South Africa – Page 2 – Couple of Boots

Day 104: The Garden Route – Part 1

We slept like babies (easy to do after a red-eye flight), and woke up refreshed and ready for a day of activities! Before heading downstairs for breakfast, we noticed a guy in the gated parking lot washing our car – actually, he was washing all the cars. One of the scams we had been warned about in South Africa was vagrants trying to wash your windshield when you are stopped at traffic intersections in exchange for money. We read that if you don’t intend to pay them, you have to stop them immediately or it could get nasty – plus the whole practice is illegal and you could get in trouble for encouraging these guys. We decided to enquire about it at reception, and they told us the car wash was complimentary from the hotel, and we could tip or not tip as we wished – 10 to 20 Rand would be customary. Good to know!

A complimentary car-wash and a delicious breakfast – great start to the day!

We backtracked a bit in our squeaky-clean Benz to return to the Birds of Eden free-flight sanctuary, which is right next door to Monkeyland. Similar concept: the sancuary aims to give rescued birds an environment as close to wild as possible. At 5.7 acres it is the biggest aviary in the world! We are not huge birdwatchers, but we spent over 2 hours walking around the path, taking close-ups of over a dozen species.

NOTE: The gift shop sells a small photo booklet for 25 Rand (about USD$1.75), but we decided not to buy it. Not because we were being cheap, but because we have accumulated so many unused park brochures and pamphlets thoughout our travels that is seemed a waste to add more to our load. So, all the bird pictures below were identified by using Google Images – mea culpa if I got any of them wrong.

An early morning visit to the Birds of Eden free-flight sanctuary – home to over 200 species of birds

Golden pheasants in the Birds of Eden

A very loud Blue & Gold Macaw and a Moustached Parakeet

A pretty pink Galah sitting near the tunneled bridge

A Green Turaco rockin’ a stylish Mohawk. When Lindsay tried to get to close it freaked out and flew at her face

Hartlaub’s Tauraco – a tamer hairstyle, but bolder eye shadow

A handsome Scarlet Ibis, walking by the pond

A sweet Fulvous Whistling Duck, getting picked on by the Scarlet Ibis! Guys – play nice!

A gorgeous Mandarin Duck, getting romantic with his lady

Igor going nuts snapping pics of the flamingos with his new zoom lens

Lindsay saying hello to a rather sleepy Greater Flamingo

A bright pink Caribbean Flamingo looking absolutely fabulous!

White-Faced Whistling Ducks

A South African Grey-Crowned Crane & a lone Mouse Deer

As we pulled out of the parking lot, we came across a family of baboons crossing the road. Igor was pushing Lindsay to take pictures out the window, but she was really skittish after the Monkeyland guide said baboons can get aggressive with humans. She started freaking out when Igor stopped *right in front* of a HUGE male, and lowered her window! After a few snaps of the she said, “I got the shot! Let’s GO!”

A pack of wild baboons crossing the street as we drive off

The biggest, baddest baboon…is still just a little tired

Our route took us along the coast, through the town of Knysna where we take a short detour to visit the Knysna Heads – magnificent cliffs overlooking the ocean below. We followed the signs to the lookout, and parked our Benz in a small lot, with parking attendant – yay! No one will break into our car while we are taking photos!

After a good half an hour, we head back to the car, when all of a sudden we notice a sign that say, “Only Parking Guards Wearing Red Vests May Accept Tips.” Tips? We have to tip this guy? Shit – we already gave the only small bill we had to the carwasher this morning. As we hit the ATM at the airport yesterday and had yet to buy anything to get change, we only had 200 Rand bills on us. We hoped to sneak away without the guard noticing, but as we pulled out he boldly came up to the driver’s window with his palm outstretched. We apologized profusely, explaining we didn’t have any change and we had just arrived. The guy got kinda pissed and said, “How do you do it in your country?” After a couple more, “Sorrys!” we drove off leaving a very angry parking guard behind. When we hit a grocery store later that afternoon we made sure to get LOTS of change for the future.

Passing through the seaside town of Knysna, home of “The Heads”

Checking out the viewpoints of the Knysna Heads

The rough waters of the South African coastline

We didn’t have time to visit the opposite headland, but we could admire the view with our nifty zoom lens

Afterwards, we headed inland bypassing the town of Oudtshoorn, where we would be staying for the night, to take a really long detour through the town of Prince Albert (or Prins Albert, depending on the language of the road sign…) so we could take a scenic drive through the Swartberg Pass – a beautiful pass through the mountains via dirt road. Lindsay was getting really nervous, as the going was slow on the unsealed road, and we barely hit the top before sunset. But Igor pulled through, taking the turns like a NASCAR driver and got us to our farmstay lodging by 6:30PM, just as the sky was getting dark.

