South Africa

[MichelleAdriana]

South Africa Trip

South Africa is such an awesome place to travel to! I lived in Port Elizabeth for half a year while studying abroad. Here are a couple of my favorite things:

1. The Cango Caves (Cango Caves Oudtshoorn South Africa Western Cape Klein Karoo Kango Grotte Suid-Afrika Limestone Caves Swartberg Mountains). A really interesting tour with beautiful caves! I recommend taking the "Adventure Tour," unless you are at all claustrophobic.

2. The Oudtshoorn Ostrich Farm was another really cool place to check out. Depending on your weight, you can even ride the ostriches. You never appreciate how terrifying and huge they are until you are on top of one! (Plus, if you like trying new food, they have a little restaurant on site that serves Ostrich in a variety of ways).

3. Shark diving! We went to Mossel Bay (a cute little town) to go shark diving, but you can do that in Cape Town.

4. Stellenbosch - the Napa of South Africa. Great wine and beautiful vineyards!

5. Lastly, Schotia Safari- I went on a few different safaris while in South Africa, but Schotia was my favorite. It was a six hour tour that included open jeeps, a fireside dinner, and a night safari.

I hope this helps generate some fun ideas and trips while you are in South Africa!
Enjoy it! It is a great country

[bchaplin]

I have only been to Capetown -- it was really wonderful. Take the cablecar up Table Mountain for me. I went twice, but both times the winds were too high for the car to run, and because I was on a conference for work didn't have enough free time to try again. Me and my small group felt comfortable walking around, and when we were denied the trip up the mountain we ended up strolling through the town, about a three mile walk back to our hotel, just for the perspective of seeing the neighborhoods and shops.

The other thing we did was to visit the penguin colony at the tip of the cape, which was a lot of fun. That's all I have to share though! I think it was November or December when we were there, and the weather was lovely.

The food in Capetown was fabulous and all the wines we had there were local, and miles better than any South African wine I've been able to find in the U.S. (It is making me nostalgic to remember this.) The Pinotage I tried was incredible.

There was a little weirdness about Capetown too. The other Africans I traveled with called it the Disneyland of Africa. It's hard to explain, but it seemed very sanitized. The shopping malls sold super high-end products, and security guards placed on every corner quickly whisked away anyone who was considered objectionable. On the day we went to see the penguins, we had an interesting time listening to our driver describe his perspective on the socioeconomic divisions in that society.

Oh, and don't forget to adjust the time on your watch like my boss did! That led to some frantic activity on our first morning there.

Sorry, I have no info to offer about J-burg.

[katphil]

Figured it was time to pick the collective forum brain....

Going to South Africa for three weeks in December/January. Spending a week in J'burg and Cape Town each and am looking for any advice, recommendations, tips, tricks, etc. Let the information fly!