My weekend started early on Friday morning, when Dave from
BokBus picked 11 of us up for our Garden Route tour: Emma, Rebekah, Melinda, Katie, Rebecca,
Kiley, Carly, Mariella, Brittany, Thomas, and myself. The Garden Route is the coast on the southern
part of South Africa. It follows the
Western Cape and goes a little bit into the Eastern Cape. It is bound by the Indian Ocean to the south
and the mountains to the north. The rest
of the coast is the Sunshine Coast followed by the Wild Coast going up the
Eastern side of South Africa. We all
piled into one large van with our luggage – a tight fit. On our way west we took Route 62 through the
Klein Karoo. It is a gorgeous road
through green expanses and mountains. It
is bound on the north by the Swartberg Mountains and on the south by the
Langeberg and Outeniqua mountains.
On our first stop for gas, we were all standing around and
talking. It turns out Thomas in not here
on the same internship program and, even weirder, I met him in Amsterdam since
we were on the same flight to Cape Town.
I had completely forgotten since I hadn’t seen him since then (that was
June 1).
It was a 5 hour drive to Oudtshoorn so we made the
obligatory stop midway at Ronnie’s SEX Shop.
This is a small bar/souvenir place in the middle of nowhere and
surrounding by nothing but open land and mountains. The owner Ronnie wanted to open a store
called Ronnie’s Shop which is the sign he painted outside his building. His friends as a practical joke painted SEX
next to it. He just never changed it
back and now the place is always crowded even at 10 in the morning with people
starting to drink early. There is graffiti
everywhere, as people sign their names and date them. People also sign random articles of clothing
they are wearing, take them off, and hang them on the wall including a lot of
bras. We did not participate in this
activity.
We continued on to the Cango Caves. They are made of limestone and at the foothills
of the Swartberg mountain range near Oudtshoorn. The caves are over 4 kilometers long, but the
tour does not reach all of those places.
We booked the adventure tour which was supposed to take around 1.5
hours. Our guide was very amusing and
called us by the state we were from (I was known as Nebraska). It was very hot inside the caves, which was a
weird change from the cold weather outside.
Near the front is a huge cavern that they have held concerts in because
of the great acoustics. They no longer
have any performances here because when packing in 2,000 spectators a handful
always break off bits of the stalagmites and stalactites to take home as
souvenirs. This is unacceptable, and now
concerts are banned to prevent any more disfiguration of the caves.
Further into the cave we started the adventure part of the
tour – sliding through the Tunnel of Love. This is a narrow part where your
hips don’t fit straight and you have to go sideways. The guides advise certain people of a heavier
nature not to do the adventure tour.
Everyone in our group was fine, but he told us a story about one lady
who insisted she could do it. She
proceeded to get stuck for several hours while they tried to get her out. Further along we encountered the Devil’s
Chimney. I ducked under a wall and had
to climb straight up for several meters in a narrow passage (similar to a
chimney). From here we progressed to the
Devil’s Post Box. I slid in on my
stomach and crawled to the end, where you turn yourself around and shoot
through a narrow gap down a slide.
Dave drove us up the Swartberg pass to see the views: south
was the Little Karoo and north the Great Karoo.
The dry stone retaining walls by the road are 120 years old and still
hold up the curvy road we took to the top.
We drove back to Oudtshoorn to spend the night in a Backpackers. The place was very nice and had a communal cat
that just lounged around in the dining area.
Before dinner Rebekah, Emma, and I went to the bar area to get a glass
of wine. I decided to put a coin in one
of those games that you see often at McDonalds where you slide the coin through
water and if it lands in the cup than you win.
It turns out I was very good at it and won a free shot. We had ostrich kabobs and sausages for dinner
that were grilled over the fire pit outside.
