Garden Route, South Africa -

'When the missionaries came to Africa, they had the Bible and we had the land. They said, "Let us Pray". We closed our eyes. When we opened them, we had the Bible and they had the land.'  - Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Garden Route, South Africa Slide Show

After a great experience in Cape Town, we rented a car and set out on a drive on the "Garden Route", a route that takes you through very diverse landscape and wildlife and a series of beautiful small towns set in the mountains, valleys, and coasts of the Western Cape. South Africa has a well developed road system that is easy to navigate. There is just one small problem. South Africans drive on the left side of the road and the cars have the steering wheel on the right side and you shift the manual transmission with your left hand.
Driving on the left side of the road is just one result of the British coming to South Africa. The British, along with the Dutch, French, and Germans also brought their languages, architecture, customs, and food. Among other places, they settled in towns along the Garden Route. The people we met along the way on the Garden Route were primarily of European descent.
The first town that we stayed at was Franschhoek, a town settled by French Huguenots who left France to escape religious persecution. They settled in the Franschhoek and Stellenbosch area in the mid to late 1600's and established wineries throughout the area. We took a break from hostels and stayed at a beautiful guest house called Center-Ville for 2 nights. It was quite a treat.
The first night, we were seated at a dinner table at a restaurant with a couple that spends half the year in England and half the year in Franschhoek. After we got to know them, the gentleman, David was nice enough to invite me to go golfing with him the next day. We golfed at the Pearl Valley Golf Club, site of the South African Open. I paired up with a South African and the 2 of us golfed against 2 Brits and the 2 Brits that handled us pretty easily. My lack of contribution to the team was attributed to using rental clubs, having the yardage markers in meters, golfing in hiking shoes, never golfing in the southern hemisphere, and just not being very good. Man, the course was nice though!
Next up was a drive to Oudtshoorn. To get there, we drove through the Swartberg Pass. The pass goes through, up, down and around red rock mountains with mountain streams and evergreens. The road is a one way winding gravel road that made for some white knuckle driving, but the scenery was spectacular. On the other side of the pass, the valley opened up into lush green vegetation, contrasting the red rock in the pass.
We stayed at a funky hostel in Oudtshoorn called Backpacker's Paradise. Oudtshoorn is known for the Cango Caves and ostrich farms. We chose to view the ostrich from the road. The sound of going on an ostrich safari in Africa was a bit embarrassing. We did visit the caves, but were only able to take the "old persons" part of the tour. We were not able to take the "adventure tour" due to my size. I wouldn't fit through some of the holes.
From there, we made our way to Mossel Bay to hang out on the beach for a day. The waves were huge with surfers having lots of fun. Jennifer and Noah were more active than I was as I ate something that obviously did not agree with me and I spent most of the day in bed.
We continued the oceanfront theme as we made our way back towards Cape Town, staying in Simon's Town, a navy town with a beautiful port.  If we hadn't already seen a huge penguin colony, we might have stopped at the penguin colony in Simon's Town, but we were looking for a new animal.
We found that animal when we went to the Cape of Good Hope Nature Reserve the next day - baboons. The first picture at the tope of this blog is of a mother and her baby in the nature reserve. We were advised not to feed them and not to get too close to them since they love food and have become comfortable going after humans to get the food. We took the advice and enjoyed watching them up close without any food. A unique feature of the Cape of Good Hope is that at the end of it, you can look to your left and see the Indian Ocean and look to your right and see the Atlantic Ocean.
The picture to the left is of Noah getting his first haircut on the trip. You should have seen the amount of hair on the ground! Even though Noah was frightened out of his mind getting his first haircut from someone else besides Barb at Cole's Salon in Burnsville, it turned out to be a very good haircut.
After spending one more night in Cape Town, we went to Johannesburg for a few days prior to going on our safari in Kruger National Park. There will not be a post for awhile since we will not have internet access in the park.
We didn't do much in Johannesburg as we we needed a break from our adventure and we were intent on trying to locate Jennifer's bag. Guess what? We received it this afternoon after a 13 day delay! There were three tags on the bag when it was delivered that all read, "URGENT"! Jennifer wants to ask South African Airways the definition of urgent. Now what do we do with all the clothes that she bought to replace the ones that were "lost"?
To see a slide show of the Garden Route, South Africa, click on the following link ==> Garden Route, South Africa Slide Show