Oudtshoorn: the land of ostriches

        After a very rainy drive we arrived at Oudtshoorn! We rushed to Kango/Cango caves and let me tell you, it was probably one of the coolest sights ever! We chose to go on the "Adventure" tour which differs from the regular one in that you get to climb through super narrow crevasses and climb up chutes!

       At some parts it was so low that you had to leopard crawl (army crawl) or as I came up with: seal flop. The discovery that I could move akin to a seal made me very happy, and it uses far less arm muscles than other methods of scooting along on your tummy.
      The idea is to think of a seal on land (so this movie was the best I could find in a short amount of time of a seal flop...however, there are some naughty words so you may want to watch it soundless) and then imitate it...so it's like doing the worm but less cool looking and forwards. You look super goofy, but it is extremely entertaining. So, if you're ever bored on a Saturday night you now know what you can do.
      Some parts you had to contort yourself into odd shapes in order to squeeze your shoulders through. We asked the guide if anyone had gotten stuck in the narrow bits and he told a story of a wide lady who wouldn't take no for an answer, got wedged, and had to wait a super long time until she was able to be unstuck! Although it sounded terrible, I think it made climbing through far more exciting. What adds adventure more than a horror story?

Because of the lighting in the caves, flash, etc. it was really hard to show the depth of things...so  this picture is me climbing into a chute.

      After our marvelous cave adventure we went to the Kango ostrich farm where we learned lots of facts and got to sit on an ostrich. Sadly, because it had rained and made the ground a mud party we were not allowed to ride them because ostriches slip in mud? The main message of the tour was that ostriches, while super cool, are grumpy and don't like people. So it is best to exploit them for their leather, eggs, meat, and feathers.

      Ostrich eggs are hip, so we spent a couple of hours hunting down the best bargains for them. We found some really pretty ones for a very nice price and rejoiced by purchasing several.

      Unfortunately, upon our return to the United States, dang Customs confiscated and incinerated them. They had just passed a regulation about ostrich egg traffic whilst we were in Africa because of a bird flu concern.

Rant: I think that this was soooooo silly! Half of my family had picked up a cold in Africa and had very dirty shoes from visiting a farm before our departure, and customs is concerned about a bunch of curios (I wanted to bring up this point, but was concerned about being captured and quarantined). It would have been the easiest thing ever to sterilize the dang eggs in alcohol or scan them with a UV light or something! To get the eggs in you had to have had them checked by a veterinarian in South Africa and get a certificate declaring the lack of avian flu, which could very easily be faked and thus is a rubbish way to make sure that the eggs actually are okay. Although I don't have an expert knowledge of avian flu, I am pretty sure that dried out shells, let alone ones that have been sitting in a store for a couple of months, couldn't have a virus living on them--what would it be living on? Did customs examine us for weird African lice or ticks? No. I feel like that would be a far more legitimate concern than a dead avian flu virus. End of rant.
Moral of the story: check the customs website for banned things every time you want to buy something incase the regulations have changed.