CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA ELITE 16

We keep saying we are done for the season, and yet here we are again… writing another blog about a new country we just ventured off to and this time it is freaking Cape Town, South Africa.

Definitely a place I never thought I would be going to; however, Taryn was kind of the opposite. Before we had really gotten into the thick of things internationally, Taryn said, “For my birthday (April 10), I want to be in Cape Town [CT], South Africa – 1) because there is an Elite 16 tournament there & 2) I’ve always wanted to go to South Africa”. Well, guess we know what Taryn was wishing for when she blew out all 25 of her candles. (FYI – this CT tourney was originally slated to take place during her birthday, but obviously the dates changed… another instance of just how hectic the beach volleyball world is). I think you can lose the ()

Anyway, after yet another 24+ hour travel day, we touched down at CT’s airport on a brisk and breezy Sunday night. (We left NOLA on Saturday at 1:55pm and arrived in CT at 11pm Sunday which was 4:50pm Sunday in NOLA time) With maybe 4 hours of in-&-out sleep, we walked out of the plane in hopes that, customs would not take very long, our luggage would be waiting for us on the carousel, and the transportation provided by the tournament would be there. Thankfully, all the above happened and we loaded up the vans and were off on our 20 min drive to our Airbnb. 

Walking into a dark Airbnb around midnight in CT was a little scary. Not sure if Taryn knows but I definitely let her be the one to walk in first because I am the definition of a scaredy cat. Once the rooms were cleared, we showered (we each had our own room – so clutch) and I can’t speak for Taryn, but my head hit the pillow and next thing I knew I was waking up and admiring the astonishing view of Table Mountain. I think this year I have seen more mountains than I have in my 24 years of existence, but I am not complaining. Each one has been so unique and if you google Table Mountain, I think you will quickly understand where it got its name. But seriously, check out these views. 

A couple days before our trip we tried to nail down a rough itinerary as far as places to eat, sights to see and how we were going to fit everything in. Our plans never, ever work out exactly how we script them, but it’s nice to have a general idea. For Monday morning, our plan was to head to Loading Bay Café for much needed coffee and an actual meal which we had not had in 24 hours (airplane food does not count as a meal in our minds). I am not sure if it was the previous fact stated or just that Loading Bay makes delicious food, but it hit the freaking spot. And an added bonus… I ordered an iced vanilla latte and actually liked it… what??? My coffee taste buds may be changing.

Next was exploring Table Mountain. According to all our Google searches and social media interactions, going to the top of the mountain was a must. They have cable cars that take you to the top. We bought tickets online a couple days before leaving so we were excited to see what all the hype was about. While getting out of the car after our 30-minute Uber ride, I almost got blown over by the biggest gust of wind, and those gusts unfortunately did not stop coming… cable cars closed for the day due to high winds. Right before we found out this info, I had looked at Taryn and said, “Oh boy, these cable cars are going to be swaying in this wind.” We were still high up, so we enjoyed the views and got some good laughs because taking pictures with your hair down during 30mph winds is quite comical.

We wanted to walk around and get our legs moving so we hit the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens. We are not big on specific flowers or anything, but we both love an overall amazing scenery. Taryn started out as tour guide but after walking down about 25 stairs and then realizing we went the wrong way I took over. I give my tour guide Taryn an 8.5 because she did get us to the tree bridge which we were in search of but I had to take off 1.5 since she led us the wrong way. We walked across a tree bridge, saw a small waterfall, took lots of pictures and videos, and even saw an otter pond. It was a great adventure followed up by a nice lunch at the restaurant on the property – Moyo. Our waitress was super nice… she answered all of our menu questions of which we learned a couple things… chakalaka is a mix of beans and peppers (very good), dombolo is like a dumpling but doughier (delicious), peri peri is a very spicy sauce (stayed clear of that) & pap is like a thin grained sticky rice (I was not a huge fan but Taryn liked it). We also somehow accidentally ordered dessert, but I mean who complains about that?!

