Travelling the Garden Route from the lovely nautical town of Knysna (pronounced "NYSE-na"), we went to the Knysna Elephant Reserve for a morning.  There was a time when a wild herd of elephants lived in the Knysna Forest, but they were poached so heavily that there are possibly just three free-roaming elephants left.  This terrible indictment of our carelessness and greed prompted the establishment of the reserve we visited.  Orphaned elephants gathered from South Africa, Zimbabwe and elsewhere now live peacefully on the reserve.  There are 12 animals currently at the park. They are established in a family group with a matriarch, aunts and juveniles who are supported, protected and mentored.

 

As a private enterprise, the reserve is self-sustaining; the elephants are supported by visitor fees.  You pay for entry and for fruit and vegetables to feed the elephants.  We were driven out into the wide grassland by tractor and there, without any fences or barriers to separate us, we met the elephants.  With guidance from the elephant handlers, we fed the elephants. 

 

 

Then we walked with them, touched them and watched them at close range.  The elephants have been trained to manage around people, to stop and stand as they quietly graze and to let people touch them.  

 

They are absolutely huge at close range ...

 

 

We loved watching how they would crop the grass by grabbing a "hank" in their trunk and then glide their front foot sideways to break off the grass,  Only the young ones seemed to do this.

 

 

And here's one peeling bark from a stick ... At very close range.

 

 

We had a peak in the stable where the elephants are housed at night to protect them.  We were told that each animal knows its stall and walks in on their own.  There was a small loft above the stable area which people can rent for a "sleepover" with the elephants.  It would be fun, although I have to admit, elephant manure is every bit as fragrant as horse manure.  And you should have see the size of the manure pile behind the stable!

 

As a photo opportunity, it was amazing.  Walking with the Knysna elephants was one of the most peaceful, delightful animal interactions I've ever had.

 

 

Oh, oh ostriches

Travelling into the Western Cape and the beautiful semi-desert region called the Klein Karoo (or Little Karoo), we made a stop in the town of Oudtshoorn. The town lies in the middle of the Karoo, "in a fertile valley cupped by the Swartberg and Outeniqua mountain ranges, and originated as a settlement along the Grobbelaars Rivers which meanders southwards from the Swartberg, providing fertile soil and water for irrigation. Crops such as lucerne, tobacco, fruit, grapes and grains grow here in abundance," according to the S.A. Venues website.

Oudtshoorn is also the ostrich capital of South Africa, and a trip into the Karoo must include a visit to an ostrich farm.  We went to Safari, a 400-acre farm that is operated by the fourth generation of the founding family. Hundreds of birds are raised each year for their meat, eggs and feathers. The eggs are gigantic, of course. One ostrich egg is equivalent to 24 chicken eggs and to hard boil one, you would have to boil it for an hour!

Ostriches are wonderfully adapted to the hot, dry conditions of the Klein Karoo. They move around their pens a lot.  The adolescent birds scrap with one another and are curious about people.  They came right up to the fence to greet us. Rob got a good peck as a souvenir.

A female ostrich will lay 60 eggs a year, if you keep taking eggs away. In the wild, an ostich will only lay the number of eggs she can cover with her body. Both the male and female will incubate the eggs. This 20-year old pair had a nest with nine eggs.   And that's the male bird on the nest in the picture below.

And here's Rob demonstrating how strong the eggs are; so strong in fact, that the ostrich chick cannot peck its way out. The female breaks the egg shell with her breastbone when the chicks are ready to hatch.

As this was a show farm, we got a chance to have some fun.  Like SIT on an ostrich ...

And cheer on the jockeys riding ostriches in a crazy sprint of a race ...  It was a fun outing.

Back at our hotel, we tried ostrich meat for dinner and it was excellent. No, it doesn't taste like chicken. It is the colour and texture of roast beef and has a similar taste. For South Africans, ostrich is a considered a specialty, on a par with filet mignon.  

Our guide explained that before WWI and into the 1920s, ostrich feathers were a fashion essential.  There was incredible money to be made in providing ostrich feathers for the fashion industry. In Oudtshoorn, the most successful farmers were keen to demonstrate their wealth; they built impressive brick homes, often with turrets and other details made from expensive imported materials.  For example, decorative metal (called "lace") was shipped from England to add detail to the deep verandas and eaves, giving these homes a charming Victorian appearance.  They were referred to as "feather palaces" - a reference to the fluffy, soft feathers of the ostrich.

