Monkey Valley: Where Monkeys Don't Run Wild, But Filmmakers Do

This past week has been absolutely phenomenal. Last Sunday, Aunt Judy arrived and whisked us away with her to a resort outside of Cape Town where she was teaching a workshop on directing actors. Eleven of South Africa's most promising filmmakers, as well as various people within the filming industry, descended upon a tiny resort. While the filmmakers were in their workshops, Tessa and I were able to lounge about the resort, take long strolls on the beach, practice our contact juggling and fire dancing skills, read and write, befriend the waiting staff, and just take time for some much needed rest and relaxation. This is the first time in our whole trip in which we did not have to worry (and by worry I mean plan) about anything, Aunt Judy took care of our EVERY need.



This was our first sundowner on the beach. Marten supplied the champagne and raspberries, as well as mango bits, springbok jerky, crackers, and cheese. As we sat on the beach together, watching the translucent (I love that word!) waves crashing ashore, we spotted a clan of dolphins and a group of seals (and I was just sharing how one of my hopes in life was to see dolphins in the ocean...what are the odds?). MAGICAL.
sunset


Here is Marten sitting in above Monkey Valley Resort, our home for the week. Whenever you thought the party was about to die, Marten would always come out of nowhere with two more bottles of wine. He also led us in late night singing sessions, much to the delight of the other guests.

Tessa summed up our days at Monkey Valley quite well: We eat and we sleep. We think and we write and we eat. We think and we drink and we eat and we talk. And then we sleep. What a beautiful way to live!

We also watched a lot of sunsets. Here is one of many, many sunset photos. We're pretty sure Cape Town wins thus far for most beautiful sunsets.




Alisa with some of the great Monkey Valley staff: Morne, Frankie, and Cedric. Apparently, Frankie and Cedric are both former models . . . we believe it! It turns out that Cape Town is one of the modeling capitals of the world and a lot of companies come here for their photo shoots. We have witnessed two modeling shoots on the street so far.

Yet another sundowner. This time with the entire crew. The film project they are working on is called The Commandments (based on The Dekalog by Kieslowski). Each director is creating a feature film or a 50 minute episode about one of the many issues facing modern South Africa. The films are set to come out in 2010.

Here I am with Nosizwe, an apiring 23 year old film maker (who has graciously offered to host us in her home in Swaziland). Every day Nosizwe, and the rest of the filmmakers, would work extensively with Aunt Judy (also known as Judith Weston, one of the most prominent teachers of directors...if anyone is involved in acting or directing they should read her book which, allegedly, is one of the most powerful books in the field, "Directing Actors"). By night, however, the filmmakers would need to unwind...so we might have joined them in this process. My favorite part of this night was when a round of tequila shots was first brought to the table. I squeezed Aunt Judy because I really cannot take a shot well. She offered to help me but, as she was doing so, was spotted by one of the other filmmakers. He then proceeded to get Aunt Judy a shot. One. Two. Three. We all took the shot and set down our glasses. I looked at Aunt Judy's and under a half millimeter had disappeared. I love it!


On Aunt Judy's day off we set out to explore the surrounding area. Marten loaned us his rental car and so Alisa got behind the wheel and, without any practice, drove for the first time on the left side of the road. (Marten assured us that he was FULLY insured.) Our first stop was more penguins!

Eventually we made it to Cape Point. We ate lunch at the base (a baboon ran across the canopy above us!) and then rode the funicular to the top. The Cape of Good Hope is in the background.

Antartica is just over the horizon.


As we were standing at the very top of Cape Point, looking out at the edge of the world, we saw in the distance a rainbow moving slowly toward us. It must be a good omen.

Driving from Cape Point to the Cape of Good Hope we encountered an entire troop of baboons just hanging out in the middle of the road. One came up to Aunt Judy's door and tried to break in. Being the intrepid travelers that we are, we thought ahead and had locked the door. Our intrepidness only goes so far, however. Rather than immediately whip out our cameras, we all screamed and pinned ourselves to the other side of the car . . . We saw ostriches, too!























The south-western most point of the African continent.


This was the view.