We started the next day at the Cango Ostrich Farm. I learned how to tell real ostrich leather
from fakes by feeling it for the correct bumps and textures. A female ostrich produces around 15 eggs a
year, but the ones here produce over 100 because they constantly take the eggs
from them and incubate them. They take
40 days to grow and hatch. The eggs are also super strong since the ostriches
put all their weight on them while keeping them warm. We can stand on the eggs and not break them
(but don’t jump or try to break them because they smell really bad when
cracked). Outside we got to feed them
out of our hands. The males in our tour
group were allowed to put a piece of the food in between their lips and the
female ostrich will “kiss” them and take the food. They don’t like kissing female humans
though. Another method of feeding them
is to hold a bucket full of food in front of you with your back against the
fence the ostriches are in. They come up
behind you and all their necks are wrapped around you reaching for the
food.
Over in a small arena several ostriches were wearing saddles
and ready for us. They catch the ostrich
and put a bag over its head to calm it down.
An ostrich brain is smaller than their eye, and they are very
stupid. When the bag is there and they
can’t see us, they think we aren’t there.
The ostrich was brought to the edge and people could sit on it. For my turn I got to ride it. They have two staff members run beside you to
catch you. Once I was situated on top
with my knees under the wings, they remove the bag from his head. The bird takes off running and it was really
hard to stay on. My bird proceeded to
turn around and then get in a fight with another ostrich in the pen. This was not supposed to happen. I fall off backward and am caught by the
guides who push me away from the fight so I won’t get hurt. It was a very interesting experience.
Dave drove us south over the mountains and to the southern
coast of Africa starting at a town called George. We drove east along the Garden Route and
stopped for lunch in Knysna (pronounced nice-na). The Knysna oyster festival, the best 10 days
of your winter, was going on. When we
drove up the cycling race was occurring in several of the lanes. We stopped at the harbor for lunch and
everywhere was packed. The place was
gorgeous with great views out over the Indian Ocean. We drove past Plettenberg
Bay and on into the Eastern Cape region.
We stopped at Tsitsikamma National park to hike to the Storms
River mouth and suspension bridge. There
was a path along the coast through all of the trees that led to where the
bridge spans the river. We climbed up
the other side to a lookout point that had a magnificent view of the entire
area and the ocean. I thought the Cape
of Good Hope was gorgeous, but this was even better. We spent the night in another Backpackers in
the area.
Sunday morning it was time for the bungy jump! Bloukrans Bridge Bungy is the world’s highest
commercial bridge bungy at 216 meters (709 feet) above the Bloukrans River. It is also the highest commercial natural
bungy jump in the world. Face Adrenaline
runs the operation and they have a 100% safety record with no accidents. Prince Harry, the Zuma family (Zuma is the
president of South Africa), and the Amazing Race have jumped here.
The first thing they do is weigh you, since the cord you
used is based off of what your weight is.
Then we got our first harness put on around our legs and shoulders. This will be used as the backup safety. We then start the bridge walk. There is a caged pathway that goes up under
the bridge and out into the middle platform where we jump from. The bridge is made of mesh material and when
you look down it almost looks like you are walking on air. All of us stand in the middle of the platform
under the bridge surrounded by all of the crew and staff. I got to go second that morning, and first
out of our group of 8 from the tour. The
other 3 people were too scared to go bungy jumping. I sit down at the first point where they
attach the leg padding around your ankles and they close the harness in the
front of your body. Then I move to the
second station where they bind your ankles together and wind the rope that will
be attached to the bungy cord.
From here they carry you to a standing position between the
two ropes near the edge. I am hooked to
a safety rope to the platform while they get the bungy cord attached to my
ankles and the backup attached to my harness.
They have never had to use the second safety system as they have never
had a problem with the first mechanism. All
of this is being recorded for you to purchase later. The instructor than asks for any last
words. Mine were, “lekker bru.” Lekker is Afrikaans for good and bru is
calling someone bro or pal. We had been
saying this all trip with our guide as we try to talk like a South African. Other phrases we started using include "hectic man" and "shame." From here I am taken off the
safety to the platform and lifted to the edge of the bridge. They count down from 5 and I jumped.