Our Uber driver to the botanical gardens convinced us that seeing the penguins at Boulders Beach [BB] was a must, so we found ourselves in another Uber driving 45 minutes to see penguins. The drive was along the coast, so it was pretty which made it not bad at all. Penguins, penguins and more penguins. They were everywhere. Not sure if it was the multiple signs posted saying they will bite or if my expectations were altered by TV, but they were not super cute. However, it was cool to just see them in their natural habitat. As stated earlier, the wind that day was crazy, but the wind at BB was insane. I had more sand blown into my eyes, ears, and backpack after leaving BB than after leaving a beach volleyball practice.

We were getting to the point of the day where jet lag was setting in, so the hour and a half Uber ride back was quiet. We were both kind of irritable (more so me) but something we have learned after spending 476575 hours together is to just say nothing. It’s okay to sit in silence. Irritability is bound to happen after hours of travel with little sleep and a day filled with walking and exploring. It’s called life on the road, jet lag, being a female and exhaustion.

We got back to our Airbnb with about 20 minutes to change and get ready for our dinner reservation at The Cousins Trattoria. It was an Italian restaurant which was pretty decent. We spent the dinner with our phones in our bags which allowed us to reminisce on our crazy adventures. A positive of being international… you get to disconnect from the world because your phone doesn’t work. The restaurant was only a 7-minute walk from our place. We walked there but Ubered the 2 min drive back because CP at night is not super safe. It is probably the place that we have felt the least safe. We were definitely paying way more attention to our surroundings and walking with pace. That’s a big downfall of our travels… it’s just us… two girls… in a foreign country.

We arrived safely back at the Airbnb pretty early. We thought it was going to be a chill night; however, it turned into us booking our plane tickets to Australia…. yes, you heard it here first - we will be flying across the world yet again (our never-ending season continues).

Exploration day 2 – Tuesday started off pretty similar to Monday… us waking up and meeting in the living room to admire the views and then Ubering to a café (Jason’s Bakery) for coffee & breakfast. They had a coffee milkshake which I could not pass up… it was a shot of espresso mixed with vanilla ice cream and peanut butter. If all coffee was that good, I would never stop drinking it. We were a little underwhelmed with our food, but I think we made the wrong decisions. Ya live and ya learn. The area we were in seemed a little more touristy, so we felt okay to just walk around the area. After walking for a little bit, we stumbled upon a coffee shop (Coco Safar) that had a huge sign which stated that they had the best croissant in the world. Considering we not so long ago had them in Paris we did not believe the claim, but obviously Taryn had to see if they were correct. After taking two bites, Taryn’s facial expression said all I needed to know… their claim may actually be correct.

 The lunch spot that we had picked out was basically next door to Jason’s Bakery so we walked back the way we came and stepped into Giovanni’s Deli which someone had suggested to us. Thank goodness they told us about it because it was fantastic. You got to build your own sandwich and the selection is just unmatched… wide variety of fresh bread, any meat or cheese you can think of and then they make it for you and wrap it up. They also have various dinner options, so Taryn smartly came up with the idea for us to get a bunch of different things to take back to our Airbnb and place in the refrigerator so we could just warm it up for dinner.  

 Practice was scheduled 3-4 with Duda/Ana Patricia on court 2 and right at 3 we all stepped on the court thinking we were about to start practice… the tournament director walks up to us and informs us that they have to re-do the court because it is set up wrong. He says it will only take 15-20 minutes and points to the warm-up court asking if we could start practice on that court instead. Let me fill you in on some details… the warm-up court is 1) set to a men’s height net 2) does not have much sand so it feels like concrete & 3) is facing the wrong direction – meaning a court is supposed to run North/South but this court was set East/West. Remember how it was supposed to only take 15-20 minutes? As we were wrapping up our practice at 4, they were still working on the actual court that will be used during the competition. Sometimes you just can’t help but laugh at some of the un-organization of these top-level tournaments. **Apparently the wind was so bad the day before that it literally ripped the poles out of the sand – if I haven’t mentioned it – it’s pretty windy!**

We enjoyed our chill and last evening in the Airbnb just hanging out. We got to see a pretty sunset, we warmed up our delicious food from Giovanni’s, and we researched some things to do in Torquay, Australia (if anyone has suggestions, pls send them our way).

