I’ve done quite a lot since the last update… Read on for details.
(Note: This is a post from my 2003 travel blog IMoL: Travels and Travails.)
Well, my last day in Cape Town I went to a couple of museums – the South Africa Museum and The District Six Museum. The South Africa Museum is basically a natural history museum, but there was a lot under construction. They do have the only quagga in Africa though. The District Six Museum was interesting, though I spent more time thinking about the concept of the museum than the content really. It’s basically recreating, in the words of the people who were removed, what the area was like when they were living there. The area was never developed after they bulldozed it and the old residents are in the process of reclaiming land from the government.
From Cape Town, I went to Stellenbosh for a wee bit of wine tasting. After our all-day wine tour, we went to dinner then out for more drinks, so it’s a good thing I spent two nights there!
After the educational wine tour, I headed to Oudtshoorn, a little bit north of George. I stayed at a great backpackers there called Backpacker’s Paradise and went on one of their organized tours. This started with the Cango Caves, then to an ostrich farm, and finally a game reserve. The cave tour was an hour and a half and quite cool because we had to go through some pretty tight places including Devil’s Chimney, which is not for the large or the claustrophobic. When we got to the ostrich farm, we sat in the pub and drank a couple of beers while we chatted with the locals and watched the World Cup Rugby match (Australia – New Zealand). After this, we went on the tour which included riding an ostrich. Yes, I DO have the photos, cuts, and scrapes to prove it. The final stop of the day was the game reserve where we checked out the standard lion, tiger, cheetah, leopard, croc, etc… What made this different is that I went into the cages with the white Bengal tigers and the cheetahs to pet them! Very Cool.
After a fine dinner of ostrich steaks at the backpackers, I headed to Wilderness, just down the road to chill for a day. Yesterday I arrived in Storms River and did a canopy tour in the Tsitsikamma National Park. Basically, you are strapped into a full body harness and you slide on a wire from platform to platform between the trees. It was pretty neat and quite relaxing actually. Today, though, was reserved for the adrenaline rush. Somehow, last night at the backpackers lodge (at the bar actually), I was convinced to join a group of people to head out to the Bloukrans River Bridge today to jump off. Yes folks, I just completed the world’s highest bungy (bungie or bungee for North Americans) of 216 metres. Wow, what a rush!
Tonight I head to Port Elizabeth, then on to Hogsback for a couple of days hiking. I’m beginning to feel that I might not make it all the way to Kruger on this trip…
Talk at you later.