Our last few days in South Africa

Well Chaps, we are officially out of South Africa and in Vienna!  Carolyn, my friend and former roomie who now lives in Vienna and works for the UN, picked us up from the airport yesterday.  And Ali and I just picked up Rachael (Ali's cousin) from the train station to join us in our adventures here!

But more about Vienna later- for now we'll catch you up on our last few days in South Africa.

After our bird/monkey/elephant sanctuary adventure we headed to Mossle bay, a place that was recommended several times to us by locals saying we shouldn't miss it.  Mossle bay is known for beautiful beaches (like so many places on the coast in SA) and the Old Post Office Tree.

 Museum

 The story of the Post Office Tree is as follows:

In 1500 Pedro de Alaide, on his return journey from the east, left a letter in a shoe or iron pot under a large tree. In the letter he warned of troubles he had encountered near Calcutta. In 1501 this letter was found by Joao da Nova, en route to India. In this way the first Post Office in South Africa was founded. The large tree, a Milkwood, has been declared a provincial heritage site and is generally known as the Post Office Tree. Any mail posted in the shoe under the tree gets the special post office tree mark.

From Mossle Bay we headed north from the coast up to Oudtshoorn to visit a ostrich farm and to see the caves.  The caves were pretty commercialized (Alison had fun recalling a caving experience she had in Guatemala and how this was very very different.  If she hasn't told you this cave story you must get her to.  Its hilarious.)  The caves pretty much are paved on the insides, and they have also rigged lighting up so that one can get a good view of the caves.  They were very beautiful.

At least a three story mall-like entrance to the caves. 

In the 1960's to 1990's they used to hold orchestra and choral concerts in the first chamber of the cave, which is HUGE!  That would have been so neat!  Unfortunately they had to discontinue this due to vandalism which would happen during the intermission and also all the CO2 emitted by people was damaging the caves.

We then visited a Ostrich farm, where bird whisperer Alison made best friends with a Ostrich by riding it!

 

Ostriches necks are sooooooo soft!

 Here we are with the Ostrich feather boas we wish we still had.  

They were only around $200.00.  No probs.

The Ostrich farm was really interesting.  We learned all about the Ostrich industry. It crashed in the 30's because of the increasing amount of cars. Women could not fit in them with a huge feather in their hats so they quickly went out of fashion.

Ali standing on a ostrich egg.  They are so strong!

Some interesting facts about Ostriches:
They do not have very large brains- their eyes weigh 60 grams and their brain only weighs 40!
Ostriches eat rocks because they have no teeth- so the rocks stay in their stomach and help them digest their food.
They can run up to 80 KM per hour.
One Ostrich egg is the equivalent to two dozen chicken eggs- and if you want to eat one, the best way is scrambled (according to our tour guide).
Ostrich eggs are so strong that the chicks cannot break out of them on their own.  After 48 days in that egg, the mother breaks the egg by stomping her babies out.

  Alison: Caryn LOVED the ostriches. They peck really hard to get this food. 

Caryn: After Ostriches, we were off to Cape town!  Cape town is beautiful and there was so so so much to do!! Needless to say there is still a lot for us to do when we go back some day!  Highlights included a wine tour (where i got slightly inebriated).

Alison: True story. There I was, feeling ill and watching the gold fish pond outside the last wine/cheese estate when Caryn walks out, presenting cheese and proudly exclaims, "I have no idea how i bought this cheese".

Caryn: It was a fun day!

Alison: As someone who does not exactly like wine yet, I still have to agree.

 View of one of the vineyards

 This was a really cool wine estate (Villiera Wines).  Since they opened they have always been very natural and ecologically friendly.  They even keep 1000 peking ducks on their property for natural pest control!  The vineyard also use mostly solar power and built houses on the property for all of their workers!  It was really neat- and their wine was really good too.

Alison likes oak barrels more than wine. 

Art at a swanky estate.

 Note all their awards on the back wall.

Goat at the wine and cheese estate. 

Caryn: In Cape Town we also did a tour of the cape Peninsula.  Unfortunately the weather did not cooperate with us to go up Table Mountain, so we just had to enjoy the view of it.

