Monkeyland and Tsitsikamma

Can you believe it - we went to Monkeyland! This was a place that had monkeys from all over the world just running around. They took people on tours through this great land and the monkeys were barely phased by us walking right by them. When we first got there, we saw a group of lemurs running around on the deck where we waited - so cool! We saw many other lemurs while we were there and they would even walk right up to you - you may not be able to see in the picture of Nancy, but look closely at her feet and you'll see one right there! The one next to me on this other deck was actually tail-less. Poor thing had lost its tail in a fight or something. There were actually two of them there without tails. Here, you can see the ring-tailed lemur, the black and white ruffed lemur and the crazy looking black one is the black lemur.












We had a really great guide named Lazare - Hi Lazare if you're reading this! He is from Congo and has a great French accent. He's going to come visit us in the States. You can see him behind this Spectacled Langur. Oh, and just so you know, I'm looking up these monkey names on their website - I definitely didn't remember them all! This Langur was the big dominant male, so the other monkeys wouldn't jump up on the fruit table while he was there. We did see other tables with more monkeys, though, including a South American Capuchin monkey! These are very similar to the Capuchins that we saw all over Costa Rica that were white and black - those were our favorites!


The Gibbon was a little more shy,but very interesting looking - I'd never seen a monkey that looked like this before.









This next one is a Vervet Monkey but was called a Blue Ball Monkey. Apparently, they have very brightly colored genitals to attract their mates, but I didn't get to see this part of it.







One of the cutest was the little squirrel monkey that we also saw in Costa Rica. This time we could get much closer, though! This little guy is also the star in a video below.








Lazare took us across a swinging bridge in the beautiful forest. He also took us by these time-out cages. He said they put the monkeys in here if they behave very badly. I thought that was funny and named them time-out cages. They also put new monkeys in here when they first bring them to monkeyland so that they can get used to all the different species of monkeys.

After Monkeyland, we went and took a hike in the Tsitsikamma park. We weren't really prepared for the hike we were going on in non-hiking clothes and flip-flops, but it was worth it because of the beautiful views. At the end, after hiking over huge boulder fields, there was an amazing waterfall on one side with the ocean on the other. I'd never seen a waterfall going into the ocean - it was great! Some people swam around there, but we didn't have bathing suits and the water was very orange/red which kept us out.

Knysna was really nice!

We next went to a town called Knysna (pronounced Nice-na) that was one of our favorite towns on the trip. We stayed in a great hotel with an even greater employee that worked there named Jeffrey. He was the happiest, nicest person I think I've ever met. Every time we saw him, he had a huge toothy smile and would just make us laugh - so cute. Too bad I didn't get a picture of Jeffrey! After we checked into the hotel, Kristin said that she had seen some Guinea Fowl off the back porch of our cabin. I went out there and sure enough were a ton of them just running all around with their little babies. I'd never seen Guinea Fowl - I'm not sure if they even live in the States, but they were fun to see and feed bread to.











The next morning, we went to a nature reserve called Featherbed to see some beautiful views and plants. We took a half hour ferry to get over to the reserved and then a 4X4 up to the top so that we could then walk down. There are normally tons of flowers in the spring and summer, but since we were there at the tail end of summer, the flowers were not blooming much while we were there. The plants were still beautiful, including the aloe all around. We also saw a big land turtle and a lizard and a duiker, the smallest breed of antelope. We didn't see the duiker in the wild however, but in a pen after the walk. They were super cute. The views all around the walk were absolutely amazing,as you can see in these pictures - well worth the trip and one of Nancy's favorite things that we did!













































Kristin and I later went to one of the beaches in Knysna and very much enjoyed the beautiful views. Kristin went on a jog and I caught up on some sleep. :D That night, we went to the braai that our hotel had out under the stars. It was such a wonderful meal with great South African wine, great company and a beautiful view.

Shark Diving and Hermanus

We left early the next morning to go catch a boat to go shark diving. In the cape, there are a lot of great white sharks and this is a great place to go and see them. We were planning on getting in wetsuits and in a cage to actually swim with the sharks underwater, but were told that the visibility was really bad that day and that we would actually see more if we stayed on the boat. Boy, am I glad we did! We saw so much from the top deck and the poor people in the cage didn't see anything while they were there. Plus, it was a pretty cold day. We were really lucky and saw our first shark after only about 15 minutes and sometimes they have to wait for hours. February is known to be the worst month for shark sightings, but you could have fooled me because we saw so much. We saw at least 3 sharks and maybe 4. I was able to get a few great shots, which is great because now you can see some of our adventures too! The company that we went with, Shark Watch South Africa is really great and works on conservation efforts and helping the sharks. They don't feed them, but rather just put out chum on the water. Chum is very smelly water produced by putting chopped up tuna in it and stomping around on it. We didn't smell it from up top, but one of the girls in the cage smelled it and it made her so sick, she produced some human chum to try to reel in the sharks. If they were to actually feed the sharks, then the sharks would rely on them and not learn how to hunt for themselves. However, by keeping the sharks in this area by luring them with their chum, it keeps the sharks in safer waters. Our guide was really great, too telling us so much about the sharks. Our boat captain was apparently one of the best because none of the other boats out that day were seeing any sharks. Finally, one had to come over hear us because the sharks liked our boat so much. One particular shark named Scratch was my favorite. She was about 4m, which is over 13 feet! She was huge, but very beautiful and even sweet! She got her name because of having scratches all over her. She didn't even jump up for bait, but kept coming by our boat and just rubbing the boat and swimming around us. She would turn on her side, as if she was looking up at us - so cute! They think she might be pregnant and that could be why she is so docile. They've been able to track some of these sharks that have gone all the way to Australia and then back to South Africa again - crazy!
































It was amazingly cool to see Great White Sharks and to see that they are really beautiful creatures that we should take care of, instead of killing and fearing them so much. After seeing sharks for a good while, we let some of the other boats have their chances to look at the sharks and drove over by a couple of islands. I think these islands are part of what the sharks feed on. Not the islands, but the many thousands of seals that live on them. When we were there, it was the down time and there supposedly weren't as many as usual, but I can't imagine anymore being able to fit on the island. It was pretty smelly driving by there as well. Since we got up so early and Kristin had to drive (on the left side of the road too!), she was a little tired on the ride back and snuck in a short nap.


After the shark trip, we went to get some lunch, but it took us a few hours. We were trying to find a place called Mogg's and drove on a dirt road through some really beautiful countryside, but kept driving and driving. The signs in South Africa are not that great and though it's nice not to have huge billboards everywhere you turn, it's a little difficult to find places at times. We passed the restaurant turn-off and went to another town before turning around again. Once we finally got to the restaurant, they told us they were having a private party that day and they couldn't seat us. We ended up just going back into town in Hermanus and eating. We were of course starving by then, but at least we got to see some nice views.











We stayed at a very nice hotel, right on the cliffs looking out to the ocean. After Nancy almost got mugged walking by herself that afternoon close to sunset, Kristin and I decided to walk with her the next morning along the cliffs. The views were beautiful and we saw some more dassies on the rocks. The rocks were really cool too with the orange coloring, which is iron coming out of the rocks and staining them - beautiful! We also saw our first dung beetle carrying dung across our path. What weird bugs!