So as I mentioned previously, last week was my end of first quarter holiday from school. My roommates (Jen and Ilya) and I set off on a jam-packed roadtrip with two of Jen’s friends from Canada along the Garden Route and up to Lesotho. Our first destination was Gansbaai for cage diving with great white sharks. We signed our lives away, suited up in full piece wetsuits (booties and hoodies too), endured a brutal 20 minute boat ride out to the dive site and got ready for the thrill of a lifetime. The cage was about 3 feet wide, 7 feet long and 10 feet deep. The five of us squished in side by side into the cage and waited at the surface of the water. The dive masters threw massive amounts of chum in the water around our cage and when they saw sharks coming, they yelled at us to dive down under the water into the cage. We wore weight belts so that we could pull ourselves down easily, but we still had to put our feet and hands on the cage bars in order to move up and down which was really freaky. We were all constantly terrified about our feet going outside the cage and being bitten off. The first shark sighting was crazy…we pulled ourselves down and excitedly panicked as a 3 meter shark grazed our cage. We spent as long as we could tolerate in the water (the water was freezing) and all in all we saw about 13 sharks. Some came at our cage with jaws wide open, others thrashed against our cage violently as they competed for the chum. It was probably the most amazing experience I have ever had and it was an opportunity of a lifetime to see such a powerful predator up close and personal. I highly recommend it for any thrill seekers who come to South Africa.
The next stop on our road trip was Oodtshourn, where we spent a day visiting the Cango Caves and an ostrich farm. The caves were fun, but the ostrich farm was particularly cool because I got to RIDE an ostrich!!! Ostriches are terrifying FYI…I got bitten by one when I was trying to feed it, bringing my record of African birds that have bitten me to 2! They are even crazier to ride. I didn’t have a saddle, I just climbed up on one and held onto its wings as it ran around crazily. I held on for dear life because the ground was covered in ostrich poo and there was no hope in hell I was going to be tossed into that! I took a video of it, so I will attempt to attach it if I can. After Oodtshourn we headed to Knysna, where we stayed in an amazing lodge for two nights. We visited the nearby Tsitsikamma forest and did a treetop canopy tour, which essentially involves flying from tree to tree via huge ziplines. It was a nice way to see the forest, but it wasn’t as scary or as thrilling as I was hoping for. Then we headed to the Bloukrans Bridge, which has the world’s highest bungee jump. At a whopping 216 metres, the bungee jump is incredibly terrifying. I had every intention of doing it, but wasn’t ready on that particular day. Glen was brave enough to do it though. I took a video of him so that I can study the tape for the next few months until I have the balls to do it! Ironically enough, the biggest threat to safety is not the jump itself but the walk along the path to the bridge…puff adders and cape cobras (both can be lethal if you get bitten) sunbathe on the path so you have to watch your step!
Next we headed off to see elephants in the wild. We drove around a game park for 4 hours hunting them down. Fortunately the hunt was really easy for us since on many occasions the elephants walked across the road right in front of us. At one point, a family of elephants walked right past our car and if I had wanted to, I could have touched them through my window – they were that close! Apart from tons of elephants, we also saw kudu, “Timons” and “Pumbas”, zebras, ostriches, a jackal, the back end of a lion, and a bunch of other grazing animals. It was a really awesome wildlife experience. To see the “Big 5” animals you have to go up to Kruger near Jo’burg, but we knew that the area we went to was popular really only for seeing elephants so we were not disappointed.
We continued up the coast to East London where we spent the night at a hostel. Then we headed up to a small town outside of Lesotho where we spent an evening enjoying the natural hot springs. The experience was a bit tough for me because the water smelled like rotten eggs thanks to the sulfur content and because there were lots of “floaty things” in the water, but I managed to suck it up and stick it out for awhile for the sake of beautifying my skin! Haha.
