We flew through Amsterdam from Chicago to get to Cape
Town. Jolene definitely made the second
leg of the trip a little more interesting with some motion sickness. We had to switch her to the aisle and she
stood for parts of the second flight. We
landed late in Cape Town and had no issue taking a cab to our Protea hotel in
Sea Point.
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| South African Flag Art |
After landing we caught a handful of hours of sleep and started the trip with an immediate 5-day adventure tour
along the Southern to Eastern cape of South Africa just past Port Elizabeth. Our guide/driver was a local named Isaac and
we traveled with a younger group from around the world (Australia, Switzerland,
Hungary, France, UK). They definitely helped
make this part of the trip very memorable as we did nearly everything together
as a group.
Day 1 : CAPE TOWN – WILDERNESS NATIONAL PARK – SEDGEFIELD
A long drive started the trip as we drove along the Southern coast and got to know our traveling group. When we finally got out, we canoed for a couple hours in Wilderness National Park. As we have learned multiple times in the past, Jolene is a lot better at this than me and trying to keep in sync was not our specialty. This didn’t stop Mike from trying to race a German couple back to the docks. We were definitely very impressed with how green and hilly the park was.
We spent the evening close by at a great guest house that evening on a hill that can only be compared to the tree house in Swiss Family Robinson. Our guide actually bottomed out the van trying to drop us off half way up the steep hill we were staying on (we agreed the next day we’d meet him at the bottom). We had an amazing view overlooking the coast and were surrounded by trees and branches. We walked down the hill and ate outside at the Blue Olive where we had local seafood, ostrich carpaccio, and kudu strips while finishing the evening sipping local beverages on the decks of the hotel.
Day 2 : SEDGEFIELD – KNYSNA – TSITSIKAMMA – JEFFREYS BAY
The next morning, we started with bungee jumping (bucket list) off of Bloukrans Bridge. I definitely was partially tricked into signing up by the Swiss girls who tried to back out last minute (don’t worry, they jumped). Jolene decided to come and walk out onto the bridge to cheer us on- but she still found a way to hurt her finger and cry a little after realizing I had survived my jump.
Next we walked along forest trails in Tsitsikamma National Park with lunch on the water’s edge with the waves breaking along the rocks. To finish out the day we went zip-lining back and forth across the river gorge. Another one of Jolene’s surprise skills is if you put her in a harness she loses all fear. She did have one long run that was through a tight pass were a branch tried to grab her but she refused to brake and powered through.
That evening we checked into the Supertubes (surfing wave term!) guest house in Jeffrey’s Bay (self-proclaimed calamari, shell collecting, and surf capital of the world). That evening we headed over to the Island Vibe backpacker hostel that other members of our group were staying to eat/drink/and hang out. We even ran into a couple fellow Pittsburghers who were playing beer pong with our group.
Day 3 : JEFFREYS BAY – ADDO ELEPHANT NATIONAL PARK – JBAY
One of the main goals of the trip was to see some of the wildlife of Africa. We got picked up at 3am (the Aussies partied too hard the previous night and luckily were able to get a ride with another group a little later in the morning) to head over to Addo Elephant National Park (third largest national park in South Africa) to be there for sunrise and do a 2+ hour guided game drive with our guide Ryan. We also got a chance to search for animals on our way out the back edge of the park that afternoon with Isaac.
We saw a ton of animals: Easily 100 elephants, zebras, springboks, warthogs, water buffalo, blacked back jackals, and more. Watching the jackals try to quickly devour as much of a water buffalo carcass that had been killed late the previous evening by a pair of male lions was pretty unreal. They were all the way inside the animal and were taking advantage of the short window of time they had as something else must have scared off the lions. We also had a couple instances where our vehicle was completely surrounded by elephants. At least one elephant toddler came up on us and flapped out his ears as big as he could to try to appear as intimidating as possible!
We were due for a calm afternoon/evening, so we walked the beach (found three golden retrievers) and did a night of gouda, crackers, and Pinotage outside on the patio listening to the waves.
Started the day at the Cango Wildlife Ranch where they are working to preserve nearly 60 of the world’s most endangered animals. We then toured a working ostrich farm in Oudtshoorn, which was the place to be during the ostrich feather boom. Jolene got to hold a brand new ostrich chick and got what was called an ostrich neck massage as four ostriches aggressively pecked over her shoulders to get a taste of the bucket of food she was holding. For lunch we of course all had ostrich! It’s good, plus it’s low in cholesterol.
The next part or our trip was a visit to Cango Caves. We were warned multiple times that this was going to include some very tight spaces that we needed to crawl through. I can honestly say I found this more intimidating than bungee jumping. It didn’t help that some of these underground areas were called “The Coffin” or “Devil’s Chimney”. What got us off on the wrong foot though was a 30+ yard stretch called “Tunnel of Love” where the German guy in front of us got stuck temporarily. The look of terror in in his eyes as he turned back to Jolene was enough to convince us to stay to the back of the group so we knew there was a way to escape back to daylight. The story that Isaac had left us with before we started remained ever present in the back of our head was about an American woman who got stuck for 11 hours and had to be oiled up among other things to get her out!
That night we walked across from the Yamkela Guesthouse to Backpacker paradise for ostrich BBQ (Braai), drinks around the fire, and a pool tournament. I definitely let Jolene and America down with my pool skills but we did cheer on the Aussies as they played against the Brits and Germans. There was an unreal amount of trash talk “banta” going on.
Day 5 : OUDTSHOORN – ELEPHANT BUSH WALK - WILDLIFE RANCH – CAPE TOWN
At this point I had already lost track of what was next on our list but it turns out after breakfast we were going on an elephant bush walk with three elephants through a nearby reserve. It was pretty unreal walking side by side with them down thin paths, feeding them, and getting a chance to quiz some of the rangers about what they do to care for and protect them.
The first part of our trip then came to an end as we trekked back across central South Africa on Route 62 to Cape Town with drop offs of the group that evening and the swapping of contact info to keep in touch.
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