Bungee!!

We actually have photos from bungee jumping that from the place, but they are on a CD, so I couldn't post them before. They are kinda cool, so I thought I would post them!

Rob doing well before his jump:
All hooked up:


Jumping!
Falling!


Being pulled back up:

Great jump!

My turn. I believe here I was asking if he was sure he knew what he was doing. You are connected by those little red pads on your ankles! I was afraid I would point my toes and slip out.

Getting ready to jump:

Jumping!

Falling:

Falling:

And done!
Proof that we actually jumped. It was a week ago today that we returned from our vacation. A week already! I know I would go back tomorrow if I could. Rob will have to come later. He has H1N1. Sucker.

Home.

We are home! After 30 hours of travel, we arrived in MN around 5 pm last night. The flights went pretty smoothly, besides the length. They had some good movies to watch!

Friday morning, we woke up, checked out and headed North of Knysna to Oudtshoorn. Our first stop was an ostrich farm! There are a TON of ostrich farms around this area of South Africa. Back in the day, they did a brisk business selling ostrich feathers for ladies fashions. Apparently the invention of the automobile caused the demand for ostrich feathers way down. Now I think they grow them mostly for the meat.

We got to see baby ostrich hatchlings.

There were some babies around. Ostriches raise their kids together. The male is the one on the left with darker feathers. They are such weird birds! They are the second fastest land animal and can run something like 45 mph!


Carol was brave and rode one of the ostriches. The 2 guys holding on to her go catch one of the birds, then put a bag over its head. An ostrich is so dumb, they are no longer afraid of anything they can't see. You hop on, take the hood off and hold on!


Rob standing on some eggs. They can withstand someone 300+ lbs standing on them.


From the ostrich farm, we headed further North to the famous Cango Caves. These were discovered a in the late 1700's. It's a series of caves that go on for 4K. The tour takes you through a couple caves, but you can also do what's called the "Adventure Tour" where you go further into the caves using your own lighting and squeezing through tiny holes.


The caves are really amazing! Until 30 years ago, they even had concerts in the largest cave! But people would snap off the formations and take them home, so they stopped leaving people unsupervised down there.


Some of these formationans are a million years old. It takes something like 200 years to grow a millimeter.

After visiting the caves, we had a 5 hour drive back to Cape Town, then our 2 loooooong flights back home. We made it until 8 pm last night until we had to call it a day. While it's good to be home, I really miss South Africa. I can't recommend it enough - a wonderful place to be.

Best part about being home...

Hope everyone enjoyed the tour around South Africa with us! Now back to the real world.

Knysna, Day 3

Nothing to blog about today, I'm afraid. We spent the day shopping around for last minute souviners and basically laying low. The weather was pretty crummy, so it was a good day to sit in a coffee shop and write postcards!

Tomorrow, we head up to Oudtshoorn to go to an ostrich farm and also to walk through the Cango Caves. Our flight leaves tomorrow at midnight, so it will be our last day in South Africa! At least for a while.

Now to pack... how are we leaving with SO much more than we came with??

Knysna, Day 2

If you would like to see photos from yesterday's post, you'll have to go to the Picasa page. I can't get any of our photos to load onto Blogger!

http://picasaweb.google.com/kell0586/Africa#5400317748490797010

If you would like to start with today's photos:

http://picasaweb.google.com/kell0586/Africa#5400319253190686754

We started today with a delicious breakfast out on the patio of the B&B. It was so nice and sunny!! It was great! After breakfast, we headed east to the Bloukrans River Bridge to go bungee jumping! It's the highest bungee in the whole world!! It's 216 m high! You only fall about 150 m, though. We got all harnessed in then had to wait an hour for our turn to walk out onto the bridge. For the record, that's just long enough to get completely freaked out. You walk out to the middle of the bridge, they bind up your feet, walk you to the edge of the bridge, count to 4 then either you jump of or the push you. I managed to jump off on my own power. You fall for 7 seconds!!! I kept my eyes closed for part of the way down. But that was ok. I think I got the jist of it.

After we bungeed, we want to Tsitsikamma National Park for lunch and a hike. During lunch, the skies were blue and it was so warm! We hiked to the mouth of the Storms River, where it meets the Indian Ocean. The sea was very rough today. There must have been a bad storm out at sea. When you get to the mouth, you can walk all over it on suspension bridges! It was amazing scenery especially with the amazing waves!! By the end of the walk, it had cooled down quite a bit and was completely overcast.

By the time we were pulling into Knysna for dinner, there was lightning. I hope it doens't rain for our last full day in South Africa! We've had quite the amazing time so far. I highly recommend this country to anyone that can make the 24 hour trip. It really is something else. Probably not at all what you would expect!

I hope that you can follow along with the Picasa pictures. At least it's better than nothing!

Hope everyone is doing well!! Hi Lois!

Our Soundtrack: The Very Best, "Warm Heart of Africa"

FYI, here's what we've been rocking on the trip -- it's the only CD we brought and was a great choice. Looking to bring some tropical warmth to a cool winter's eve? This is the record you'll want. Others agree!

And we're back!

But without photos. I guess the internet here is a little underpowered.

From Cape Town, we headed to the town of Wilderness for a day or so. On the way there, the BMW developed a crack in the windshield. So our stay in Wilderness was mostly sorting out how we were going to fix the crack. Also, it was cloudy and cold. It certainly deserved better.

