Oudtshoorn!

Friday morning (this is Friday March 26th) we got in our rented car and left PE for our weekend trip to Oudtshoorn. Along the way we stopped in Wilderness, entered a national park, and rented a canoe to canoe up a river. I don't have much canoe experience, so I was in a canoe with Kirby, the only guy from our big group who travelled with me this weekend, who had taught canoe lessons last summer and knew how to canoe (at least in America with our canoe paddles- the ones we used at this place were more like large kayak paddles, so the technique was a bit different). I’m not entirely sure if I was doing half the canoeing (when I would stop paddling for a stroke or two we seemed to keep moving at the same pace), but it was still work. The trees definitely lining the river definitely felt jungly- we weren’t in MN. After a 40 minute canoe along this very shallow river (one of our biggest issues was making sure the canoe didn’t run aground) we left our canoes on a white rocky beach (the river wasn’t really canoeable after that point) and hiked up to some small waterfalls. We had tons of fun playing around in the waterfalls (we could stand underneath them, or swim in a few pools around them and do lots of scampering around the rocks) and taking pictures of ourselves. While we ran into a couple people on the river and by the waterfalls, it was mostly deserted- which was nice- we really felt like we were getting away from it all.

After we’d had enough of the waterfalls (and it was getting a bit late- the people we rented the canoe from told us we should be off the water by 6pm), we hiked back to the beach. When we got there, however, we noticed that one of our canoes was missing. The guy at the rental shop had warned us to hide our canoe paddles a little up from the beach and to not leave anything valuable in the canoes, both of which we had done, but still one was gone. The paddles for the other canoe were also nicely placed in our canoe, which was not where we had let them either. Emily had left her small bag in her canoe (the one that went missing)- while it wasn’t anything valuable, she was bummed that it was lost. Since we weren’t sure how to get back hiking along the shore (and we still had 1 canoe to return), we decided to try and fit all 4 of us in 1 canoe. Kirby and Emily paddled, while Jenny (a friend of mine who I was travelling with who’s about my size) and I just sat in the canoe (me in front of Emily, the first paddler, and Jenny in front of Kirby). We got back to the place we rented the canoe from just fine. I didn’t have to do much- just sit still and not complain when some drops of water fell off Emily’s paddle onto me. When we got back to the canoe rental place we searched some of the other canoes for Emily’s bag, but we couldn’t find it. Since the rental place had closed for the day (they trusted us to return our canoes when we got back), we left our one canoe with the other canoes and left.

We headed out the way we came, but we had a bit of trouble leaving the national park where the canoe rental place was located. There was no one working in the little booth next to the gate, so as far as we could tell the gate was just supposed to open when a car pulled up trying to leave the park, but we waited for a while, tried backing up then going forward again a couple time, and still it wouldn’t open. Emily got out of the car to look for a button or intercom of some sort to get in contact with the people operating the gate, but to no avail. We ended up going along the road that led further into the park to a resort. I got out at the information desk of the resort and asked about the gate and was told that it was just supposed to open when a car drove up to it- the guys at the info desk were watching the cameras of the gate and operated the gate when they saw a car. I was tempted to ask why they hadn’t let us out 5 minutes ago when we’d been sitting there looking like idiots for a good 5 minutes trying to figure out how to open the gate, but I just smiled and thanked them and headed back to the car. When we pulled up to the gate this time sure enough it opened and we were on our way. We completed the drive to Oudtshoorn and checked into our hostel- Backpacker’s Paradise and Joyrides. Since we’d missed dinner at the hostel, the info desk worker recommended a good cheap local restaurant. It turned out to be pretty good- a huge plate of pasta dish for 35 rand and the service wasn’t bad for South Africa. We were all really tired after our day’s adventures, so when we got back we just signed up for our big bike ride down the Swartberg Mountain Pass for Saturday and headed straight to bed.

Saturday morning dawned and we woke up excited to try our ostrich egg the hostel supposedly cracked open and provided free of charge to us. When we couldn’t find the big bowl of egg in the kitchen, we went up to ask why and discovered that ostrich eggs were going out of season and that the backpackers stopped providing them for free last week since they’re now harder to come by. Disappointed, we signed up for their breakfast. It was still good- chicken eggs, bacon, yoghurt, and cereal- lots of energy for our big bike ride! After testing out our mountain bikes, picking out helmets, and being assigned a bike kit, we loaded into the kombi towing a large bike rack with our bikes. We started driving up the Swartberg Mountain Pass just outside Oudtshoorn. The Pass is 54 km in length and begins at about 1850km above sea level. As we drove higher and higher the road got steeper and steeper and eventually switched from pavement to gravel.

