Garden Route Friday

We left Athlone at 5 am in our stylish bright blue VW van. Two medical students joined us who were on clinical rotation with Stellenbosch University. Shaziya from Germany and Inge from the Netherlands came along. We stopped for coffee and then ate breakfast at The Country Pumpkin about 3 hours into the drive. Continuing east another hour we arrived at the Cango Caves in Oudtshoorn. We started the Adventure Tour entering the first massive chamber containing massive dripstone formations as shown in the picture above. We went on to the second chamber to see more stalactites, columns, and dripstone formations. The adventurous part was maneuvering through tight spaces in a giant loop. We squeezed through the tunnel of love, up the devil's chimney, and shimmied out the letterbox. Jay and Ryan found the experience to be claustrophobic while us girls had a blast. It did feel great to emerge and escape from the humidity of the caves. We continued on to Cango Ostrich Farm. We interacted with Betsy, the friendly ostrich. I got to feed her and she gave me a hug with her flexible neck. Next we rode ostriches, yes rode them... Needless to say it was a bizarre experience to ride such a massive bird around! We ended our day in the town of Wildernis and checked into our hotel. Molly and I were so excited to find two large beds in our room. It was wonderful to sleep in a big, comfy bed compared to our little twin beds at the home stay. That night we ate at Blue Olive where a live band played as we enjoyed a great meal.