The only bad part about a vacation, is when it ends. Before we started our way back to Cape Town, we drove back to the area that Tisika Game Preserve was, to see an Elephant reserve. While we were there, I got to walk with an elephant, holding its nose in my hand, as well as being able to pet it. We also learned some things about the elephants, but we all know that is boring once you’ve gotten to do something cool like walk with one.
After we left, we tried to make our way to Cango Caves. We hoped to be able to go on a tour of the caverns, but realized as the drive went on that we wouldn’t make it before 3:30pm, when the last tour left. We have decided to make a weekend event of it and go back later on in July.
After realizing this, we changed our course and got back onto the N2/The Garden Route, and made our way back to Cape Town. Michael, Tara, Matt and I were in one car, and had some adventures of our own along the way. For instance, we apparently degraded a national monument. On our drive, we turned off down a side road because we saw a sign that said something in Afrikaans on a plaque. We decided to get out of the car here and have a photo shoot. Needless to say, some of our photos are quite interesting, if not slightly stupid, but hey, we’ve been crammed together in a car for the past four days, we’ve reached that level of comfort.
In the process of taking some pictures, a car pulled up to us and the people inside got out to talk to us. Their names were Roy and Daphne Hill. The proceeded to tell us that the monument was in place to remember all of the blacks and coloreds who had been oppressed and died while under apartheid rule. As we were “whites”, they thought we were making fun of the monument; Roy and Daphne are considered “colored” under South Africa’s laws. We quickly informed them that we were American and that we don’t understand Afrikaans, and that we meant no harm, and then proceeded to have a chat with them. After 15-20 minutes of said chat, we were getting a bit antsy and hightailed it out of there as fast as we could.
A bit further on down the road, we passed an ostrich farm. We pulled off to get a closer look at the birds, and nearly got attacked. When we first got there, the birds ran away, frightened by our walking towards them. After they ran away, we looked away ourselves and had a little chat about what to do next. When turned around, the ostriches were creepily walking toward us in formation, wings outstretched and heads bobbing up and down. We then noticed the ostrich tracks on our side of the fence and realized that these guys could easily hop over. We got a quick picture of them, and left.
After leaving the ostriches, we got on the road and made our way back to Cape Town. After being on the road for almost eight hours, we were excited to get home. It was a bit weird getting back into town, almost as if we had never left. I’m not sure now if the whole weekend adventure I had was a dream or not. Oh well, it was a good dream regardless. Now it is time for bed, as I have to start working again tomorrow. G’night everyone!
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