Welcome to South Africa!
This is the first of MANY posts on this fascinating country — I spend a total of six weeks traveling around on my own and I fall in love with this place. But for now I’ll wrap up the final night of our Acacia Africa tour which is spent at the incredibly scenic Highlanders camp and winery in the mountainous Cederberg region of South Africa.
Simply driving to this place is impressive. Check out the views:
Several of the rock formations here are shaped like Table Mountain in Cape Town — a giant plateau of sandstone rising above the landscape.
This region is known for its wineries — in fact, we are staying overnight at a winery that offers hotel-style accommodation as well as camping. It’s called Highlanders and it’s absolutely lovely.
I read out by the pool for a bit, eager to get through two books before our tour officially ends and I have to return them to our overland truck library.
Here’s a quick summary of these books (copy and pasted from my year-end book review if you want more recommendations):
The Elephant Whisperer (Lawrence Anthony) — This title and subject immediately intrigued me — four journalists split up the 4,500 mile route between Cairo and Cape Town, each driving a different stretch in a 4WD vehicle while detailing the journey in their specific writing style. Some of the entries are more journal-esque, others read more like prose. My favorite part was reading about the specific places that I myself had just visited — a campsite in Namibia, a national park in Tanzania — and comparing their descriptions and observations with my recent memory. Since a different author wrote each quarter of the journey, it’s not a cohesive piece (and it’s not intended to be). It’s worth checking out if you’ve traveled overland extensively in Africa.
Born Free (Joy Adamson) — This book was a treat. It’s written by a man who took over a huge amount of undeveloped property in Zululand, South Africa with the plan to turn it into a game park. Since he was just starting up and needed to populate the area with more game, he agrees to take a herd of wild and aggressive elephants that have been rejected by other parks for being too dangerous. (The elephants are to be euthanized if they can’t find a new home.) The first few days are a major challenge — led by two obstinate female matriarchs, the herd easily locates the electricity source for the fence and knocks out the power to escape. Lawrence notifies an emergency wildlife force and spends thousands of dollars to get them back into his park. But over the following months, he slowly gains their trust and the elephants stop trying to escape. His tales of close encounters with these magnificent creatures — including the birth of babies and death of another — will leave a remarkable impression for just how human-like elephants are. The author lays out other impressive facts about their social structure and how they communicate. It’s a very engaging, readable book, and great for animal lovers.
The bar is quiet now but it’ll be rocking in a few short hours.
Outdoor patio where we’ll enjoy our final dinner this evening:
Cork art:
Rachel and Jeremy race to see who can put up his / her side of the tent faster.
But guess what? They’re setting up my tent. I think I win this contest. Thanks guys!
Showers here overlook the vineyard. After extensive overland travel in Africa, I award this “Best Shower View.”
Our group meets up before dinner for a wine tasting.
This guy pours generously and we get tipsy fast while sampling five types of wine plus a rooibos-infused vermouth.
Jumping for wine! We love this place. Also, Lisa wins at jumping photos.
Dinner is delicious. Instead of cooking ourselves, our guides have arranged for the winery to prepare tonight’s meal. There is even ice cream for dessert…!
Since it’s the last night on tour, our guides play a prank on everyone… we’re eating dessert when they rush in to say there’s smoke coming from the truck. We need to grab our belongings from the lockers NOW!
There’s a flurry of confusion as everyone rushes to the truck — “wait, what’s going on? is it a fire?” — but people figure out quickly that it’s just a smoke machine. Our guides have carried this smoke machine with them all over Africa; it’s come in handy a few times, and tonight is one of them.
Fun times back on the patio:
There’s dance music into the wee hours. Our guides bring over the smoke machine to get more use out of it, and changing color lights add to the fun. Wine flows freely. We have the whole place to ourselves.
Attempting a cheerleading-style pyramid…
This is impressive coordination given how much wine is involved.
We’re up shortly after sunrise the next morning. A low fog hovers over the landscape.
I’m not sure if this is lavender or just flowers that look like lavender, but either way it’s pretty:
Some of my tour mates have upgraded to a room (instead of camping) on the final night — each one is named after a different kind of wine.
Only a few more hours left before our tour concludes in Cape Town.
We pull over for photos and our guides joke that we’re checking one more country off the list — who wants to stop in Algeria?
We’ve barely been in South Africa for 24 hours and I’m already in love with the scenery.
The past 12 days have FLOWN by. We lucked out with a great group of people, and there’s so much action and scenery packed into this tour. Major thanks to Acacia Africa and especially our outstanding tour guides Riaan and Juliana for providing a stellar trip!
I visited Namibia (and spent one day in South Africa!) on a 12-day tour from Windhoek to Cape Town with Acacia Africa. They discounted my tour in exchange for blogging and photography; opinions are my own.
