#cango caves

More cave photos because why not, who else am I going to show it to?

Cango Caves, Western Cape (2015)

The Best Places To Visit In South Africa

EXCITING ADVENTURE AWAITS!

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South Africa is certainly a place of wild wonder and natural beauty. With an abundance of nature safaris, majestic mountains, beautiful coastlines and huge bustling cities it has a bit of something for everyone.

The best part, is that as a country it is fairly inexpensive to visit and travel there due to their currency being relatively weak compared to the Great…

Situated in the foothills of the Swartberg mountain range, the Cango Caves can be found in the Precambrian limestone of the area, stretching for about 4 km (in length) underground. Based on cave paintings and other recoved artifacts, the cave system appears to have been in use throughout prehistory over a long period during the Middle and Later Stone Ages, however, it was only after its rediscovery in 1780 (by local farmer Jacobus van Zyl), that the caves took on its role as one of the more popular local places to visit.

Due to accessibility constraints and in efforts to preserve the caves themselves (the limestone is particularly susceptible to heat, light, touch, and of course the carbon dioxide that we breathe out), only about a quarter of the actual cave system is open to visitors – who may only only enter the cave as part of a guided group.

Tours are conducted at regular intervals throughout the day, with the two main tour types being the “Standard Tour” which takes around an hour to complete, and the “Adventure Tour” which takes around an hour and a half and has you crawling through a number of very narrow spaces and up some very vertical faces!

(Not really recommended if you are on the larger than normal side though – people can and do get stuck, sometimes horribly so.)

The tourist parts of the caves have been made wonderfully accessible, with knowledgeable tour guides and clever lighting bringing to life the beautiful stalagmite and stalactite formations, in a space that really is one of those places that you need to experience in person in order to get a feel for its majesty.

It is also worth mentioning that the visitors centre that you need to move through in order to reach the caves is also rather well laid out, featuring an excellent and informative “Interpretive Centre” that is well worth spending a little time in.

Now the last time that Chantelle and I visited the caves was back in 2007, so I was rather pleased to be able to return to this otherworldly place a full ten years later – the perfect showpiece for our two little munchkins in tow on what was now turning out to be a very attraction filled holiday roadtrip.

Pleasingly, the Cango Caves were exactly as brilliant as how I remembered them to be.

Fun Fact: You don’t really want to still be walking along the pathway when the lights are turned off (which they do in order to further preserve the caves). Unfortunately for Jessica and myself though, this was exactly what happened as we were making our way out (my knee was giving a bit of hassle, so I was moving slowly by this point of the tour).

Seriously, I’m amazed that I didn’t need to dig out a clean pair of pants for Jessica – that was one massive pitch dark fright for one so young to have experienced! 😀

Related Link: Cango Caves | Wikipedia | Oudtshoorn | #JuneHolidays2017

Driving on the Garden Route

Via the Garden Route from Port Elizabeth to Cape Town Port Elizabeth

I am traveling through South Africa with my clients. This blog post is about the Cape Region. Gebeco is our German tour operator with whom we travel.

After we say goodbye to our wonderful bus driver Mavis in Johannesburg, we fly with our local guide Gisela to Port Elizabeth, to drive overland to Cape Town.

the beach in Port…