Company: BUNAC
Job: Volunteer
Country: Cambodia

Durham University graduate, Lauren Tinsley, aged 21, from Cheshire arrived in Cape Town at the end of July as a participant on BUNAC’s Volunteer South Africa programme.

One week in South Africa.

ONE week. I can hardly believe the things I've done, places I've been and people I've met in the 7 days I've been here in Cape Town. Where's a girl to start?

Let's try Heathrow airport, a week ago, when me and five fellow BUNACers were sitting at a bar in the departures lounge, all chatting away excitedly about our placements, preparations and expectations, getting to know each other and generally very excited to be there and relieved to be getting on so well and finding we all had the same anxieties and plans to travel after our placements.

Fast forward one 12-hour flight and there the real adventure begins.

From the first minute we stepped out of the airport to clear, crisp blue skies and an incredible view of the impressive Table Mountain, there has been an overload of new sights and sounds – every evening I've gone to bed happily exhausted and looking forward to tomorrow.

Our accommodation for this first week of orientation has been the beautiful Ashanti Lodge, well-regarded on the backpacker trail as the best in Cape Town and I'll be the first to recommend it.

The staff are incredibly friendly and more than helpful with anything from travel enquiries to the best clubs, even a random chat! The beds are comfy, there's a cool bar and one loo has the best view of Table Mountain - they've even provided a pair of binoculars for your convenience, now that's service!

Meeting the locals

We haven’t had time for anything resembling homesickness this week - we've been taken on a walking tour of the city, spent a day travelling down to the southernmost tip of Africa taking in the beautiful scenery and visited a colony of African penguins (soooo cute!), been on an open top bus tour and taken on a tour of the townships.

In addition to this we've done our own exploring, shopping and, of course, relaxing and socialising! Our host organisation, SASTS, gave us an incredibly helpful briefing on our arrival, to tell us more about our placements and host families in addition to tips about safety and transport – it has been a great help in settling in and feeling more comfortable with our home for the next couple of months.

The two highlights of this first week of orientation were, firstly, walking up Cape Point right through families of wild baboons and looking out over the most spectacular scenery, being able to think "the next land mass from here is Antarctica….." and, secondly, our wine-tasting trip followed by a picnic in the stunning Kirstenbosch botanical gardens with meerkats and unusual birds coming right up to us to be fed. All this under the most gorgeous blue skies - and they call this 'winter' for some reason.

For more information about BUNAC placements or to apply visit: www.bunac.org

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