We felt so elated, we literally jumped for joy.

One of the other highlights of our Monkey Valley week was celebrating Alisa's 24th birthday.
Aunt Judy, Marten, and Jacky surprised me with an outstanding birthday dinner (complete with an abundance of champagne, wine, and rich chocolate cake). I think I was in a state of bliss (you might not be able to tell from the photo).

As soon as everyone got their slice of cake, Alisa told us that we were not allowed to use cutlery. Penny, our wonderful waitress, immediately took this to heart and snatched everyone's forks.

Here's everyone! Thanks so much for an incredible week.

Cape Town

Here we are hanging out in Obs with our new incredible friend Agnes! Agnes moved to Cape Town just two days after us and immediately invited us over for coffee. Within a day, we moved in with her.

We decided we ought to hike up Table Mountain. Luckily we read a couple minutes before leaving that people often die climbing . . . so we decided we ought to bring a little water.

Intimidated by hiking? Us? Never. We live for the challenge.

Two and a half hours later, we had finally dragged ourselves to the top. (The family of 6 that arrived just after us was heard shouting, "Well done, kids! We did it in one hour and fifteen minutes!" . . . they must have known a shortcut.)

The next day we were invited to hike up Lion's Head. Sore from our previous hike, we were promised that this one would be much easier. We soon discovered, however, that this hike involved hoisting ourselves up the rock face with chains.

But the views were totally worth it.

This is us on top of Lion's Head with Table Mountain in the background.

Later that night we had a dance party. This guy was a professional dancer in Germany for four years. He taught us everything he knows. We also have an awesome video of Alisa and our French friend, Thomas, doing a crazy dance called "The Tectonic" but apparently it's near impossible to upload videos in South Africa. So once we leave South Africa we'll try to remember or someone can remind us.

We rode the train along the coast to Simon's Town with Paul and April and saw loads of penguins. (You've seen these two before . . . 10 points to those who know where . . .)



P.S.

Good birthday surprises take time...

And you thought we forgot about you...truly, we were busy trying to collect the most eclectic photos we could. Cape Town really loves you!

We Live for Layovers

A long overdue update and we're still way behind. We have been in Cape Town, South Africa for 6 days now and are doing great, but before we get into that, we gotta talk about London.

Last week, en route from El Salvador to Cape Town, we had a three day layover in London. We were really worried about what we would do for three days given the ridiculous strength of the pound, but it ended up being incredibly fun. Thanks goes entirely to our fabulous hosts, Kate and Sara. We arrived at their flat to find couches already made into beds, a stack of reading materials, adaptors, maps, and even two ciders with our names on them (literally) in the fridge waiting for us. They also let us use all their clothes and makeup so we could feel a little bit more like Londoners and a little less like backpacking slobs.

Kate's boyfriend, Laurens, is a film student working as director of photography on his final film and so we got to be extras! We played Mourner #1, Mourner #2, Mourner #3, and Mourner #4. The film is a dark comedy about a funeral director. Hopefully we'll be able to post a link to it when it's finished!

Kate gave us a map and a route and we set off on the tube to explore the city. We especially loved getting up close and personal to the masterpieces at the National Gallery and the Tate Modern.

London has great street performers and we felt very encouraged in our goal to become street performers ourselves. Next time we're in London . . .

Celebrating the film crew's final day of shooting!

This next part is very important and very serious.

We know that there are some of you out there who have been staring at a computer screen for a long time now. There are also probably a lot of you who are sitting behind a desk at work pretending to do something important. When the boss walks by, you rapidly switch your screen to a spreadsheet, but in actuality you're bored to death and are spending your whole day reading this blog and cuteoverload.com.

We have the remedy and this is the important part.

Pick up the nearest black pen (blue works okay, too), take the inside of your pointer finger, and draw a moustache. Don't think, just do it. Now, put that finger underneath your nose. And don't take it down until you've gotten at least three people to join you.


SEND US YOUR FINGERSTACHE PHOTOS!!!


As we left at 6am Sunday morning to walk to the underground to catch the train to Heathrow, it began to snow . . . The perfect way to end a magical three days in London.