At the top of the pass our driver helped us get our bikes ready to go, took a few pictures of us, warned us to keep to the left of the road, then we were off. Kirby took off first at a pretty fast speed and Emily followed pretty close behind him. Jenny was a bit more cautious, so I started off following her since I haven’t done much biking, but after a while I wanted to go faster so I passed her. There wasn’t a whole lot of actual “biking” to do- we didn’t really peddle since it was downhill. We had to use our brakes a TON- even if you wanted to go pretty fast. The road was really bumpy too, so I tried to find the parts that cars had driven over recently that were reasonably flat. It was a bit scary, but kind of fun- my own personal rollercoaster. I thought things were actually going pretty well when a few kilometres before the end of the rocky road, I fell off the bike. I don’t remember exactly how it all happened, but I think I was trying to change my back gear from 2nd to 3rd. The lever was really hard to push and I couldn’t do it with the thumb of my left hand while still holding on to the left handle bar, so I think I brought my right hand over to the lever and somehow lost my balance. I was a little shocked at first since I had my wind knocked out of me (I believe that’s the first time that’s ever happened to me), but Emily quickly pulled up beside me (she’d fallen behind me after going over her bike’s handle bars while trying to move her camera case) and reminded me to take breaths. None of my numerous scrapes really hurt at first. Luckily the kombi was still driving along behind us, so he came along and put some orange antibiotic liquid on all of them. He said it would be better for the wounds if they just were exposed to the air so we didn’t stick any bandaids (or plasters, as they’re called here) on any of them. He asked if I just wanted to be done with the whole thing, but I said I’d continue the rest of the way.

I got back on my bike and we continued down the mountain to the turn off for the Cango Caves. The toughest part of the entire bike ride was going up the hill to the entrance to the caves. By the time I was a third of the way up the hill I was already in the lowest gear on my bike and tired, but I managed to make it all the way to the parking lot. I couldn’t bike all the way up the door, though, since I picked the wrong parking lot to turn into and I had to walk my bike up a really steep walking path that connected the lot to the lot by the entrance. Jenny and I were just chilling near the entrance, waiting for Emily, when a tour bus pulled up in front of the cave’s interpretive centre. The whole bus full of elderly people who didn’t speak great English (I couldn’t tell what their accent was) walked off one by one and saw me with all my scrapes. Each person gave me a very surprised expression and asked me if I fell. By the 9th or 10th time of this (I would just smile at them and say yes, but I’m okay), I was a bit sick of this, so Jenny tried to shield me with her bike, but it didn’t work so well. Emily eventually made it up the hill (she’d had to stop part of the way up it since her chain fell off) and we all locked up our bikes on the bike rack. We’d just missed the adventure tour of the hour, so we grabbed some lunch at the small food shop (ice cream, raisins & peanuts never tasted so good!) and I cleaned myself up a bit.

The adventure tour started off like the regular tour- we entered a few large cave rooms and saw some cool stalactite/stalagmite formations that had names like Organ Pipes. At one point the tour guide shut off all the lights except for one candle to show what it was like for the first explorer of the cave. The entire place was pitch black and it was easy to see how he’d managed to get some wrong ideas about how large the cave was. After a few big rooms, we headed into the adventure part where we had to do some climbing through small openings and slithering through tunnels. At several points I was very happy that I was short- I didn’t have to duck nearly as much as 6’3” Kirby! We actually got to touch the caves during this part since it was necessary for climbing. My numerous bruises made a few of the climbs a little painful, but overall it was not too bad.

