It's the Circle of Life-- Oudtshoorn
This morning was heavenly. Since we stayed in a hotel last night, we woke up to the smell of bacon! Ahh. I love bacon. Especially South Africa’s bacon, because it is just like Canadian bacon. I stuffed myself with eggs, bacon, sausage, a croissant, muffin, and hot chocolate! It was so good I even smuggled out a muffin for later. After leaving the hotel we stopped at some shops on the way to our next destination. I found the cutest store. It had so many things I wanted, but sadly I can’t fit them to bring back on the plane. However, I did find a beautiful hand beaded mask for my mom. (I still think about a gorgeous beaded giraffe lamp they had there.. ugh.. I wish I could have fit it in my carry on or else I would have bought it in a heartbeat!) After a bit of shopping we boarded Marvin and drove about 4 hours to the Cango Caves. We had a guided tour of the caves. Once we walked inside of the cave I was expecting it to be cool and cave-like weather, but instead it was super hot and humid in there. We followed our guide to a barely lit part of the cave. It was hard to see, but then the guide flipped the switch and all the lights came on. It was spectacular! All the stalactites were beautiful, sadly people touch the bottom of them where they drip, to normally form stalagmites, and then they stop the growth in the cave. We kept walking until we got all the way to the end of where we were heading in the cave. Our guide told us about this adventure tour where you go further into the cave and slip through tiny rocks and go underwater. It sounded intense. After explaining this tour and how someone once got stuck in the cave for 10 hours because they got stuck in the rock, he asked me if that’s something I would do. Uhh.. hell no. I would rather not be stuck in a rock I might have an anxiety attack. We were about to head out of the cave when all the sudden our guide turned off all the lights in the cave and told us to find our way out. He was obviously just kidding, but still. I was afraid a bat was near. After we made it out of the cave, it began to hail outside. I’m telling you, crazy weather in S Africa!
Next stop: Ostrich Farm! Motto: Pet ostrich, hug ostrich, ride ostrich, eat ostrich- the circle of life. What do you do in the ostrich capital of the world?? Basically everything you can do with an ostrich. For $4, I learned about them, fed one, hugged one, and witnessed people ride them- I weighed too much to ride one.. ugh.. I got over my fear of the ostrich.. kind of.. It was one of the highlights of my trip watching people ride them though. It was too funny!
After leaving the ostrich capital of the world, we headed to our intended campsite. It was so cold that our professors paid partially for us to upgrade to a room. We only had to pay $5. I slept on a couch, but we had heat in the room, so I was fine if I slept on the floor. Once we got settled, as settled as we could be for being nomads, some of us played soccer! I was on a team with Mauro (the guy from Brazil), and Michael VS. Kaede Ray, Jess, Christian, and Boyd. It was a blast, but so tiring. We all started out in our heavy jackets and long pants and ended up in our t-shirts. We played until it was too dark to see the ball anymore. My team ended up winning 6-2. Following our game, I took a shower (freezing cold water) and then we had dinner prepared by Cardi. This dinner was extra special. We all went around the room saying what we liked most about the trip and what we would take away from it. It shed some tears for sure.
xoxo,
Em