Franschhoek - Wine Country

Franschhoek is right in the heart of South Africa’s wine country.  It is a quaint little town full of gourmet restaurants and surrounded by some world-class wineries.

Our guest house and surrounding stables in Franschhoek

We started our day with a bottle of Methode Cap Classique -- Franschhoek’s sparkling -- opened by saber!

Franschhoek was the perfect way to cap off a great month in Africa.

Ostrich Rodeo

Oudtshoorn is the self-proclaimed “Ostrich Capital of the World.”  If you’ve never tried ostrich, you are missing out big time!  After trying it in Windhoek, we were hooked and began looking for it on every menu.  The farms around Oudtshoorn raise thousands of the big birds, and some of them invite visitors.  These two ostrich-addicts were all over it.

Here are a few things we learned at the ostrich farm.  Ostrich eggs weigh 3 pounds, and you can stand on them without cracking them.  The beaks and legs of the males turn red during mating season.  Ostrich leather is the second toughest after kangaroo.  The best way to survive an ostrich attack is to lie face down on the ground.  And last but not least, you can ride them!!!  Well, at least you can if you are under 75 kilos, which meant that Sara made the cut, but I didn’t.

You mean you can ride this guy?

It’s just a bird.  How dangerous could it be?

Riding of ostriches at own risk

Whoa, that seems kinda dangerous!

And she's off!

Ostrich riding in Oudtshoorn

Sara hopped off after her wild ride with a huge smile on her face!  Maybe I should go on a huge diet so that I can ride one next time!

-David

Cango Caves

After leaving the Garden Route we headed inland to the little town of Oudtshoorn.  First stop: Cango Caves.  We opted for the "adventure tour" which meant that we would be squeezing through some very tight spaces!!!

Sara conquered a bit of a fear when she came out the other side of a few of the tunnels.

Peaking through the "Post Box"at Cango Caves

Coming out the other side of the "Post Box" at Cango Caves

Our guide asked David to do a pull-up on one of the rock shelves in the cave to show off its strength (it being the rock shelf).  Success: neither David nor the rock shelf fell!

Pulling up on a rock shelf at Cango Caves

Tsitsikamma National Park

A view along South Africa's Garden Route

After a couple of exciting days in Gansbaai, we continued east along the coast of South Africa.  A few hours in the car brought us to the Garden Route, a scenic route that reminded us of the Great Ocean Road in Victoria, Australia.  The Garden Route brought us all the way to Tsitsikamma National Park.

Since we were delayed by a day at Gansbaai, we had a very long drive and arrived much later than we had planned.  Although I don’t love arriving somewhere in the dark it does make the morning very exciting when you can head outside and check out the view!

Our Forest Hut in Tsitsikamma National Park

We decided to spend a few days in Tsitsikamma after a couple of South Africans recommended it to us.  We were very excited to see what was in store.  The Otter Trail is a very famous hike in South Africa.  It takes five days to complete and you have to sign up for a permit at least a year in advance.  The good news for us is that anyone can hike the first day of the Otter Trail without a permit.  It was gorgeous.  I can’t imagine what five days would have been like!

David on the Otter Trail

Our best animal sighting while in the park?  Rock dassies!

Rock dassies in Tsitsikamma National Park

Can you believe that these little guys are the closest living relative to elephants? 

What a way to celebrate our eighth month of traveling!

~Sara

Cage Diving Video

Shark Cage Diving: Take Two

Our second try at cage diving was perfect – calm seas, a light breeze, and tons of sharks!  It wasn’t long after we anchored that the first sharks arrived and decided that our “decoy” – a rubber seal nicknamed Gladys – looked tasty.  Earlier we had asked our captain Brian about the sharks’ teeth, and he promised Sara a tooth if one got stuck in Gladys (something that happens about once every six months).  It was her lucky day, because this shark left one of his behind!


A Great White Shark with our decoy Gladys in its mouth

We quickly pulled on some really thick wetsuits and hopped into the cage.

Inside the diving cage just before closing the lid

Watching from the cage wasn’t really as scary as we had expected.  It was really interesting to watch the sharks up close trying to feed on poor Gladys and the hunk of tuna floating in the water.  They are really fast when they want to be!  Sometimes the sharks would crash into the cage, but more often than not, they steered clear.  We made sure to keep our fingers and toes safely inside!