Next on our route was the Ostrich farm. We learned about how stupid ostriches are (if you cover their eyes they calm down since they think you can’t see them since they can’t see you) and how they like shiny things (the tour guide told us about how one of them had managed to take out her earrings and nose ring one time). They also really like treats- Kirby and a couple other male volunteers put a food pellet between his lips and the ostrich “kissed” them (the guys weren’t told what they were volunteering for so it was pretty funny to watch their faces as they got “kissed”). We saw young ostriches of various ages- the young ones are cute in their own way. Ostrich eggs are extremely strong- you can stand on one and not break it (check out the picture on my facebook!). At the end of the tour the guide asked if any of us wanted to try and ride an ostrich. Jenny volunteered first and she got on pretty well. She was on for about a minute when the ostrich took a sharp turn and she had to be yanked off by the ostrich jockeys. I tried next, but couldn’t quite keep my balance, so I got helped off of pretty quickly. Kirby attempted to ride an ostrich but as soon as he got out of the loading gate the ostrich basically crumpled under him. They tried another ostrich, but the same thing happened. It turns out there’s a reason why there’s a weight limit of somewhere from 70-80kg- the ostriches literally can’t carry any more! After all the audience members that wanted to ride the ostrich had done so, the ostrich jockey gave us a demonstration. It was cool to see them “steer” the ostrich- they grabbed the neck of the ostrich and moved it to one side or the other to get the ostrich to go to that side and then pulled back on it to get the ostrich to stop.

By now it was about mid afternoon, but all we had to do was finish biking back to the backpackers. We started off fine, but soon Jenny was going really slowly. We pulled over near an entrance to a game park and Jenny told us that she thought she’d pulled a muscle when the ostrich jockeys yanked her off the ostrich. Emily and Kirby biked back to get the car and Jenny and I chilled out on the side of the road. After a while we decided to get in the big 4x4 (same as the vehicles they use for the game rides) the game reserve had parked on the side of the road. We weren’t exactly sure if it was allowed, but the guards at the entrance to the game park didn’t stop us, so we figured we were alright. After a few minutes a car full of guys waiting for their friend (one of the guards) to get off work at the entrance came and talked with us, sat in the vehicle. We watched the sun get lower in the sky (it wasn’t quite time for sunset). Emily and Kirby showed up in the car soon after the guys left. We attempted to load the 2 bikes into our small little car, but without much luck. Even with all the back seats down one bike barely fit in. Emily volunteered to ride the second bike back and the three of us hopped into the car. The drive back to the hostel was short. Right after we got back we went to the grocery store for some food for Sunday and found that they still had some ostrich eggs- so we bought one for each of us! After the good ostrich steaks for dinner at the hostel, Kirby and I went to see New In Town at the local movie theatre (Jenny and Emily were too tired to go). It was fun to see Minnesota, even if it was Hollywood’s representation of it. There were definitely a few parts that the rest of the audience wasn’t really laughing at that I found funny, but mostly I enjoyed the romantic bits of the plot. I hadn’t seen any movie, much less a romantic comedy, in a couple months, so I thought it was great.

Sunday morning dawned and Kirby went to the lady at the backpackers help with opening our ostrich egg. He came back with a large bowl filled with the contents of the egg and we started frying it up. All fried up it yielded several plates of eggs and at least 6 slices of French toast before we finally finished it was gone. After finishing up our breakfast we went to mass at the local Cathedral. What we didn’t know when we walked in, though, was that the mass was going to be in Afrikaans. I’d checked out the sign that said mass times the night before on our way back from the movie theatre and it was in English and Afrikaans, so I just assumed it would be in English. That wasn’t the case. Although we were familiar with the basic structure of the mass, I can’t say we really got a whole lot out of it. I didn’t have any idea what the readings or homily were about. There was one random bit in English- a homily type thing (I think they called it a lesson) after 1st. I tried to sing along with the songs, but without music or an idea how to pronounce some words it was a little difficult to say the least! It’d have to say it was definitely one of the most interesting mass experiences I have ever had. We returned to the backpackers to pay our bill, check out, and collect our bags then we started driving back to PE.

To break up our drive we stopped in Knysna along the coast in the mid afternoon to see if there was some type of hike along the coast we could do. The first tourist centre we stopped at was closed, so we proceeded on an adventure centre run out of a local backpackers. We looked at a map of hikes and found one that went along the coast that seemed cool. Map in hand, we drove down to where it started (at one point gravel hilly roads- Kirby showed off his manual driving skills), parked our car and set off down river gorge (now just a small stream), followed stream to where it met the ocean. The view once we reached the shore was absolutely gorgeous! Green trees, sandy beach, blue water. We hiked back up along the coast and got back in our car to drive home. I had to do quite a bit of homework when I got back later that night, but travelling was totally worth it!