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Published: April 3rd 2008
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The drive to Oudtshoorn (pronounced oats-horn) was absolutely beautiful. It’s located in the Swartberg mountains, and the views as we drove through them were incredible. We ran into a little bit of accommodation trouble, because there was a huge Afrikaans festival going on and everywhere was booked so we ended up staying in a different hostel each night we were there. The first night was at Oasis Shanti, which was really nice. Oudtshoorn is famous for its ostrich farms, and they fed us ostrich eggs for breakfast (well, one egg between a bunch of us - one ostrich egg is equal to about 18 chicken eggs). They also organized transportation for us during the day so we could hit up all the things we wanted to see. The transport was actually through another hostel, Backpackers Paradise, that sells the best brownies I have ever tasted in my life. We all bought a ton of them.
The first place we went to were the Cango Caves. We decided to do the more challenging “adventure” route, which involved crawling through some really tight spaces. There was “the letterbox,” which you had to crawl through on your stomach, and “devil’s chimney,” which was
a really narrow climb almost straight up. Got pretty dirty, but it was a lot of fun. There were a couple huge chambers in the caves, and one of them was actually used to hold concerts at one point!
The next stop was Cango Ostrich Farm. The tour we took lasted for less than an hour, but we got to do so many things. Ostriches are naturally aggressive creatures, but there was one at the farm named Betty who was friendly. We all got to hold food out while she ate out of our hands. It kind of hurt, haha. Then we took turns giving her “hugs,” which involved standing next to her while she wrapped her neck around us. Then we moved on to the riding pen. In order to ride one, two handlers first had to chase down a bird and catch it around the neck using a big hook. Then they put a bag over its head to calm it down, and the rider is able to climb up. I had to sit back farther on it than I was expecting, and hold onto its wings. As soon as they pulled the bag off, the bird
took off. The two handlers had to run around with each of us as we rode, and they lifted us up by our arms at the end to get us off. The ride lasted for less than 30 seconds haha, but was so awesome. The last thing they brought us to at the farm was a big pile of ostrich eggs. We got to stand on them, to see that they’re strong enough to hold humans. We also passed a bunch of ostriches whose feathers had been plucked - they looked really gross haha.
Cango Wildlife Ranch was our last stop of the day. It was kind of cheesy; the entrance was through a giant crocodile mouth haha. It was basically like a zoo, but still pretty cool. They had all kinds of big cats - lions, tigers, cheetahs, and jaguars. There were tiger and cheetah cubs too which were really cute, and I got to pet the cheetah cubs! I really just felt like I was petting a giant Stevie; the cheetahs didn’t seem threatening at all. But the workers in the cage with me were a little on edge. At one point the cheetah turned its head
and laid it on my foot, and the guy freaked out on it haha. We also got to see pygmy hippos and a lot of crocodiles among other animals there.
At the end of the day, we got a ride (a bouncy one in the back of a truck haha) out to our next hostel, Amber Lagoon. It was about a half hour outside of Oudtshoorn, but was the only available lodging that night because of the festival. It’s owned by a German couple, with very thick accents that were hard to understand. I used their computer, and the websites all came up in German (Willkommen bie Facebook!), and the letters on the keyboard were all in different places, so I didn’t exactly get my money’s worth of internet time there haha. There were a ton of people, including families with little kids, camping at Amber Lagoon, but we stayed on mattresses on the floor in the attic. It was a little bit sketchy, but kind of cool to be out in the middle of nowhere surrounded by ostrich farms. We watched the sunset over the mountains from the top of the hill, and woke up early to see
the sunrise too.
We spent our last few hours in Oudtshoorn wandering the festival. We had some pannekoeks, or pancakes, which here are really crepes. They’re filled with cinnamon and sugar and were really good. I also ate an amabula bula, which was a frozen passion fruit on a stick. There were a lot of musicians playing at the festival throughout the course of the week, but unfortunately since we had to stay at Amber Lagoon we weren’t in town at night when they played. The one thing I wish I could have done while we were in Oudtshoorn though was eat ostrich meat; I’ll hopefully get the chance to try it somewhere else, but it’s the ostrich capital of the world (seriously) so it would have been fitting to eat it there.
Oudtshoorn Pictures
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Connie
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i've decided what i want from south africa: a cheetah. a baby one. that would be ideal.