A Great White Shark outside the diving cage

Thank you Sara for a wonderful birthday present that I will never forget!!!

-David

Shark Cage Diving: Take One

Gansbaai is a little town along the southern coast of South Africa that is known as Shark Alley.  Heaps of Great Whites live in its waters feasting on the thousands of Cape Fur Seals that live on a little island offshore.  The seals are to the sharks as ice cream is to Sara!  Sara knew how excited I was to get in the water (in a cage) to see the sharks up close and personal, so she gave me the cage diving trip for my birthday!

When the day for cage diving finally arrived, it was a tempest. The ocean swells were over 13 feet. Only two boats planned to brave the heavy seas and one of those was ours (the other the owner of the hotel where we were staying). Our captain, Brian McFarlane, warned us up front to take our motion sickness pills unless we wanted to help chum the water. He also warned us that it could be a poor day for seeing sharks, but we were happy to give it a go.

A big swell blocking the view of Gansbaai

Luckily there was no rain when we left harbor, but it almost didn’t matter since the wind whipped spray all over the boat. Unfortunately, the highlight of the day was riding the huge waves out to look for sharks at the island. We spent about four hours chumming (along with the help of quite a few sick passengers at the front of the boat) with little to show for it. We only saw one shark for a few seconds before the banging of the cage against the boat scared it away. It was far too rough actually get into the cage, and water visibility was so low that it would have been futile anyway. There were some long faces as we made our way back.

When we go back to dry land, Brian told us that it was the worst trip that he had taken out in 18 years. Not only was he planning to honor his no-sharks money back guarantee, but he was going to give everyone a voucher for a free trip any time we wanted to go! We immediately shifted around our plans to stay for another try the next day. We were very impressed with the way Brian handled everything (including the boat in those big waves), and we are very glad that we stuck around for another try!

-David

Penguins!

Penguins?  Yes, penguins.  Our list of really interesting animals in Africa grew a little longer on our way back up the Cape Peninsula from the Cape of Good Hope.  Along the way we stopped to gawk at the colony of African Penguins that makes its home at Boulders Beach near Simon's Town.  As they waddled around the beach they really were like fish out of water.

Kissing penguins on Boulders Beach on the Cape Peninsula

The Tip of Africa

Up until about a week ago we thought that the Cape of Good Hope was the southernmost point of Africa.  Turns out that we were wrong!  The Cape of Good Hope is actually the slightly more qualified south-westernmost point of Africa.  We still paid a visit the Cape of Good Hope, but David made sure that we visited the actual southernmost point of Africa as well!  

The Cape of Good Hope is a very exposed and harsh but beautiful place.  The wind and rain picked up big time during our visit and really gave us a good taste of the wild weather that can confront mariners as they round the southern tip of Africa. 

David at the Cape of Good Hope - the southwestern most point in Africa

A rainbow at the Cape of Good Hope . . . we didn't find a pot of gold

A couple of days after visiting the Cape of Good Hope we made our way to Cape Agulhas, the actual southernmost tip of Africa.  Unlike the Cape of Good Hope, Cape Agulhas is well off the tourist route (over an hour driving on dirt roads to get there), but it wasn’t too far from where we were staying in the town of Gansbaai.  We think that it was well worth the effort to see the meeting point of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans!

Cape Agulhas - the southernmost tip of Africa

Langa Township

Langa Township is one of hundreds of communities in South Africa that were designated as all-black areas prior to apartheid.  Langa is just outside of Cape Town and began as a residential area for 5,000 all-male laborers in the city.   Eventually men started bringing their wives and families and today it is a vibrant community of 50,000 people.  

Hostels in Langa Township

Shacks in Langa Township

There are shacks and hostels as well as middle- and upper-class homes all within an area of just a few square kilometers.  While many of the residents still work in Cape Town, the town also has its own "main street" with a variety of businesses that employ many of the township residents.  The government is involved in helping to improve conditions by bringing electricity and water to the township.