 

Meet the neighbors at Boulder Beach

On our tour down to the Cape, we made a stop at Boulder Beach which is one of only two places in the world where African penguins gather to breed and raise their young.  On the sheltered sandy beach, these smallest penguins flirt, nest, sun themselves and socialize.  They are wonderfully animated and great fun to photograph.

Also called Jackass Penguins because of the braying way in which they vocalize, African penguins are among the smallest penguins.  We heard that the penguins can be very noisy neighbors and something of a nuisance because they do tend to wander into people's gardens.  But hey, who was in the neighborhood first? 

We also encountered African penguins in the Capetown Aquarium where they are frequently placed as rescued animals. There they are breeding very successfully and the chicks are returned to the wild. With their curious little faces and stubby wings, they quite steal your heart.  Psssst ...  If you look carefully in the last photo, you can jus t see a grey feathered chick in the bottom right, just behind Mom's left flipper.

Cape of Good Hope

We made a day tour from Capetown down the Cape peninsula into Table Mountain National Park.  We were keen to see that huge headlands that for hundreds of years has given weary sailors hope of a safe harbor.  Cape of Good Hope was a key landmark on the sea trade route between Europe and Asia. We tried to imagine trading ships like the great Indiamen of the Dutch East India Company rounding the Cape laden with spices and silks.

The Cape of Good is where, according to the park brochure, "two of earth's most contrasting water massses - the cold Benguela current on the West Coast and the warm Agulhas current on the East Coast" meet.  It is not, as we were taught in school, the meeting point of the Atlantic and Indian Ocean. Geographically, the Indian Ocean joins the Atlantic at Cape Agulhas", the most southerly point of the African continent. 

For a gardener, the Cape is a spectacular landscape.  It lies within the Cape Floristic Kingdom, the smallest but richest of the world's six floral kingdoms. Again from the park brochure, there are "1,100 species of indigenous plants, of which a number are endemic (occur naturally nowhere else on earth). Two types of fynbos ("fine bush"), coastal fynbos on alkaline sands and inland fynbos on acidic soils, are found."

Fynbos plants include proteas, ericas (heath) and restos (reeds). There are 24 species of proteas, including King Protea (see above), Sugarbush, Tree Pincushion and Golden Cone Bush.  These are all so exotic sounding, but you are more familiar with fynbos than you think; pelargoniums (regular garden geraniums), freesias, daisies, lilies and irises all originate from fynbos.

On Cape Point there is a lighthouse to which we took a funicular partway and then climbed up to admire the view.  In actuality, the lighthouse was more often than not shrouded in mist and proved to be ineffective for navigation. Another beacon was erected farther down the rock face.

This is the view of the Cape of Good Hope, that mythical place in our imaginations, from the lighthouse.  It was worth the climb.

We're in S.A.

We arrived in Johannesburg, South Africa at the wonderful modern airport, waiting just a while for our connecting flight to Capetown.  We will pass through this airport again, but the visual I will take away is this display of vuvuzelas.  Yes, the horn we learned to love or hate during the 2011 World Cup.  What could say "Welcome to South Africa" better than the vuvuzela?

May peace prevail

To better understand the history of the island, we were keen to visit the site of Zanzibar's slave market. We were motivated to bear witness, in some small way, to the most egregious wrong of Africa's past. Zanzibar was East Africa's main slave-trading port. In the mid-19th century as many as 50,000 slaves passed through the Stone Town slave market annually. It is a horrific number to contemplate.

The Anglican bishop, Edward Steere, came to Zanzibar to champion freedom for slaves as part of the anti-slavery movement that ultimately led to abolition in 1873.  Bishop Steere brought many former slaves under his protection.  He spearheaded the plan to build Christ Church Cathedral on the site of the slave market with the labour of freed slaves.  It was meant to be a symbol of a new covenant, one in which peace might prevail over pain. 

Today, two of the dark cramped chambers used to house slaves before their sale are still intact.  It was a gruesome place to behold.  As many as 80 men would be packed into the chamber we entered.  A hundred women and children would be held in the adjoining chamber.  

We learned that the slaves were often oiled and clothed and the women were displayed in jewelry to make them more appealing to buyers. But they were just as frequently whipped with the stinging tails of stingrays. If they did not cry out in pain, they fetched a higher price.  Those who were too weak or sick were thrown down a well and drowned.  It is possible to see where the whipping pole stood, for it is marked with a marble disk in front of the altar.

