After a week’s vacation, a (very) detailed account of the absolutely gorgeous Garden Route can be found below for your reading pleasure. Or you can skim and ogle at the photos. They’re pretty cool too…
A 5:00 A.M. alarm marked the start of Garden Route! Coffee- and sleep-deprived AIFS-ers made our way to the big white vans and loaded duffle bags into the trunks before jumping in to claim a window seat. I had been told that here in Africa, it’s more about the journey than the destination and half the fun is in watching the beautiful scenery along the drive. It was incredible to see the number of scenes passing by my window…mountainous crags, seaside cliffs, blue ocean waters, flat savannas, speeding white vans driven by crazy drivers blasting techno at 7am (wish I was kidding about the last one…)
Our first rest stop was “Ronnie’s Sex Shop.” And yes, there is a bit of history behind the name. The owner of this establishment (called Ronnie, it would seem) painted the name of his new rustic roadside farm stall "Ronnie's Shop" on the side of the building in red. When he wasn't looking, his sneaky friends grabbed a paintbrush and added the word 'sex' to the sign – creating a well-known landmark. Ronnie, clever chap that he is, decided to keep the new name and instead of running yet another one of the many roadside farm stalls, he turned his business into a pub and restaurant and today it is one of the best-known destination pubs in South Africa. 
We journeyed on to the Cango Caves where I felt like I had stepped into “The Goonies” movie set as we crawled, squirmed and shimmied our way through dark tunnels and into underground caverns. Surrounded by rock formations millions of years old, you couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if they started falling from the ceiling…
But no rest for the weary spelunkers –it was on to Oudshorn Ostrich Farm!
I’ve come to the conclusion that these birds are just plain weird –their ankles are located where you think their knees should be, they only have 3 toes instead of 4 like most birds, and their eye is bigger than their brain. They do give excellent hugs though:
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| Fun Fact: 1 ostrich egg = 12 chicken eggs. Talk about a supersized omelet! |
Sunday’s adventure was kloofing –white water tubing (minus the tube!) meets cliff jumping. Yep, pretty awesome! We hiked, sweating in our full-body wetsuits to the start of the river, which was colored brown because of the tannins and looked suspiciously like tea water. Iced tea, to be exact –the water was FREEZING and I had a pair of lovely purple lips by the end of the afternoon.
Taking advantage of the beautiful mountains around the backpackers hostel, a few of us went out for a longer hike to find the infamous waterfalls we had heard about –and we were not disappointed! I’ll pretend for a minute that we did not lost the trail and had to forge our own way across the river; we eventually ended up at the most beautiful falls and dove in for a swim J
In addition to our slight direction disability, it seems like we also lack time-keeping skills and it was soon much later than we anticipated. Yes, folks, the mountain woods in Africa get very dark. Very fast. We were soon using the glowing screen of a cell phone to light our path back to camp and we emerged from the trail to be greeted by a very concerned Mama H (who was just about to call our parents to break the news that we had gotten lost in the African jungle. I don’t think that would have gone over very well…)
And what’s an African adventure without some African animals? Monday we visited an elephant sanctuary and it’s official: elephants are by far the coolest animals I’ve seen here!
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| Turns out the bucket of fruit is comparable to eating a handful of M&Ms! |
However, walking across that bridge an hour later, I began to have second thoughts. Who in their right mind decided to make this a recreational sport, anyway??
The blasting music gave me an excuse to dance around with my nervous energy as I waited impatiently for them to call “Number 12!” I sat, voluntarily getting my feet tied together and strained to listen to my guide’s instructions over the loud dance beats (I only managed to catch the words “safety” and “strap,” to which I responded with a smile and nod, hoping that this “safety strap” was securely attached to my ankles…)
Before I knew it, it was “5, 4, 3, 2, 1, BUNGY!” and against all better judgment, my feet left the safe, concrete platform and I was rushing headfirst on a 650 foot drop. The feeling was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced –the 5 second free-fall seemed to drag on forever before the cord caught and I flew upwards again to experience the second highest jump in the world on the recoil! As the cord stabilized and I bounced up and down, I could only hear complete silence and I stared down at a beautiful river canyon full of trees with tops sprouting up at me. Incredible.
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| Look Ma! No Hands! |
We spent our final day of the Garden Route visiting more wildlife –cheetahs, jaguars, servals, wildcats, caracals, meerkats, and…monkeys!
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| Well hey there Timon! |
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| Found a few movie stars from Pirates of the Caribbean and the Hangover 2 here in Monkeyland! |
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| The longest suspension bridge in the southern hemisphere! (No jumping off this one!) |
The past few days back in Stellenbosch have been a tad soggy; however, we’ve tried to combat the rain and explore Cape Town with our last few days off. Saturday we shopped around the Old Biscuit Mill and sampled the delicious homemade and local foods (can you say homemade peanut butter ice cream?!).
And finally, hoppy Easter! While it was a bit disappointing not to be home with family to celebrate the holiday (Eliza, don’t think you automatically win the egg hunt just because Bobby and I aren’t there to take you on!), I had a very entertaining African Easter. A group of us, dressed in our Easter best, walked to church yesterday morning –only to find the mass times had changed. Across the street, however, another local Afrikaans service was just starting and we were warmly welcomed inside to get out of the rain. Although we understood only about 20% of what was going on (I managed to make out that the first 10 minutes were spent congratulating “Auntie Anne” on turning 90 years old. You go girl!), it was still awesome to feel the energy coming from the band and gospel choir dressed in full robes. (Hallie commented after “well that was the first Easter service I’ve been to with a drum set on the alter!”) While it was very different from the traditional Easter masses we celebrate at home, it didn’t matter to the other parishioners that we didn’t speak their language; they welcomed us anyway–to the extent that the man standing next to us offered Corie his Afrikaans hymnal! It was this simple one-hour service that reminded me the simplicity, yet the importance, of offering a friendly smile or that welcoming gesture to a stranger… and what better time to show it than on Easter!
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