Our guide Nathi standing in front of some of the shops

But they don’t need a lot of help.  Nathi, our local guide through the township, has lived his entire life in Langa.  Today, his family lives in one of the middle-class homes, but he spent the first 18 years of his life in a hostel.  His family of four shared one tiny room with two other families.  It couldn’t have been easy, but they made it work and he said that it is still his favorite place that he has lived.  It was a tight-knit community where everyone knew each other, watched out for each other, and cared for each other, contributing to a low rate of violent crime.  When someone commits a crime, Nathi told us that first they answer to the community then to the police.  

Kids in Langa Township waving goodbye

We saw quite a young children wandering around and playing in Langa.  Nathi told us that as a child you are told that every adult in Langa is your parent and so you must listen to and respect them.  Langa is raising its children as a community.  It’s no surprise that Nathi and others finish college and continue to live in Langa helping to improve the community.  Nathi is hoping to open a gym soon, the first in Langa!

Pimple Gorge

The only bad thing about the Pimple Gorge hike was its name!

How in the world did we find ourselves climbing up Pimple Gorge (part of Table Mountain) with a surfer, landscape architect, and amateur botanist named Danny?  The story begins back at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg.  We were enjoying lunch at the crowded museum cafe when we struck up a conversation with a Mexican mother and daughter at our table.  We learned that the daughter had spent quite a bit of time in Cape Town, and she told us not to miss the chance to go hiking with Danny.  We are really glad that we took her advice!

When we set out, neither of us knew what we were in for.  The top of the mountain certainly looked steep, but we didn't anticipate that we would spend most of the day scrambling up nearly vertical slopes and sliding down waterfalls.

You mean we're climbing that?

Making it to the top was totally worth the effort.  We were rewarded with panoramic views over Cape Town and the Cape Peninsula.

Looking down from near the top of Pimple Gorge on the town of Llandudno

At the top of Pimple Gorge with Hout Bay in the distance

Getting to the top turned out to be the easy part.  At the peak, Danny suggested that we take a different route down the opposite side of the mountain.  It was like entering another world.  After traversing the top of the mountain we found ourselves in a mini-rainforest, under a canopy of trees at the top of a waterfall pouring down the side of the mountain.  Only after three hours of walking, sliding, and stumbling our way down the mountainside did we emerge back into the sunshine.  A nice walk through fields of wildflowers brought us safely back to our car.

It was a perfect way to cap off our last day in Cape Town!

Robben Island

The entrance to Robben Island

Robben Island is a little wind-swept island in Table Bay just a short ferry ride from Cape Town.  For more than 300 years the island was used as a prison, mainly for political prisoners.  Notably, Nelson Mandela spent eighteen of his twenty-seven years of imprisonment at Robben Island.  Hundreds of other political prisoners also spent time at Robben Island during the apartheid era.

A former apartheid-era political prisoner, Zozo, guided us through the maximum-security prison.  After visiting Mandela's cell and the prison yard, Zozo took us to his old cell block and gave us a sense of what life was like at Robben Island.  He showed us where he slept on a mattress on the cement floor and the communal bathroom that had nothing but ice cold water.  The island is completely exposed to gusts of Antarctic winds from the south, and it certainly looked as if it was a very cold and miserable place.  Without a doubt, it played a tremendous role in shaping the course of modern South Africa.

Zozo standing in front of the door to Nelson Mandela's cell

Bo-Kaap

This isn't a dream house, it is a dream street!  It would be hard to be in a dreary mood living here.

A row of houses on Rose Street in Cape Town's Bo-Kaap neighborhood

Oh, and this is the view from Bo-Kaap.  Seriously!

The view of Table Mountain from Bo-Kaap

~Sara

Hello Cape Town!

This was the view from the window as we drove into Cape Town.  Before we arrived I don't think that I had ever seen a picture of Cape Town.  It was quite a dramatic and memorable welcome!

Cape Town seen as we approached from the north

~Sara

Changing Landscape

In just a couple hundred miles, we went from this:

A Hartmann's mountain zebra in the desert of southern Namibia

To this:

Lush fields in western South Africa

What a change!

Orange River

Our sixteenth and final night camping was spent along the Orange River on the border between South Africa and Namibia.  A lot of really big diamonds have been found along the Orange River, but we didn't have any luck in that department.  We did enjoy a canoe trip along the river and a beautiful campsite for our last night in the tent.

Canoeing along the Orange River

Our campsite along the Orange River in South Africa