South Africa Garden Route - Hermanus & Knysna

It's hard to take a bad photo on South Africa's Garden Route. As our guide at the Villiera game reserve told us, the fynbos biome is one of the most biologically diverse regions in the world. As we drove from Betty's Bay to Hermanus to Cape Agulhas to Knysna, we passed through deserts, jungles, plains, and jagged coastal mountains.

At times, I felt like I was back in Nebraska. We saw some center pivots, and lots of pastures with cattle grazing in them. But then, I'd see a giant ostrich roaming around and snap back to reality.

Hermanus used to be a major fishing village. Now, it's a tourist destination. We spent lots of time hiking along the cliff trails, which were gorgeous. But I have to say, a major highlight for me was watching Out of Africa with Meryl Streep, which was a video option in our AirBnb. As we drove along from Hermanus to Knysna, "I had a farm....in Africa..." kept echoing in my head.

On our drive to Knysna we made a stop at the southernmost tip of the continent --Cape Agulhas. There wasn't much to do there except take a picture, but Chuck did get to experience driving through South African road construction, which is significantly less organized than road construction in the United States. 

Knysna is situated on a huge lagoon with two "heads" providing the only entrance to the sea. It's also well known for it's amazing oysters, as well as Mitchell's Brewery, self-proclaimed as Africa's first craft brewery. Interestingly, they are about the same size as Denver Beer Company. The tour was pretty fascinating, particularly the part where the same woman has labeled each individual beer bottle with her two hands for the past THIRTY YEARS. 

We spent one day visiting Monkeyland, a reserve for monkeys, and Jukani, a big-cat reserve. Monkeyland was one of the coolest things we've done on our trip so far. A spider monkey tried to steal my camera and jumped on my head, giving me a weird long-fingered hair massage before going about his business.

The Knysna Elephant Sanctuary was another highlight. We were lucky enough to be the only two people on our visit to the elephants, and spent a lot of time touching them while they munched on various greenery.

After Knysna, we drove to Port Elizabeth. More on that soon!