 Wednesday was checkout day from the Airbnb and check-in day at the official hotel. We also had a reservation made for a late breakfast at Mulberry & Prince, another recommended place. Again, understand why it was recommended… we got eggs benedict and it was covered in a brown sugar hollandaise sauce. So good. Another fav was the fluffy pancakes that had brown sugar butter. Again, so good! (Sorry I talk so much about food but that is a lot of time what vacations and trips are planned around… eat, walk a little bit, sight see, eat again, repeat)

 We had a nice little reminder that we were in a foreign country when trying to get an Uber to our next adventure which was the V&A Waterfront. When we were inside Mulberry & Prince, my data would not work so I couldn’t call the Uber. We thought going outside would do the trick – keep in mind it is raining with big streaks of lightening and loud thunder, however it did not. We needed to find a coffee shop to hopefully connect to WiFi, so we started looking around and luckily there was a VERY small one right up the street. They did not have many intriguing coffee selections and the guy’s English was not great so trying to figure it all out was eventful. We made it to waterfront but with it raining we couldn’t walk outside so we decided the mall was a good place to walk around. Little did we know it was the largest mall I had ever seen. Guys, this thing was 3 levels and went on for what seemed like miles. You name any top branded store… it was there. We only stumbled upon it because our plan for lunch was to hit up the V&A Food market, which we did after walking around in amazement at the size of the mall. The food market had a bunch of different vendors which was great for us because we love trying a bunch of different things. We each picked two places, ordered something and then we met at a table to share. I would say the food was okay – not something I would have to go back to if we ever came back to CT.

 We hit the venue to watch some of the men’s matches and thankfully we did because we also received our credentials. We assumed we were receiving them at the hotel later that day because according to the schedule we looked at, the pre-lim meeting was from 4-5:30 at the hotel… guess not. On our shuttle back to the hotel, we were talking with a fellow USA player, and she brought up signing the official entry paperwork of which we did not do… again, we thought that was going to take place at the pre-lim meeting AT THE HOTEL. While everyone exited the shuttle, we stayed in our seats so we could head back to the venue and figure out where the piece of paper was that we needed to sign was. Thanks to some Netherlands players we found it! So, I mentioned earlier that we learn something new every tournament, well this one we learned two new things: we should check Airbnbs AND we should assume we have to sign the paper and get credentials at the venue no matter what is said.

 Finally, the day that actually brought us to CT to begin with – gameday. First match was slated for 1pm, so after having a late breakfast and quick snack at the hotel we loaded the transportation shuttle around 11:40am for the quick 5-8 min drive to the venue. We played a team from Mozambique, who you can tell was just a little inexperienced. After getting the first win on the board, we headed across the street to the City Hall building where lunch was served. The building was very nice and the food they whipped up was very tasty. The only downfall for Thursday’s lunch was that the only protein they had was fish and Taryn is not necessarily huge on seafood.

 We called it an early night since our alarms were set for 6:50am. Our second match in pool was at 9am Friday Morning against familiar opponents – Cannon/Sponcil. We always like to get up 2 hours before our game begins to get the blood flowing and eyes fully open. I am not really a morning person, so I was trying to change that this go around since I knew this was going to be an important match. After a ¾ cup of coffee and half a large coke zero I was ready to go. The goals of the match for us were to come out with energy and start strong… we didn’t fully do that; however, we did not start down 2-5 like we normally do. Those small victories led to the overall dub and with 1 game left in pool play, we were in the driver’s seat for 1st place.

 Breakfast was still going on at the hotel, so we grabbed a little post game snack before heading up to our room. We quite literally had all day before our next match at 7pm. We chilled in the room with our legs up, we scrolled through social media, I uploaded videos to dropbox for our vlog (subscribe to our YouTube channel!), we twiddled our thumbs, we scrolled through social media some more, and then it was time to head to lunch at City Hall. A 7pm match makes it a little challenging on when to eat dinner – do you eat before our wait till after? We decided to make PB & J sandwiches using the bread and jam from breakfast and making our own peanut butter spread with the pb2 mix that we brought.

 If you watched the game, you may have seen the lights that were utilized… not good. The lights were not high enough at all so there were major blind spots mainly in serve receive. Every serve receive ball I would squint my eyes real hard to try and focus on the ball and zone out the light that was directly behind the server… I do have to say it was challenging. However, we managed and came out on top against the scrappy Japan team. We ate dinner, showered, and then awaited our quarterfinals draw… the opponent was posted around 10:20pm but the time did not get posted until around 11pm. They really wanted to keep us up.