The church has one modern relic.  It is a small crucifix said to be made of wood from the tree under which David Livingstone, the first abolitionist, died in Zambia. Even as he was dying, Livingstone made a plea for the end of slavery.  He died of malaria about a month before the abolition of slavery.

The most moving feature of the site is the memorial to African slaves. The figures are linked together with actual iron collars and chains that the slavers used to transport slaves overland from their village homes on the continent. See more information about this historic site.

Sunset at Mercury's

If the guide books are to be believed, a visit to Zanzibar wouldn't be complete without a sundowner at Mercury's bar.  Named for the island's talented native son, Freddy Mercury of the 70s rock band, Queen, it is located right on the beach and ideally situated for admiring the sunset.  It's a great place to observe the rough and tumble of a beach soccer match too.

The Queen memorabilia was everywhere, but we didn't have the heart to ask of Freddy had ever actually graced the bar. Still, we did and although we didn't buy the t-shirt, we did enjoy the sunset along with a lot of  "Lonely Planet" types. And I enjoyed a local beverage - ginger beer - or as it is called in Swahili, "tangawizi". It was an evening to remember.

The spice farm

Spices continue to be a big part of Zanzibar agriculture. Making a tour of a mixed spice farm is a popular day trip for tourists.  We arranged to visit a small farm not far from Stone Town, traveling in our guide Yauz's lovely air-conditioned van.  There we saw many spices and local vegetables growing in combination.  Spices we know well in their dried, ground form are a whole lot harder to recognize in their fresh state. Turmeric, for instance, is a root. It was the first plant the farmer dug for us. He made a small conical basket from a banana leaf in which to collect our spicy treasures. 

We explored all though the plantation, discovering cinnamon and gingerroot and even a henna tree (traditionally grown close to the home so that its leaves are handy for the women of the family at celebration times). The spice that really stumped us was nutmeg.  We never expected the nut would be encased in a fleshy shell or that it would be such a vibrant color (see below).  Nor did we expect the starfruit, picked fresh from the tree, would be so refreshing in the heat of the day.

The plant the surprised me was the lowly yam.  I couldn't get over the immense size of the leaves.  They were planted in many areas and seemed so decorative in a tropical way.

After two hours on the farm, we had nibbled many things, including fresh peppercorns and ginger, which are wonderfully medicinal.  Along the way, we met this delightful old woman sorting some harvested spice on her doorstep.  In her 80s, could her long life be attributed to the ginger, the cocoanut milk or the cooked cassava leaves? 

We realized that you could eat quite well by lightly harvesting your food from this market garden each day. This is exactly what the locals do. 

Finding serenity at poolside

Zanzibar, the Spice Island. What does it conjure in your imagination? Sea breezes laced with the aroma of cloves?  In the time of the Oman sultanate perhaps this was true.  Zanzibar today is far rougher, with buildings in need of paint, an antiquated electricity grid and too many young men without meaningful work.  We could tell you about that, but first let us share our beautiful hotel on the beachfront.  

Located in historic Stone Town, the  Zanzibar Serena is a pleasing combination of two buildings - the Chinese doctor's house and the telecommunications office (circa 1930s) - and  looks across the Indian Ocean towards mainland Tanzania. The hotel is a echo of the island's Oman, Indian and African past. Turkish carpets lie on the hallway floors, ancient chests in the courtyard whisper of Scheherazade's silk treasures, a concubine's silver belt hangs in a wooden frame, and everywhere, paintings depict a rich era hardly remembered.

We will remember the soft mornings and strong coffee served with hot milk, fresh fruit by gentle waiters.  We will remember the refreshing pool under a hot equatorial sun.  On the beach we watched Zanzibari men jog and stretch at the day's beginning, and at day's end, we watched the fishing dhows return with their catch.

Mud, mud, glorious mud

The Hippopotamus Song kept playing in my mind on safari. That is, when we encountered hippos, warthogs or other animals taking advantage of the cooling effects of mud.  Do you know it?  I found the lyrics online, if you don't.  It's fun. These mucky warthogs found a darn good wallow after a nighttime rain in the Ngornongoro Crater. 

And then there was a hyena ...

A couple of young male lions napping on the wet sand.  Ah, bliss ...

And of course, there were hippos ...

Now doesn't that look lovely?  By the way, a hippo pool is like a liquid barnyard.  It smellS like one too.  Still, it is rather glorious!