Taking the longest – but faster! – road to the town of Prince Albert

After a quick fuel stop in Prince Albert, we had for the dirt road mountain pass in our 2WD Benz, chugging some Pellegrino. It’s a weird combination of prissy and bad-ass

Driving up the Swartberg Pass

View of the road snaking up the mountainside

We reached “Die Top” of the Swartberg Pass! Now we need to book it down to get to our hotel before dark!

Loosing sunlight fast on the other side of the mountain

A bottle of sherry and a cast-iron fireplace – cozy!

Day 103: South Africa – Monkeyland!

When we woke up, the sun was just starting to rise over the vast and rugged African landscape. We had a 4hr layover in Johannesburg where we went through immigration and picked up some of the local currency before hopping a commuter flight to George – a small seaside town on the famous Garden Route scenic driveway. We collected our rental car and headed to Plettenberg Bay. While we had booked a normal rental, we were unfortunately upgraded to a shiny new Mercedes Benz, since we are the only idiots in South Africa who don’t know how to drive a stick-shift. Normally an upgrade would be a good thing, but in South Africa this seems like a giant, “Rob Me!” sign. We are not allowed to drive in Africa in the dark (both because of wild animal activity on the road, and safety from carjackers), but we had just enough time for one sight-seeing activity before sundown: Monkeyland!

Y’all know our love of any animal activity – Monkeyland is a huge animal sanctuary where rescued primates can live in a free-roaming, 30-acre property. All the animals are rescued from captivity as either pets or research labs, so none of them can be released into the wild, but in this sanctuary they get to live as close to the wild as possible. Most of the species are actually native to South America – the only African monkeys we saw in the park were the lemurs from Madagascar. Now, there are plenty of wild baboons *outside* the park, but they are carefully kept out as they can be aggressive to other monkeys and humans.

6AM wake-up call as we begin our descent into SOUTH AFRICA

Sending postcards and grabbing a second breakfast in the Executive Lounge in the Johannesburg International Airport

Third and final leg of the journey is over, and we are in George – a bit tired, but the next adventure can’t wait!

There’s a place called MONKEYLAND. Did anyone think we would pass this up? Especially since selfie sticks are banned – hallelujah!

A squirrel monkey, walking by on the path

Our guide, Dwayne, takes our small group through the park, showing us the feeding stations, identifying the different species, and telling us about the sanctuary’s conservation program

King Julien? Sorry – I thought you were a different Ringtail Lemur

Lindsay says hello to a group of Ringtail Lemurs, having dinner

Ringtail Lemurs, chowing down on fruit

The Spider Monkeys were the most mischievous – especially once we reached the swing bridge. Our guide warned us this was “Thieves Alley”, as the Spider Monkeys will often ambush tourists and steal anything they can – earrings, sunglasses, etc. Even though our group had secured all valuables, a gang of monkeys still jumped on the little girl in our group, scaring the poor thing so much she started to cry!

Atlas, the male White-haired Gibbon. Poor guy is small, with underdeveloped arm muscles due to living in a cage during his adolescence.

Siam, the female White-haired Gibbon. She hangs out with Atlas, but they are “just friends” (much to the park management’s disappointment – they were hoping for a romance)

Igor says hello to the Gibbons, having dinner

Gibbons enjoying a fruit spread in Monkeyland

A Black & White Ruffed Lemur – the second specie of lemur that lives in Madagascar, in addition to the Ring-tailed King Julien

We left Monkeyland right around sunset, and hurried to our beachfront hotel. Maybe we just have lower standards after Southeast Asia, but we were IN LOVE with our new digs! Everything was so cozy and so CLEAN! We got so used to stains on bedsheets in the last few months – we felt like were staying the lap of luxury! It only got better when we went to dinner at the restaurant on the beach – USD goes *really* far in South Africa (1 Rand = $0.07). Also, South African wine is super affordable. We kept checking the exchange rate because we thought we must be calculating it wrong – how could a *bottle* of method champenoise only cost USD $13.00, and a by-the-glass only cost USD $3.50?

Oh, we are going to *love* South Africa.