Seal island on our cape peninsula tour.

These majestic blobs are seals!

Peninsula landscape

 Alison: The main reason we went on the tour was to see penguins. It was worth it, they are fantastic little guys. It's weird to see them around shrubs and so much green.

Here we are on the actual Cape of Cape Town/ Africa. If you zoom in on a map of South Africa, this is the little jutting down part. It's not really the most south part of Africa though, it's the most south-west.

As a part of this tour we did a very short bike ride (only 3kms) through the Cape Point park.  The bikes were a little sketchy, but it was really fun.

Lighthouse at Cape Point.

View from the lighthouse.

 old town hall. 

 This is past where they use to sell slaves and across from where they used to have public executions.

St. George's Cathedral where Archbishop Desmond Tutu worked.

Alison: A Chartes style labyrinth at St. George's. I got up really early one morning and walked it. 

That is the first time I got up before Caryn.

All over S. Africa are beaded crafts, mostly little hippos and things. 

But this was a life-size Nelson Mandela!

Caryn: So we only have a week left in our trip! And we are spending it here in Vienna with Carolyn and Rachael.  A wonderful way to end this trip :)  More to come on our adventures here... for now thats all!

Elephants, Monkeys and Birds (oh my!)

Alison: Hi! We will soon be home in your arms. Here's some more journal til then:

Caryn: We spent a day in The Crags- mostly visiting animal sanctuaries and having car troubles. The first sanctuary that we visited was the Elephant sanctuary, where they have 6 Elephants that they have rescued from different situations. The three that we spent the morning with were supposed to be exported from Botswana to China and so were at the airport. Except the Chinese didn't have papers for them. So they were in this bunker at the airport for 3 months and only survived because people would feed them fruit. The sanctuary rescued them, and they are now happily abiding in South Africa.

Alison with Amarula

It was a fun morning. First we walked with them into the forest- you 'walk' with an elephant by holding its trunk- which is actually its nose, so your hand gets all hot and wet. Amarula really puts the weight of her trunk into your hands... so heavy!!

Fun and interesting facts about Elephants:

They are pregnate for 42 months.

They are matriarical animals and the largest female is the leader. Males are loners who only catch up to the females to mate with them.

Elephants cry, but not from their eyes! They cry from their temporal glands, which are between their eyes and ears.

An elephant uses its ears mostly to cool off. They have a vast network of bloodveins and capilaries that run through their ears, so they flap them when they are hot. They also will spray themselves with mud to cool off.

An elephant's skin is 2 cm thick! And they are very rough.

Africian elephants have two 'fingers' at the end of their trunk that they use to pick things up, hold onto things etc. Two of the elephants that were rescued from Botswana no longer have these fingers. The staff reported that is due to injury they sustained from being caught in a trap. Needless to say these two fellows have adapted the way that they eat! They now use a scooping motion to get things into their mouths (you can see this in the picture below- the far elephant has its trunk twisted waiting for food.) Yes i am an OT. And i would very much like to be an elephant OT i think...

Alison feeding the elephants.

After the elephant sanctuary, we went to a monkey sanctuary. We parked. Went in. Promptly realized that we had locked the keys in the car. Luckily, breaking into cars is a skill one might aquire when growing up in SA (jokes). But really- one of the staff was able to get into our car for us, which saved us a lot of hassle! Phew.

Alison: The monkeys were previously pets or from labratories or zoos. One was from Canada even. They come here to be "free" in a super-large area. They have some stands with food, and the rest the monkeys find in the forest. They put the food out when the monkeys aren't looking so they don't associate humans with food.

For our tour we walked with a guide through the forest and he told us all about the ones that crossed our path.

They are from all over the world and all live together happily. Well... a couple don't so they have these few separated from the rest. The mix of species can create interesting results... for example, one monkey always associates with the little spider monkeys because it thinks they are its babies and looks after them.

Monkey lesson: monkeys have tails, apes do not. Lemurs are neither, rather, they are pre-simian.

I love monkeys so this was an excellent time.

Longest foot bridge in somewhere apparently. I'm losing track of who has the most famous whatever. Some Indiana sequel has a scene here.