The next morning we headed off to Lesotho, which is its own country within South Africa. What a crazy place! Unlike much of South Africa, which completely surrounds the country, Lesotho is not very modern at all from what we saw. It is very rural and very poor looking. It reminded me of my experience in Niger. Let me also say that there was an absence of bathrooms as well, so I am slightly biased against the country since I drank a considerable amount of water that day! Haha. When we crossed into Lesotho we went searching for dinosaur tracks. I wasn’t overly psyched, but it was kinda cool to see fossils of dinosaur footprints in the ground instead of in a museum somewhere. We didn’t spend as much time in Lesotho as we would have liked, since it was Easter weekend which is a crazy big deal here. There was no place for us to stay, so we had to drive straight through and back into South Africa to stay the night in Bloemfontein. And that was pretty much it for our amazing adventure. We drove all the way home the next day and reminisced about our trip. It was amazing to just get away given the housing drama we had been facing and it was even nicer to return home to our house in Hout Bay knowing that it is at last OUR HOUSE!! One thing I’ve learned though is that we have become Western Cape snobs in our two months of being here. It felt like we were in a foreign land when we headed to the Eastern Cape. The Western Cape is pure money and luxuries and quite frankly I’m not ashamed to say that I feel at home with that. Haha.
The next stop on our road trip was Oodtshourn, where we spent a day visiting the Cango Caves and an ostrich farm. The caves were fun, but the ostrich farm was particularly cool because I got to RIDE an ostrich!!! Ostriches are terrifying FYI…I got bitten by one when I was trying to feed it, bringing my record of African birds that have bitten me to 2! They are even crazier to ride. I didn’t have a saddle, I just climbed up on one and held onto its wings as it ran around crazily. I held on for dear life because the ground was covered in ostrich poo and there was no hope in hell I was going to be tossed into that! I took a video of it, so I will attempt to attach it if I can. After Oodtshourn we headed to Knysna, where we stayed in an amazing lodge for two nights. We visited the nearby Tsitsikamma forest and did a treetop canopy tour, which essentially involves flying from tree to tree via huge ziplines. It was a nice way to see the forest, but it wasn’t as scary or as thrilling as I was hoping for. Then we headed to the Bloukrans Bridge, which has the world’s highest bungee jump. At a whopping 216 metres, the bungee jump is incredibly terrifying. I had every intention of doing it, but wasn’t ready on that particular day. Glen was brave enough to do it though. I took a video of him so that I can study the tape for the next few months until I have the balls to do it! Ironically enough, the biggest threat to safety is not the jump itself but the walk along the path to the bridge…puff adders and cape cobras (both can be lethal if you get bitten) sunbathe on the path so you have to watch your step!
Next we headed off to see elephants in the wild. We drove around a game park for 4 hours hunting them down. Fortunately the hunt was really easy for us since on many occasions the elephants walked across the road right in front of us. At one point, a family of elephants walked right past our car and if I had wanted to, I could have touched them through my window – they were that close! Apart from tons of elephants, we also saw kudu, “Timons” and “Pumbas”, zebras, ostriches, a jackal, the back end of a lion, and a bunch of other grazing animals. It was a really awesome wildlife experience. To see the “Big 5” animals you have to go up to Kruger near Jo’burg, but we knew that the area we went to was popular really only for seeing elephants so we were not disappointed.
We continued up the coast to East London where we spent the night at a hostel. Then we headed up to a small town outside of Lesotho where we spent an evening enjoying the natural hot springs. The experience was a bit tough for me because the water smelled like rotten eggs thanks to the sulfur content and because there were lots of “floaty things” in the water, but I managed to suck it up and stick it out for awhile for the sake of beautifying my skin! Haha.
The next morning we headed off to Lesotho, which is its own country within South Africa. What a crazy place! Unlike much of South Africa, which completely surrounds the country, Lesotho is not very modern at all from what we saw. It is very rural and very poor looking. It reminded me of my experience in Niger. Let me also say that there was an absence of bathrooms as well, so I am slightly biased against the country since I drank a considerable amount of water that day! Haha. When we crossed into Lesotho we went searching for dinosaur tracks. I wasn’t overly psyched, but it was kinda cool to see fossils of dinosaur footprints in the ground instead of in a museum somewhere. We didn’t spend as much time in Lesotho as we would have liked, since it was Easter weekend which is a crazy big deal here. There was no place for us to stay, so we had to drive straight through and back into South Africa to stay the night in Bloemfontein. And that was pretty much it for our amazing adventure. We drove all the way home the next day and reminisced about our trip. It was amazing to just get away given the housing drama we had been facing and it was even nicer to return home to our house in Hout Bay knowing that it is at last OUR HOUSE!! One thing I’ve learned though is that we have become Western Cape snobs in our two months of being here. It felt like we were in a foreign land when we headed to the Eastern Cape. The Western Cape is pure money and luxuries and quite frankly I’m not ashamed to say that I feel at home with that. Haha.
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