16 September - To Strand

I rose at 5.30am and quietly headed outside from the dormitory as the day was waking. Sitting at the benches outside the main reception area I was able to hook into the WiFi and catch up with the world while enjoying the peace and coolness of the morning and the attention of one of the lodges three cats.

We had intended to have an early breakfast here before setting off but the staff failed to arrive in time so we headed out with a view to eating at our first port of call some twenty minutes down the road: an ostrich farm. However, their staff too had yet to turn up so we aimed for breakfast after having done the tour.

This part of South America is ostrich central. There are loads of farms and thousands of ostriches which are raised for their feathers and meat and skin (which makes a high quality leather). We learned a little about the farming, we stood on ostrich eggs (they are immensely strong) and I stood with my back to a bunch of ostriches while they manically reached around banging my neck to feed from the bowl I was holding in front of me; an ostrich neck massage according to the guide but more an ostrich version of Friday night to me! Overall it was an informative visit, rounded off with breakfast (at last!) and a look in the ostrich themed gift shop.

Our next stop was Cango Caves a little further along the road towards Cape Town. The 10am tour was fully booked though so we bought tickets for the next one and headed off to what we thought was a crocodile sanctuary further along. It turned out to be more like a zoo, albeit with high standards, but having spent a month experiencing the pleasure and thrill of finding and watching animals in their natural environment, seeing them presented here and confined in their pens was something I did not feel comfortable with, even though there were many I had not seen at Shawari. Luke had not visited before and I think he too had not expected this: I do not think he will be going back. Fortunately we had only a little time before we needed to head back to the Caves for our underground tour.

Cango Caves are natural limestone caves with some amazing stalactite and stalagmite structures. The main cave is a massive cavern but our trip was the 'adventure' tour and we went further into what was a surprisingly warm and humid environment. There were four areas that required us to squeeze our bodies through tight gaps of some feet distance, of these one was vertical, another required us to shuffle horizontally along a gap no higher than 18 inches and a third that required climbing up in a very confined space. The limestone rock was beautifully smooth which in some ways made squeezing through easier but it also meant that there was no purchase or decent handholds to allow for easy progress. Now I am not fat but I found it a tight squeeze in some places and the guide told us a story of a large American woman who, despite being told to wait, had tried to squeeze through the first gap after her group had gone through and got stuck. It had been eleven hours before a team managed to free her, eleven hours during which her group were trapped on the other side unable to get out.

I have always said I would avoid caving in confined spaces: the thought of being underground in long and tiny claustrophobic gaps with tons of rock above me has never filled me with enthusiasm. This experience was fine though and I enjoyed it, but I think it is as far as I am likely to go as far as caving is concerned.

Back out in the daylight and open air, we headed back to the vehicle and continued west. We had a fair distance to cover so only stopped to refuel and to grab a snack for lunch. South Africa continued to drift past and the landscape slowly changed as we got over the mountains and onto the plains and valleys towards Cape Town: the communities were still small and isolated but the hills and bush was interspersed with more cultivated areas the further west we headed. The day started drawing to a close and the night began to draw in; we would not make Cape Town until quite late. Fortunately I was being dropped off in Strand which was 25 miles this side of Cape Town but it was still gone 8pm when I stepped out in the dark outside Berlize's house. I was to stay here two days - alone as Berlize was on holiday in Europe - before heading home. It didn’t take long for me to unpack the little I needed in order to be ready for bed and I headed there as soon as I could to sleep away the weariness of the last two days.