boys on each team.

We're back there tonight and will be bring a handful of footballs, a whistle for Thomas, and will be arriving an hour early with various gardening tools to remove all the rubbish, and try and even out the ground as much as possible.

-----------------

Today we've got a surf session in the morning, and then we're off to Klein Constantia one of Cape Towns finest vineyards, before heading back to the football field for another training session.

For all the photo's have a look at our flikr account, http://www.flickr.com/photos/ttridesurf/, or our Facebook group "Ticket to Ride - Gap Year Surfing Adventures"