It was absolutely incredible. I free-fell for around 5 seconds feeling
nothing but air and hearing only the sounds of nature. Up on the bridge it is loud, chaotic, and
they have music blaring in the background to get your adrenaline running, while
falling there was dead silence and it was peaceful. The cord pulls tight against my ankles, and I
flew back up several times. It was not
painful at all. The worst part was
hanging there upside down after it was over waiting for the guy to slide down
my rope and pull me back up to the top of the bridge. He slowly turns me right side up to a sitting
position which was nice for my head. At
the top they lift me over edge and remove all the cords from my ankles. The entire trip from jumping to being back on
the bridge takes about 4 minutes. A
really cool part is watching the workmen pull the bungy cord back up onto the
platform. They work in a rhythm to the
music and it was very entertaining.
Our next tour stop was the Knysna Elephant Park. They have 9 African elephants. The elephants sleep in giant stables inside
at night to stay out of the cold. In the
day they roam around their large enclosure.
We took a vehicle, similar to a hayrack ride, out to where the elephants
were loitering. I had my bucket of fruit
ready to feed them. The elephants all
line up on one side of a divider wiggling their trunks towards us wanting
food. For the grown up elephants you put
the fruit in the palm of your hand and they suck it into their trunk and put it
in their mouth. For the baby elephants, you
roll the food toward them so you don’t aggravate the adult elephants. You never bend down in front of an elephant
because they think that means you are fighting them.
After we had fed them all the fruit, we are split into
groups to go interact with them up close.
We get to pet their sides, trunks, and tusks while posing for
pictures. They are very friendly and
sometimes walk away, but are never aggressive with us. African elephants are smaller here than they
are further north, and much smaller than the Asian elephants I have seen.
We drove to the Garden Route Game Lodge for our game drive
safari. Our guide, Kim, was the wife of
the manager of the lodge. We climb into
a jeep of sorts that has three rows of seats and an open top. They provide these warm green ponchos to
protect us from the rain (thankfully it didn’t) and to keep us warm. This is a
malaria free area. The reserve has 3 sections. There is an elephant area, a lion area, and
the main area. These animals are kept
separate for varying reasons, but mainly to prevent death of certain animals
they don’t want killed or eaten. The
lion would take out too many of their other animals. The fences around this huge reserve are just
boundaries and don’t have to keep the animals in. A good portion of the animals such as the
lion or springbok could jump the fence if they wanted to, but the land is
spacious and fertile where they are so they don’t want to leave. The cheetah
sometimes escapes and they get calls from neighboring farms to come collect it
before it hurts somebody.
The goal of going on a safari in South Africa is to see the
Big 5. The Big 5 are elephant, lion,
cheetah, buffalo, and rhino. They are
deemed the big 5 because they are the five most difficult animals to hunt. They
are all smart and dangerous.
We started by driving up to the elephant enclosure. They have two large elephants that are
orphans. Their parents were
slaughtered. Elephants are far from
endangered and sometimes when you have too many you have to kill some of
them. These two were babies when this
happened, and they were kept alive to be tamed.
However, orphaned elephants are unruly and misbehave so they were sent
to the game lodge to be wild and free.
The protocol for killing elephants is that you have to kill the entire
family to prevent this kind of trauma to the children.
Our next stop was the lion enclosure. They have one male and one female lion. There used to be two females, but the male
accidently killed her. She had eaten
from their meal when it was his turn so he swiped at her neck and snapped
it. These two lions had just been fed
that day and there was a dead cow by them.
They feed the lion by bringing him dead meat in the back of a
truck. He climbs up and takes it away. The lion and the elephant are the only two
animals they feed and they are the two that are separate from the main
reserve. The female lion was lying down
taking a nap and the male one was watching us.
