Garden Route day two

Day two

Tuesday the 14^th of February. Today we had to wake up early to go on our second game drive. The sun was up already and so were the animals. Yesterday we didn’t see any elephants so we made a special request to look for them first. We saw two elephants walking and eating and we took some beautiful pictures. We saw the lions again and some other animals like Bontebeesies and Springbok. After the game drive we had breakfast and seeing that it was the 14^th of February, everyone was wishing each other a happy Valentine’s Day. The Exchange students from Hong Kong had made origami hearts for everyone and had some candy from China. Last week you could send a rose to someone for Valentine’s Day. Not only could you send them to girls in Herschel but you could send them to other schools too, boy’s schools in Cape Town like Bishops, Sacs and Rondebosch. I had sent some roses to the exchange students from chilli and my partner which they received after garden route when they came back. I got a rose myself too and when I came home I saw it standing in a vase on my desk. After breakfast we went to an ostrich farm which as really nice. When we came there we had to sit in this room where someone told us about the ostriches. He told us that ostriches eat stones because they don’t chew their food but the stones in their stomach will grind it and he told us what the feathers and skins are used for. Then the girls got some ostrich hugs from a female ostrich called Bessie and the boys got a kiss. Afterwards, it was time to ride an ostrich. First only half of the group could ride on one which was quite sad because everyone wanted to go but then the guide felt sorry for us and arranged that we could all go. It was quite an experience to ride on an ostrich. The Ostrich got a sac over its head to keep it calm and then you had to sit on his back with your legs underneath its wings and hold on tightly onto its wings. They pulled the sac off his head and then the ostrich started running. Luckily I was held by two men to make it safer and I had to get off quickly not to fall. The guide thought it would be nice to let the ostriches give us a neck massage. We had to hold a bucket of food in front of us and lean against the fence where the ostriches stayed and then they tried to get the food. It was quite ticklish and the ostriches were rather rough, it was not that good of a massage but the ostriches were soft though. I’d rather have a real massage.

We went back to the van and drove about half an hour to go to the Cango Caves where we would get an adventurous tour. We entered the cave into this huge chamber. It was quite dark in there but when the guide turned off the light, we could see the massive formations like stalagmites and stalactites. She told us that people used to give concerts in these caves and I can imagine the sound and ambiance to be amazing. She turned off most of the light again and we moved further into the caves. The tour took us through narrow tunnels like the tunnel of love which was given this name because it was so tight; you were actually getting hugs and squeezes from the walls. It was quite slippery in the caves so you had to be really careful not the fall. I personally believe that the scariest think of the tour was the devil’s chimney and I wouldn’t have given it a different name. It looked like there was a hole in the wall with a dead end and I thought the tour guide was making a joke about going in there but then I looked up into the hole and you I realized she was being serious. We had to climb up for about 3 meters into the chimney. I was so relieved when I finally came out. At one point in the tour, we had to go through a tunnel which was only 27 cm high. We had to crawl on our bellies over the floor and at the end slide down through a crack. Luckily, no one got stuck and after one and a half hours we went out again. This was the last activity for the day and we drove to the backpackers where we would be spending the night. We had dinner and played billiards afterwards. We played some more card games and then Miss Stephens told us to go to go to our rooms and prepare ourselves for the next day, because the next day was the big day, BUNGY JUMPING.