Caryn: After this we went to the bird sanctuary where I learned that Alison is a bird whisperer. For real. Anyways, the bird sanctuary is home to many birds who have been rescued (or donated) from captivity. At first we were a bit sceptical, because any kind of cage seems horrible for a bird!!! However the birds here had SO much space! It was this HUGE area that was netted off. Here are a few pictures of pretty birds...

On a supension brige. Here i am looking like a balerina. Trying to imitate the arches.

Making friends.

So: It turns out that Alison is a bird whisperer. Here is the first documented instance. There was this bird who was kind of looking friendly. Then alison presents her arm to it and VOILA!!!!

All of a sudden it is on her arm!!! And then her shoulder!!! And she cannot for the life of her get it off!! She tried and tried and tried. And i killed myself laughing. Finally she got it off...which was good. Apparently you aren't supposed to encourage them to climb on you!

However at almost the end of the bird sanctuary, Alison was making sounds to this one that was in a tree. And then we were in the gazibo and the bird FOLLOWED her and landed on her shoulder!!! More unbelievable was this giant parrot of some sort swooped and clawed her head and chased this one off her shoulder! It was crazy!

Anyways we are missing home, but not really believing that our 4 months is (quickly) drawing to a end!!! We are home in 12 days!! unbelievable!!!

Miss you!!!

Away with the Fairies and other adventures....

Alison:  Drove out of the main route to stay in magical Hogsback. The town feels like Lord of the Rings or Hogsmeade in Harry Potter with more art. Lots of old trees in the area and crafty places to check out. There's an area in the woods slowly being added to where artists live and work. Sort of like a permanent Ness Creek Music Festival. We stayed at a place called Away with the Fairies that has both a very high treehouse and a bathtub on a cliff!

Sunset from the treehouse platform. The same view is seen from the tub.

Treehouse

Caryn, as seen from the platform.

That night we made one of Caryn's mom's meals - baked gem squash. It was really tasty!

Oh, and pasta too.

We have been really lucky with weather here in South Africa considering it is coming on to winter here and it's really far south. Up in Hogsback it was cold, almost snowed but rained instead. The damp really keeps you cold. Luckily, our hostel was awesome - there was a fireplace in the room! Very magical to fall asleep in firelight with the crackling logs. But outside our room, well, the day I found TWO LABYRINTHS (!!!!), even with all my warm clothes on, it was too cold to walk them. Here is one, as seen through its beaded entrance: 

A classical cretean style, but with some huge rocks at certain points which was very cool. 

This one is a medevil style like in Chartes, France. It was huge, in an amazing spot (at the edge of a cliff), and beautiful. I loved the wide edges with the plants. These were the nicest labyrinths I have seen.

Cool room, eh?

We left Hogsback and stayed in Grahamstown at a cold weird hostel. This is not the hostel, we went to town for a scone and internet:

 Then we made our way to Port Alfred to visit Caryn's friend Gillian. On the way there, you just can't miss...

The giant pinapple!

Note the door. There's a shop inside. Imagine spending all your days working the pinapple store in a giant windowless pinapple. It's filled with pinapple knick-knacks. Interestingly, Gillian grew up on a pinapple farm. Pinapples are way better here. I shall miss them. And the big one.

Port Alfred is situated, like many garden route towns, along a river that leads to the ocean.

Here you see the river in front, pier, ocean behind. This is the view from a restaurant that Gillian took us to. 

Here is a cactus, but not just any cactus. The orginal cactus was given to Gillian by Fred and Annette, Caryn's parents. Whenever Gillian moved, she was sure to take an arm and re-plant the cactus. So, it's been going for many many years, and has started many of her friends's cacti as well!

Gillian

We had a lovely time with Gillian.We talked about New Zealand, where her grandkids are; discussed birds, her travels, family... we went for a walk around her seniors neighbourhood and she showed us off...we went our for lunch... had tea... just generally really enjoyed each other's company. She is so sweet. I'm really glad I got to meet her.

We drove on to an area called the Crags and stayed at a hostel right beside the world's highest bungy. We did not bungy, no thank you sir. 

And that's that!