The Garden Route: A Magical Experience

So it turns out that we had about a week off between orientation and the beginning of classes.  What’s a girl to do with a whole week? Rent a car with four friends (Ilana, Sydney, Dan and Jeff) and go on a five day trip of the Garden Route.

What’s the Garden Route, you ask? It’s a stretch of highway that runs along the coast from outside of Cape Town, through the Western Cape, into the Eastern Cape.  It’s known for it’s diverse ecology.  Basically, it’s crazy beautiful, and we got to see all sorts of nature.

 I could easily make this the longest blog post talking about how magical our trip was, but instead I’ll sum things up with some pictures.

Rented this little blue guy and squeezed in.

Smelled the rain far before we reached the rain.

Stopped in some cute towns.

Saw sunsets on the regular.

Went to an organic village. Bought biltong and the most amazing tomatoes I have ever eaten. No seriously, so tasty.

Played on the beach.

Climbed Castle Rock.

Went to the Garden of Eden. Hello, rain forest and giant trees.

Discovered the most amazing hostel, Wild Spirit. They’re all about sustainability, draw spring water from the top of their waterfall, and make delicious food.

Saw monkeys and lemurs. Stepped in monkey poo (photo not included).

Hiked through the Magic Forest. It was actually magical.

Bungee jumped from the world’s highest bungee jump at Bloukrans Bridge.  I can’t even describe how amazing it was to be swinging down, alone, in this huge valley with the ocean on one side.

Played on the beach again.

And again. This time in perfect weather.

Hiked on some volcanic rock.

Slept in a train on the beach.

Got stuck in traffic.

All in all, got to explore some pretty amazing stuff.

Cheers!


PS. Please appreciate this post. It took 4 separate occasions and a trillion MB to upload these pictures.