At one point he mock charged at us to get us to back away. Kim stopped the jeep pretty far away from
them, but she said that if the lion wanted he would run and get to us before
she could sit down and start the engine.
Lions mate for 4 days out of the year. During this time they have sex every 30
minutes for 30 seconds at a time. The
female lion in this reserve has birth control so she won’t get pregnant. Every 18 months they dart her (put her to
sleep) and put the hormones in to prevent pregnancy. There is no shortage of lions in Africa and
they do not want any more right now.
We drove by herds of zebra, wildebeest, springbok, impala,
kudu, and other antelope species. There
are tons of them all over the reserve.
Most of these herds are one male and the rest female. The lone males are called bachelors and were kicked out of the herd and forced to live alone or form a new
pack. Once the dominant male has mated
with all the females, he is tired and the bachelors come and take over. Then they get to mate with the females as
well. Most of these animals do not mate
for pleasure, but just for procreation during the mating season.
We drove around the game reserve until we found the
cheetahs. The lodge sent their male away
after the baby giraffe was born 6 months ago to prevent him from killing
it. The mother cheetah has 4 cubs, but only
2 are with her in the game reserve. The
other 2 are being raised by my guide at her house. She has the most incredible life I have ever
heard of. She has a 2 year old child, 6
month old child, and two 4 month old baby cheetahs in her house. Then she raises baby springbok in her
backyard, and the elephant enclosure is right next to her house. I would consider having her life because it
sounds amazing. The cheetah and her cubs
were so cute and just lounging nearby where we were parked eating and playing.
We drove through the riverbed area to where the giraffes
were spotted. The baby was so cute. These giraffes have shorter necks because
they eat the shrubs and bushes off the ground and not out of high reaching tree
branches. The sun was setting by this
point so it was getting harder and harder to see the animals. Back at the lodge we had an amazing dinner
before sleeping in our chalets for the night.
We had a sunrise safari to try to find the animals that we
didn’t spot last night. The sunrise was
gorgeous. We found the buffalo roaming
around. They were just wandering and
weren’t bothered by the sight of us. Up the road by them were the rhinos. These are white rhinos and they are about to
be put on the endangered species list.
The black rhino, which is not in this game reserve, is already on the
list. The animals are hunted for their
horn, which when ground up into powder is supposed to be an aphrodisiac. This is the same material as fingernails, so
this finding is false, but poachers come to take them anyway. Poachers generally dart the rhino, to put it
to sleep, and then they saw off the horn and leave. The rhino bleeds to death either while still
sleeping or it wakes up in pain and dies.
In South Africa if you catch someone poaching you can shoot to kill. The rhino walked right up next to the jeep
and didn’t care that we were there.
Our guide took us to her house to pet the baby
cheetahs. This is not a scheduled thing,
nor do most people on safaris get to stop there. They had the two cubs on leashes. One of them was brought to my end of the jeep
and we got to pet their soft fur.
After the safari we went to the reptile house where they
have a variety of snakes. One of the snakes bites so lightly that you don’t
even feel it, and then you die of the poisons.
The Puff Adder is Africa’s deadliest snake because it causes the most
human fatalities with its venom. Similar
to how a rattlesnake rattles before striking, the puff adder puffs up. I got to hold a Ball Python (I think that was
the one I held), before we took off.
We stopped for lunch in Hermanus. Hermanus is where you can find the best land
based whale watching in the world.
Moments after we climbed out of the van the horn sounded signaling a
whale sighting. The Southern Right
Whales migrate 6-8 weeks from their feeding grounds in Antarctica to mate in
this area on the coast. There were
several more whale sightings, mainly just their tales, fins, and the water spewed
into the air from their blow holes.
On the way home we stopped at Stony Point to view the
penguin colony. This colony was much
larger than the one at Boulder’s Beach.
There was a long boardwalk that had penguins lounging on all sides on
the rocks, beach, and in the water. Finally
we made it home after a long incredible weekend!
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