rootlessdreams

….well, sort of.  Eric has departed back to the States.  In fact, he probably has already arrived.  So I am holding it down here in Rocklands without Eric, but am blessed with two new traveling companions:  Ben and Vanessa.  I guess it had not really hit me Eric was leaving until he actually left last week.  If it wasn’t for an amazing climbing week and being surrounded by good friends, I would be pretty bummed.  I am gonna miss Eric but “rootlessdreams” couldn’t last forever.  100days earlier than planned but that’s life…. I guess.

I have exactly one week left!!!  I don’t want to leave.  I truly love it here.  The life in Rocklands has been an amazing experience.  So much so, that I am already making arrangements to come back next year.

The last few weeks here have been unbelievable.  We were invited by Thys (farm owner we work for here) to take part in the annual Cederberg Farmers Meeting.  We helped with the set up and were the featured presenters for the conference.  Eric made an amazing video that you can watch in the video gallary.  It was made to help explain to all the farmers in the area what bouldering is and how they can get involved with the tourist aspect of climbing.  After the video, I gave a small talk about climbing, traveling, and my experience here in Rocklands.  The Q and A at the end of the talk went really well.  We also got amazing responses from locals after the meeting.  In short, the climbing/traveling to Rocklands seems to be going in a good direction with many local farmers support.  A few days after the meeting, Karin (Thys’ wife) invited us to an assembly at the local school.  We were asked to give a short motivational type speech, which went pretty well.  I think the kids performances were much better though.  They were very talented kids.  We got to enjoy watching them sing and dance to new and traditions songs.  It was a blessing to be there.  Thinking it couldn’t get any better, we were given the chance to take 7 kids from the local farms climbing.  I didn’t climb at all but it was the best climbing day I’ve had. The kids seemed to have had the time of their life.  This was all made even sweeter the following few days…..3 different boulder project went down.  I was really happy to finish up these amazing climbs before I left.  I don’t think I could have waited another year or more to finally climb them.

Like always, upon leaving an area or arriving at the new destination, something epic has to happen.  Trying to go to India is no exception.  To make a long story short, I am in South Africa waiting on my passport to return from the Indian Embassy in Johannesburg, with only a  week before my flight.  Hopefully it will come accompanied with a 6 month tourist visa to India.  If anything goes slightly wrong, I could be rejected from India, miss my flight out of SA, overstay my visa in SA (having to pay huge fine), and/or get stuck in some random place.  Lets just pray it all goes well.  Being the end of the trip, funds are low and I don’t think they could handle any mess up.  Besides that, the Deed abides…..

Because Eric has left, there will probably not be anymore videos or pics uploaded on the site, being that he was the one who brought the computer.  I figured that if I make it to India it is not worth having my computer shipped to me.  I will continue to write post periodically even though it won’t be accompanied with new pics or videos.  Eric has some more footage from SA that he may make a few short videos with.  If so, maybe he’ll up load them to the site……

 Hopefully the next post will be from India!!  Until then,