plummet.
I did not tell my mother that I went skydiving until after the fact so she would know that I lived through it. We arrived at the airfield of Skydive Kwazulu Natal to meet Marc, who explained exactly what we had to do, every instruction he gave me was erased immediately by fear, which was probably not the best situation. After instructions and strapping on my harness, I sat in my tandem partner’s lap on the tiny plane. We made our way up past the clouds into the sky, looking for the best place to jump. We were warned that we might not even be able to jump because there were too many clouds in the sky, and that it might be dangerous. I trusted the stranger whose lap I was sitting in when he said the spot we picked was safe to jump out of thousands upon thousands of feet in the air. Marc opened the door, and Laura and Marc flew out of the plane and my partner was securely strapped on and practically just pushed me out the door.
The forty second free fall felt like a half a second. He gave me a thumbs up during it to put my arms out and fly. My eyes were open, I could not be afraid, because honestly, if I were to die up there, there was nothing I could do about it then so I just enjoyed the elation of falling from the sky.
The parachute unexpectedly came out and I was all of the sudden floating above a layer of clouds. Until we passed it, all I could see was the sky and a blanket of clouds. I have always wanted to jump out of planes to see what it would be like to touch a cloud, and what it would feel like to fly above them and I finally had my chance. It was the most surreal experience to be one amongst the clouds. We floated through the layer of clouds, and I put my hands out to touch them. No, they do not feel like marshmallows like the rumour goes. After we passed the layer of clouds, my tandem partner said “hmm, where is the airfield,” which was a little bit disconcerting but I trusted this stranger to get me down safely, and we did with the parachute behind us. I landed on the ground without an injury or even with my legs shaking. I could still barely believe that I just jumped out of a plane. The image floating above the clouds is forever imprinted in my mind.
“And for just a moment I had reached the point of ecstasy I had always wanted to reach, which was the complete step across chronological time into timeless shadows, and wonderment in the bleakness of the mortal realm, and the sensation of death kicking at my heels to move one, with a phantom dogging its own heels, and myself hurrying to a plank where all the angels dove off and flew into the holy void of uncreated emptiness, the potent and inconceivable radiances shining in bright Mind Essence, innumerable lotus-lands falling open in the magic mothswarm of heaven.” On the Road- Jack Kerouac
durban.
Durban differs from Cape Town in ways in which I did not expect before my our journey. I did not know exactly what to expect, I just knew that Durban is one of the cities to which everyone from South Africa told me to visit. I knew a city with a beach culture would greet me after the long drive, but Cape Town is also a beach and a city, how different could they be?
The beaches in Durban are much more racially mixed than in Cape Town. My psychology professor’s students conducted a study on post-apartheid Cape Townian beaches, looking at the racial demographics of beaches after they were no longer segregated by law. The beaches in Cape Town are still very separated even after apartheid. While blacks and coloureds are allowed in the previously “only white” beaches, they keep in separate areas from the whites, and the whites are not happy that blacks and coloureds are allowed on “their” beaches. In Durban, the beaches seemed much more racially mixed, and nobody seemed to care about who was on their beaches. While I did not explicitly ask anyone on the beach how they felt about the mixing of racial groups, it seemed that everyone was comfortable with the racial demographic on the beach.
I also never truly realised how “chilled out” Cape Town is until I left it for the week. The city centre of Durban bussling and lively. People walk across the middle of the street with power over the cars; curvy women hold large packages balanced on their heads and two bags in each of their hands with ease. Everyone seems to be involved in some sort of task or on their way to one, unlike Cape Town, where people leisurely walk the streets, and will complete tasks at hand just now, which in translation, means eventually, maybe. At first, one might see Durban as ugly and stressful, but after finding myself lost, looking out the windows in the city centre, Durban became one of the most colourful city and has a distinct, quick-paced and bright, quirky character that I grew to enjoy.
p.s. Durban also has excellent, excellent Indian food, complete with bright pink drinks with umbrellas