 Quarterfinals opponents: team Brazil’s Talita/Thelma – Neither one is a tall blocker so I knew going in that their likely gameplan would be to serve me and pull a lot. This mindset really psyched me out. I put way too much focus on being aggressive against the pulling blocker that I just started swinging at everything which you are probably aware is not my game at all. I know we say all the time after losses, “it’s a learning experience and we will be better”. Well, we say it because it is 100% the truth. I think this tournament is going to be one that we look at as a big turning point in our journey to being the best that we can be. It was a BIG mental learning curve, especially for me. I think moving forward we will both have a different perspective/outlook going into and during a match. (Really excited about it all)

Thank goodness for Travis Mewhirter! Before we realized everything stated above, we were sulking and could not stop thinking about the match until we got a text from Travis asking if we wanted to hike Lion’s Head… something we had been wanting to do but ran out of time. Boy am I glad that we did it – 1) the company of Travis and Cody Caldwell was much needed – not only their conversational company, but if we were not with them we would not have made it to the top 2) It was a much harder hike than either of us anticipated… we were climbing up rocks and praying we did not fall off the side of the mountain 3) We couldn’t/didn’t think about the match once since most brain power went to deciding on where the next best step was or answering all the thought provoking questions that were being tossed around 4) The views were absolutely incredible and really just makes you speechless. Pictures just cannot do it justice. Overall, just a very humbling experience.

 Sunday, the day that we hoped we would be playing for a gold medal but turned out to be our favorite day in CT without volleyball being involved. For breakfast we had to go back to one of our fav spots, Loading Bay, and we of course had to show Travis & Cody the spot as well (everyone deserved to try the porridge that this place was making – seriously delicious). After breakfast, we made our way back to the Table Mountain Cable Cars since on Monday when we tried to go, they were not running due to the wind. Luckily, Sunday was an absolutely perfect day – clear skies and little wind. Just like Lion’s Head, which looked very small from the top of Table Mountain, the views were incredible, borderline breathtaking. I understand why it is one of nature’s 7 wonders. All the amazing views really worked up our appetite, so we decided to hit Travis and Cody’s recommended place, Truth Coffee. It was definitely a different type of restaurant with an interesting take on various breakfast foods – for instance, we got macadamia French toast which was made with a croissant. That is not something you see every day but was so tasty. We also got their eggs benedict which I think is now in my top 3 of eggs benedicts, just so freaking delicious.

 Since a lot of food was consumed, we wanted to do some walking, so we made our way back to the V&A waterfront mall. We looked through a couple shoe stores where Taryn just got continuously more and more frustrated that the highest shoe size they had was a 10. We walked away empty handed, but it wasn’t for a lack of trying.

 At Loading Bay, we decided with Travis and Cody that extending and splitting their Airbnb cost for one more night would be worth it… we all needed a place to store our bags for the day and getting in a shower before a 28+ hour travel day is huge. We met up with them at the Airbnb after our waterfront stroll to get the keys before they made their way to the airport. It was pretty perfect if you ask me, and well worth the $20 extra bucks a person. We spent the rest of the afternoon catching up on some emails and relaxing before our traditional African cuisine reservation at Marco’s African Place. I asked the waitress what she thought the one thing we had to try on the menu was, she pointed to the “Pan African Platter” which consisted of pan grilled fillets of Springbok, Crocodile Tail, and Kudu. I said okay, let’s do it. I was feeling very bold. Taryn went with one of their specialty chicken dishes – “Zwelethu’s Favorite Chicken”. I thought everything was good – I learned I am a big fan of mushroom sauce, and my favorite of the meats was Kudu. Taryn was a little freaked out by the different options but enjoyed the ambiance of the place. There was a band playing live music that you just could not resist the urge to sway your head to the beat.

 Overall, CT was a whirlwind of emotions. After our first two days, I was saying I did not need to go back, but now, Taryn and I have a list of what we want to do again and what new things we will plan the next time we are back. Everyone, keep it on your bucket lists – it is rightfully on it.

By: Kristen Nuss