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As South African Airways flight 7798 left the Atlanta runway on the morning of December 28, I looked forward to the next two weeks as full of amazing opportunities.  The opportunity to visit a country with a long and tortured history, where rugby played a role in its sordid past, and now is important to its increasingly bright future was unbelievably exciting.  On a more personal level, I looked forward to the opportunity for the Stanford team to bond, and for Stanford Rugby to improve.  As for how this would happen, I had no idea what to expect.  Like the ten other rookies who traveled, this would be my first Stanford rugby tour, and indeed, other than surfing trips to Baja California, this would be my first time out of the country.

We spent the first week at a retreat center in the town of Stellenbosch, just outside of Cape Town.  Our mornings consisted of intense early morning workouts, one of which involved splitting up into three teams and racing five kilometers up a hill, each team carrying a fifty-pound wood plank deemed "the passenger" by Coach Holder.  Another morning, considering the famous Table Mountain towering above the city, Coach determined that it would be a great idea for the team to take in the vista it commands.  Avoiding the gondola that accesses the mountain, Coach commanded us to climb it.  Hiking over 750 vertical meters in the scorching summer heat, many of us considered a mutiny, but those feelings disappeared as we reached the top.  Before us unfolded a vast expanse with breathtaking views of Cape Town and both the Atlantic and Indian oceans.

The early evenings of the first week were spent training at a school in Stellenbosch working on ball handling, unit work, offensive and defensive team play, and of course, more and more and more fitness training. 
 
The intensity of the training sessions truly showed in our improvement over the week and our ability to sleep whenever the opportunity presented itself.
 
With so much hard work every morning and early evening, I was amazed at how much of South Africa we got to see off the rugby pitch.  We spent the greater part of one day cage diving with great white sharks.
 
We saw a day of competition in the South Africa - England international cricket test match, trying the entire time to get Sam McMeekin, our disgruntled English teammate (South Africa was winning), to explain the game of cricket to us.  
 
After climbing Table Mountain, we spent the afternoon soaking up the sun at Clifton Beach, a hot beach with icy water on the Atlantic side of the Cape. 

One afternoon, it came up in conversation with a local that we were a rugby team from Stanford.  She replied, "Oh, from just down the road."  We were somewhat confused until we drove through the town of Stanford, South Africa.
 
Several of the nights, we had the opportunity to get to know some of the locals, some better than others, just ask McMeekin, better yet, don't.  One illustration of new friendship is captured in the following picture.  After a serious day of training, we spent some time at a pub in Stellenbosch, an adventure intended to experience "local culture."  Justice, playing pool in the foreground, became acquainted with the bearded gentleman on the far right of the picture, a former rugby player, after challenging him to a "friendly" game of pool.  During the game, Justice's new friend made at least eight "lucky" shots in a row to come back and win.  Justice still denies putting any money on the game.
 
 The day we arrived in Cape Town, we were able to tour the township of Gugulethu, which means "Our Pride" in the native language of Xhosa, with guides from the Amy Biehl Foundation.  Hearing the story of Amy Biehl, a Stanford student killed in the township during apartheid, the reactions to that tragedy of her parents and friends, and listening to a brief history of the people of Gugulethu was very powerful and inspiring.  One of my most memorable experiences on tour was when we threw the rugby ball around with around twenty small children in the township.  Seemingly oblivious to the deeply rooted problems of their country, these children were ecstatic to play with us and appeared to have the biggest smiles in the world.  As we left, they bombarded us with "high-fives."
 
On January 5, we left for Sediba Kwele, our next stop, outside of Johannesburg.  A beautiful place, isolated in the South African brushland, Sediba Kwele was just what one would expect, a game reserve with rugby facilities.
 
As the temperature here was over one hundred degrees Fahrenheit during the day, we ran at night and began a training session one morning, already under a burning sun, at 5:55am.  While near Johannesburg, we toured the facilities of the Super 12 rugby team, the Blue Bulls.
 
Our tour of South Africa was sealed with a match against a very good club team centered in the small town of Brits.  Noting that several players on the other team had as many years of rugby experience as most of the players on our team combined, it was not too much of a surprise that our game was first and foremost a "learning experience."  After the game, Brits treated us to a BBQ that consisted, like every balanced South African meal, of meat, meat, and more meat.

Socializing with the Brits players after the game, I came to realize that we had done much more in South Africa than improve our individual and team skills on the rugby pitch.  We had struggled through workouts, played touch on the beach, burned in the sun, climbed a memorable mountain, sung songs with locals in the pubs, and after the last game, immersed ourselves in a culture that extends from the Brits Rugby Stadium all the way to the Doyle Family Rugby Clubhouse and beyond.  The South Africa tour provided a lifetime of memories, and my teammates and I realize how lucky we are to play the international game of rugby on an extraordinary team at a university with a rich rugby tradition.