1, 2 April (Day 16 and 17)

For our first day of holiday we were picked up at 7am by our tour guides, Pierre and Antoinette. They’ve been the guides on this trip for years, so they’re good friends with Sandy and are very comfortable with us. One of the students from a previous GVSU trip actually is now living with one of their sons here in South Africa!

We spent most of the day travelling, but broke it up with two wine tastings. The first wine tasting was at Springfield, and we were lucky enough to get to have a tour of their winemaking facilities. It wasn’t as in-depth as the one we had with Peter Roos, but it was definitely informative. I was glad that I’d had my wine class, because I actually knew what the guide was talking about when he used words like “lees” and “racking.” I ended up buying a bottle of chardonnay. I’m usually not a big fan of chardonnay, but this was my favorite out of all that I’ve had, so I wanted to make sure I got a bottle.

After a few hours in the van we went to Van Loveren. We didn’t see any facilities here, but it was definitely fun. Our tasting was in a beautiful garden, and we were brought a wine list that covered the front and back. We chose to taste all of them. At Van Loveren they also leave the bottles on the table with you once you’ve tasted. I wasn’t impressed with any of their wines, but that didn’t stop me from tasting a lot to try and find one I would.

It took us several more hours in the car before we reached Knysna. We start the trip at the farthest point and then work our way up the Garden Route, so the first two days are mostly travel. We got to Knysna in the evening and stopped into the hostel before leaving for dinner. We had dinner at a restaurant overlooking the ocean, so obviously I got calamari. I eat so much calamari here that people have started to comment on it. What can I say? I love the stuff. This was the best calamari I’ve had so far.

After dinner we headed back to the hostel. The hostel was an old house that had been converted into dorms, and we were the only ones there. It was obviously a hostel (we were in a room with 12 beds) but it didn’t feel like it because we were really only sharing it with the night watchman. It was nice not to have to worry about other people in the building, but we didn’t get the socialization that you get from other hostels. We spent the rest of the evening sitting on the porch talking with the night watchman whose name I forget. He was from SA originally then lived in Ireland for awhile and was back in SA since he couldn’t get a visa. We talked a bit of politics and he told us about living in Johannesburg. He had a lot of interesting stories.

We woke up early the next day and had breakfast in Knysna. After eating a lackluster breakfast, we had an hour or so to shop around town while Sandy stocked up on groceries for our time in Addo. I bought a really cute (and comfortable!) pair of hot pink flats and a green sundress for about $20US.

After several more hours of travel we found ourselves at Addo Elephant National Park. We drew numbers to pick who would be in cabins together. I got to share cabin C8 with Carrie, Jake, and Jeff. Poor Carrie is a light sleeper and ended up with three of the loudest, most obnoxious people to share a space with. Oops. While we were unloading, the girl in F7 looked out into the park. We could see elephants from their front porch! How cool is that?

After dropping our stuff off at the cabin, we headed back to the bus for a game drive. We saw a TON of kudu, which are antelope-type animals with big curved horns. We also saw a bunch of elephants, including two that were fighting in the middle of the road. I got some really cool videos of that. They were right in front of our car. The park just has roads through it and the animals all have free range, so they go wherever they want, regardless of what else is around. On our way out the park we saw something really cool. There was a baby kudu that was separated from his parents and he was being pursued by jackals. We watched them chase him for about 30 minutes before the park was closing and we had to leave. It was awesome to see, though. Obviously it was sad to think that the baby kudu would die, but to see it happening right in front of us was like living in a segment on Planet Earth.

When the park closed we headed back to the cabins for a braai. Pierre braaied chicken for us and Antoinette made salad and pasta. It’s a good thing we had the little braai area to sit in, because all 15 of us were eating together in a cabin created for 4 people. Cramped but fun. After dinner we headed back to one of our cabins to hang out a bit. We told embarrassing stories. We tried to keep quiet, but we’re Americans. The funniest was Jeff, who seems to be unable to whisper. When asked, he lowers his voice but not in the way that he get quieter, it just gets deeper. After that, most of us went to sleep because most of the group was waking up for a morning game drive that would start at 6:30am.