We were told from Hertz that a crack in the windshield is the drivers responisbility. So we found a glass place in George that we had to keep driving to for various reasons. This morning, we drove to George for what we expected to be a 5 hour wait in the George mall while the windshield was replaced. Instead, Rob drove us to the Hertz rental place at the George airport and convinced them to take the BMW with the crack and give us a new car to save us the morning! We are now rolling in a gold Kia Sedona. It's a mini-van.

We are now in Knysna and it's the bomb. Yesterday in Wilderness, it was 15 degrees C (something like low 60's). Today in Knysna it was 27 degrees! I really wish I could upload photos because we spent the day at the beach reading, walking down the sane, flying a kite, playing paddle ball and going dune jumping (Rob). The beach we were at is called Brenton-on-Sea. If you want to see how gorgeous it is, Google it. Maybe I can get the internet working better later. You'll want to see photos of the world's highest bungy jump, right??

Cape Town, Day 3

Another beautiul, sunny day here in Cape Town! Not to make anyone jealous or anything! Is everyone ready for your daily dose of low-res photos? Rob has indicated he would like to lead you on our journey today.

Good All Hallow's Eve to you all. Here in the southern hemi, it's called Hallow'Een. You still dress up in a costume, so Jessica and I dressed as hobos to join in the festivities. We went trick-or-treating to three different places.

We started at a big vineyard called Groot Constantia.

We took a wine tour and our "Trick or Treat" cries were rewarded with glasses and glasses of wine - two reds, two whites, and a nice tawny port.

Jess drank three of these barrels and we were escorted from the premises.

Here we are (l-r): Jock of the Bushveld, Rob N. Island. Remember, we're hobos, and those are our hobo names.

Next, we wandered to Kirstenbosch, the world's first botanical garden. It is a sprawling green estate perched upon the slopes of Table Mountain. We trick- or- treated around the estate and received the gift that keeps on giving: nature.

The grounds contain lakes, forests, streams, grassy knolls, and even a rickety old railcar (where we felt most comfortable, obvs.)

This is a Protea, the national flower species of South Africa.

Here's Jock of the Bushveld having a face-off with the king of all Proteas, the King Protea. Jock wins by a nose. 'Cause she's got one.
We then stopped past the University of Cape Town, where yours truly once matriculated. There I am on the steps of knowledge, pretending to know things.

These are several buildings on campus where students learn/fornicate. (not sure if they're classrooms or dorms).

It's hard to learn when you've got such a beautiful vista to gaze out upon. (see Safari Steve gazing at right. No learning going on there.)

This is the international building where I took the lion's share of my classes. Being in Africa, lion's share takes on a different meaning. One devours you if you skip.

An institution of "Higher" learning?

This condemned sty is where I resided for a spell. As to why it was condemned, I plead the fif. However, it's been over nine years since I lived there so it couldn't have been all me, could it? Whatever. I did do that graffiti though. CK is for Crazzy Knife, my old gang name. Yes that's how it was spelled, mom.

Being Hallow'een, children are allowed to take liberties with others' property. To wit: our travels delivered us home at a late-ish hour, and when the neighborhood kids visited 41 Bokkemanskloof Dr, Hout Bay (our crashpad) and found us not home, they sprayed shaving cream on our mailbox to punish us. Or more specifically our mailman. They must have thought he was harboring us for the evening. Later, I saw one of the kids and he was dressed as a purple-belt in karate. Way to aim high dude.

Well, it's time to dig into the spoils of our trick-or-treating. We'll be without the 'net for a few days, I'm informed, so until then -- everybody now -- "Spring Break!!!!!"

Cape Town, Day 2

Ok! Ready for Cape Town, Day 2?

We started our day at the V & A Waterfront, which is basically a big mall. In fact, it seemed to be many different types of malls all together. There are also lots of boats. Today was another gorgeous sunny day, but this time, it was warm! I guess the Southeaster has mostly blown through.

V & A waterfront. We were able to buy a $15 bottle of sunscreen here.

From the waterfront, you can catch a boat over to Robben Island. Robben Island has been used for a log time for many things. Back in the day, it was a leper colony, then it was a military base. It's about 13 km from Cape Town. Here is looking towards Cape Town from the island. If I haven't mentioned it yet, that is Table Mountain. The city of Cape Town is at the base of the mountain.

Most recently, it was used as a prison for political prisoners who were active against ending apartheid. It's crazy to think that the country was still fighting apartheid into the 1990's!! One of the most famous prisioners was Nelson Mandela. He was convicted in 1964 for high treason and didn't get out until 1982, when he was transferred to another prison for 9 more years or something.

Here was his cell:

All the political prisoners had to do hard labor by working in this lime quarry. I guess that pile of stones at the mouth of the quarry was from when Nelson Mandela came back after he became president of South Africa to again denounce apartheid and the conversion of the prison to a museum. The rock pile symbolizes reconciliation. Powerful stuff, you guys.

This was our guide, Benjamin. He and all the guides are former political prisoners here. He served 11 years for high treason. I can't believe they all come back here to lead tours around where they were imprisoned, but he said sharing his story helps him heal. He was missing a fingertip.

After Robben Island, we decided to go to the top of Table Mountain. It's been closed a lot lately because of the high winds but was open today! You ride a cable car up to the top and hang out up there. There is a restaurant so you can get something to eat and enjoy the view. We didn't get up there until around 5:45, so we got to watch the sun setting.

Cape Town from the top:

Setting sun. Not us in the picture, but it could be!

And that's it! Looking forward to tomorrow...