43. Road Trip! Elephants, Caves and Ostriches: Oudtshoorn

Very very early on Friday morning, we set off on a road trip along South Africa’s famous Garden Route. It’s a part of the country along the southern parts of the Western Cape and the Eastern Cape…meaning it is the southern coast of the whole entire continent. It runs along the Indian Ocean and encompasses a few different landscape types, from dry and rocky, mountainous Karoo, to luscious rainforest, to Big 5-filled savannah, sandy warm beaches. Along the coastal area runs the N2, one of the major roadways in South Africa. Along the inland edge of the Garden Route runs Route 62, oddly reminiscent of Route 66. 

The area of our journey right outside Stellenbosch was beautiful and mountainous and covered in wine farms. Then, slowly the wine farms started being replaced with fields and an almost wet-landy area with lots of swamps and fruit farms and orchards. This area produces a huge percentage of the world’s dried fruit. Yum. Then we drove through a tunnel and down a mountain pass to enter the Karoo. This area is covered in ostrich farms and sheep and some cows. But mostly ostriches. Ostrich farming is a huge industry in this part of the country, with meat, feathers, and leather being giant (leather actually the biggest side of the industry. Yucky yucky).

We kept on driving through an area that looked strangely like the area outside Las Vegas. One road with the occasional car zipping by. Rather ugly brown landscape with total dry flatness. And mountains suddenly jutting up into the horizon way off in the distance. And the occasional gas station or sex shop on the roadside. Gradually, the landscape became more mountainous and was covered in ostrich farms and small farm communities.

She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy? 

Around one o’clock, after lots and lots of driving, we finally reached Oudtshoorn (pronounced like oats-warren), the town in the Karoo where we’d be staying for the night. We went to an elephant sanctuary for lunch (don’t worry, we didn’t eat elephant!) and then an upclose and personal encounter with the Ellies. There were three elephants there that have been rather socialized.  They were all orphaned in Kruger at a young age and brought to Outdshoorn’s elephant sanctuary to live out the rest of their days wandering the hundreds of hectares and meeting people and hugging them.

--> It was a lovely experience. So much fun!

Typical caution sign...

Elephant food: Olifantskos

Here they come to play with us!

Lining up

Marie meets elephant

Elephant feeding time

he wants to give me a hug!

My face says it all

Ever wanted to sit on an elephant's knee?

Or scratch his tongue?

Dentist?

After our tour guides dragged us away from the elephant sanctuary, we set out for the Cango Caves, one of the more extensive underground cave systems there is. There are three levels of cave tour you can sign up for, and naturally, we were signed up for the adventure caving tour, the most extensive and difficult of the three…a two and a half hour experience in tiny caves underground. Well actually, some of the first chambers were huge. Like enormous caverns filled with stalactites and stalagmites. When we got to the adventure stage of the tour, we had to
through a series of four tunnels. The first was just really really short. You had to crouch very close to the ground to make it through. The second was called the lover’s tunnel because it pretty much hugged you all the way through – not short, but really narrow that involved a bit of squishing and some interesting footwork.
 

 

Lover's Tunnel

Cleopatra's Needle

Neharieariah goes adventure caving!

  
Then we had to climb up through a 3.5 meter vertical tunnel that was slightly winding and only 45 cm wide. I was at the front of the line and poked my head in to take a look but couldn’t even bring myself to stand up in there initially. I backed out immediately feeling terrified. I decided not to do it. I sat at the back of the line and waited for everyone else to climb their way up so I could walk back with the guide. It wasn’t wise. What if I passed out in there? I was too scared. What was the point? I was feeling overheated and anxious. But at the end, two other people had decided not to go for various reasons. But suddenly I decided I wasn’t going to be ruled by an irrational phobia. It was a tight space, but I could fit through. I just had to climb and be calm and steady in my approach through the tunnel.

Devil's Chimney

So, I went for it. And through the scariest five minutes of my life, I made it through. It was the scariest thing I think I’ve ever done. I was sweating and claustrophobic and couldn’t see and couldn’t hear and my brain was just freaking out: Get out of this Devil’s Chimney (that’s what it was called)! I thought I was going to pass out. The poor guide had to direct me from the bottom where to put my feet since I couldn’t see them and my friend Vanesssa who had gone just before me was standing at the top and she directed me what to do with my hands and feet once I got out. Just now, I checked the website to double check on the dimensions, and the website for the caves has a big warning sign: not for people with claustrophobia or asthma. Oops. Two strikes. But hey, I faced my fear; I did it. And I survived. It wasn’t a therapeutic phobia encounter, it’s not like I’m not claustrophobic anymore. Au contraire, I will never again go adventure caving. But now that I’ve done it, I’m proud of myself for sticking through and going for it. The fourth tunnel was very short but you had to lie on your back, think skinny, and slide through it with your feet dangling out and then drop down onto the ground below. When I emerged from that Letterbox Drop, I was so proud of myself.

I MADE IT!!!

I had a massive adrenalin rush coupled with an intense desire to be out of the cave system completely and immediately. But wow, I’d done it despite having severe claustrophobia and almost backing out. And everyone cheered when I made it through. Yay!! I pretty much sprinted my way back out through the first two tunnels and the way we came in. I couldn’t get back to fresh air and sunlight and open spaces fast enough. But I finally made it and felt exhausted. 

FRESH AIR!

After our adventure caving experience, we went to an ostrich farm to encounter some ostriches in a very up close and personal way as well. I met an ostrich with dwarfism named Dusty and fed him from my hand. It was a really weird feeling on my hand, but pretty cool.

Hello there, Dusty!

Soad, Mariah and I hanging with Dusty

Longest married ostrich couple...15 years

Then we got to “kiss” an ostrich named Betsie by putting a pellet in our mouths and letting her grab it from us. Way too much trust in her involved in that experience. Ahhhhh. We went over to an area where people could sit on or ride ostriches if they wanted to. Only five people could do it so the ostriches didn’t get worn out, and I didn’t feel entirely comfortable with the ethics of treating really dumb animals this way. They seemed so terrified and the way they were caught for riders looked really painful (a hook around their necks) and they had to put bags over their heads until the riders were seated on them. Since I didn’t feel comfortable with treating them this way, I opted out of this experience.

Then our guide asked me to feed the ostriches... by holding a bucket of pellets up to my chest and backing up to a fence of an ostrich pen. As I got close enough, all of a sudden there were like five or six ostrich heads (ok the pictures reveal that it's only four but it felt like a lot!) in my face reaching for the food. It was so cool. So weird. It felt funny and fuzzy and I was squealing because I couldn’t not. It was so weird. Only in Africa…

What happened to my head?!

 We went to settle into our backpackers hostel in Oudsthoorn for the night and it was really nice, a family owned place where the husband and wife checked us in, took us to our dorm-style rooms, and cooked us dinner. It was really fun and we sat around a bonfire, and then enjoyed an ostrich braai. It was very strange eating ostrich after feeding them and petting them. Maybe it was just in my head…but I don’t think it tasted as good as it did the first couple times I ate it. And I’m not sure I’ll be able to eat it again. Haha!

At night, we decided to download a movie in the common area of the backpack on someone’s laptop…so we downloaded She’s The Man while we took turns showering. A bunch of us got settled in on some of the top bunk beds squished together so we could watch that and then we hit play…but it was not in English. At first we thought it was in Afrikaans, but then I realized it was en français so we couldn’t watch it since not everybody in our group speaks French… haha! We’ll try again another time.