McAleers On Tour!: South Africa: the garden route part 2

Our third day down the garden route started with a visit to an elephant sanctuary. Here they had taken in orphaned elephants and we had a chance to interact with them.

They had obviously been well trained and we had the opportunity to walk with them trunk in hand. This is a weird experience as their holding their trunks is a bit like holding a spikey tree trunk but one that moves. At the ends of their trunks the top and bottom of the end can grip like a hand in a mitten which is a a strange sensation, especially with the elephant breathing between the top and bottom parts too.

The elephants were also trained to show us how they shake themselves when wet and user their trunks. We had the opportunity to get up close to them and feel their ears, feet and tusks. The thing that struck me most was the elephant's eyes watching us, somehow I'd never considered them as real creatures until i saw one that close. They are clearly intelligent, i watched ours gathering her food into a pile before eating it. They also hold the tail of the elephant in front as they walk single file which is very cute.

On from here we visited a sanctuary called Monkeyland. I really liked the set up here as the monkeys had space to relax where humans weren't allowed. The monkeys walked and ran all around us as if we weren't there, no begging for food or trying to steal things from us.

A favourite for me was seeing Brazilian squirrel monkey babies play fighting about a foot away. They had lots of different types of primaries including lemurs, spider monkeys and the langur monkeys we'd seen so much of in India. As a sanctuary they take in monkeys but these have to be kept in cages until they adjust to life in the main sanctuary.

On from here we visited Bloukrans bridge which is home to the highest bungee jump in the world. I would love to do a bungee jump but can't get over the idea of jumping off a ledge so close to the ground. I've done a tandem sky dive but can't imagine doing a bungee jump.

As it happened later driving to our accommodation for the night we were in a situation much more dangerous than a bungee jump. Whilst we were snoozing, reading or listening to music in the van there was a massive boom and a scattering of glass on us. Coming to our senses we saw that the windscreen right in front of our tour guide's face had a massive crack/smash in it. As he was driving it was lucky that the windscreen didn't smash completely and also that he didn't pull over as thrown stones smashing windscreens can often be a tactic to rob vehicles.

Pulling into a town further along the road we had a beer to unwind and digest what had happened. Jokingly we blamed our tour guide for hitting such outlandish obstacles as a pumpkin, turnip, potato or meteor. It could have been a bird but there were no feathers or blood and it would have had to be some tough bird. When the impact happened we were too shocked to see any evidence of what it was. Likelihood was it was an attempted robbery but it could have killed or injured us seriously if our guide Lorens hadn't reacted the way he did.

After the windscreen was repaired we got to our accommodation very late to find it very nice. We wouldn't get to enjoy it though as we left for a safari the next day at 4am. Besides that the stars there were amazing, somehow in seven months of travelling we hadn't managed to get a clear look at the stars.

The safari was early.... So early and from a big open truck. Our safari guide announced that he wasn't feeling well so wouldn't talk much. We got to see elephants and zebras and hear lions but not see them. After watching an elephant for ten minutes he announced "this is elephant". Now i don't know about you but it seems unlikely that anyone on a safari wouldn't know what the giant gray animal with giant ears, tusks and a trunk was, but i guess I'm knit picking now.