2010 South Africa – Cango Caves
At Cango Caves there were two tours to choose from, the normal tour and the adventure tour. The adventure tour was a lot more strenuous and involved crawling through narrow spaces so overweight people or anyone with claustrophobia were not allowed to go. I was surprised to hear that anyone over the age of 50 was not allowed as I knew many squash players and karate practitioners who were over 60 and much fitter and more agile than people half their age. It didn’t matter to me as apart from the age limit, I also suffered from chronic cowardice.
On a notice board there was a newspaper article about a couple who had booked to go on the adventure tour. They were just about to set off when a guide informed the woman that she was too big to do the tour as it involved crawling through very narrow places. They were very angry at being insulted and complained to the management, demanding to go on the tour. The management backed down and let them go. They got to the far end with no problems but on their way back, the woman became wedged between two rocks and couldn’t move. Not only was she trapped but also the ten other people on the tour, including two asthmatic children. They were there for eight hours before a team managed to get her free. The story was front page in all the national newspapers so I suspect there was one woman who wished she had kept her mouth shut.
Our tour guide was a black African man with a very strange accent which was difficult to understand. We were led down a path into the first of five caverns. It was the largest of the caverns which had some amazing stalagmites and stalactites lit up with coloured lights to create a dramatic effect. 
At one point he turned all the lights off and left a tiny oil lamp burning to show what it would have been like for the explorer who first discovered the caves in 1780. Then, still in almost darkness, he started singing a haunting African song. His voice was beautiful and with the cavern’s perfect acoustics, the atmosphere was breathtaking. We were very lucky to get this guide as I none of the others sang. 
The second cavern was much smaller and dark. Suddenly he turned the multicoloured lights on to reveal the most spectacular formations and everyone gasped. We continued to the other caverns but it was all an anticlimax after that second cavern. In the last cavern, he started singing again, only this time he accompanied himself on one of the rocks that had been formed in such a way as to make a very effective drum.
The next day we had planned to go to Knysna which was a pretty little seaside town but as it was quite a long drive we decided to leave that and go on another tourist attraction, the Swartberg Mountain Pass. It was quite a harrowing drive over a gravel road with a badly sprung car but it was well worth it for the spectacular views. On our descent, the small road wound between two mountains which were an unusual shade of red, a bit like the Grand Canyon in the USA. We stopped for lunch in a small town called Prince Albert. It was in the middle of nowhere so we were surprised to discover that the owner was from Lima, Peru, so Federika started chatting to him in Spanish. He had met his South African wife in Buenos Aires and they both went to live in Prince Albert where they were very happy although it can’t have been easy to make a living there which such little custom.
As always, Federika did a great job of researching our trip so she knew that on the other side of the pass, there was a waterfall that most tourists would drive past without knowing it was there. We parked the car and walked up the steep path to an area with a waterfall which fell into a small pond at the bottom. We had the whole place to ourselves which was magical. Federika jumped in first with a gasp when the shock of the fresh mountain water hit her. I was not far behind and being very thirsty it was a nice feeling being able to swim and drink the water at the same time. When you consider the cost of bottled water, we must have been swimming in a million pounds worth of water. It was very cold at first but not as bad as I would have expected from a mountain stream.
2010 South Africa
