On the way to the west coast we stopped at a place called !Khwa ttu, a cultural center dedicated to educating visitors about the San or native bushmen people of southern Africa. Through the collaboration of several San tribes and donations from a corporation in Switzerland, this center has been able to create a very nice facility for people to visit. At !Khwa ttu we were able to take a tour by foot and tractor wagon around the property, learning about the animals hunted by the San, their hunting techniques, artwork, tools, clothing, and homes. A small replica village is set up here and we were able to get a better idea about how these people lived long ago by exploring it. The tour guides were all San people themselves who work at the center to share with others about their ancestors’ culture. After the tour we also had a short lesson in the San language and how to make the different click sounds that are a part of their language and other native African languages.
One of our tour guides showing us artifacts used by the San in the past
We spent the night at a guest lodge in the town of Langebaan called Friday Island, which is located right on the beach. We got to Friday Island in the early evening and the first thing we did after checking into our rooms was go down to the beach. Since it’s technically winter here it was too cold to go swimming but myself and several others took off our shoes and socks, rolled up our pants and waded at the edge of the water. The water was a little cold, but not unbearable. We took lots of pictures and a few of us took a walk down the beach to explore the area more. We stayed out there until the sun set and then went to have dinner and drinks at the restaurant attached to the guest house. It was a very relaxing evening in a very beautiful place.
Friday Island
The next day we drove up to the West Coast Fossil Park north of Langebaan. This area used to be a quarry many years ago but when many of the workers began to unearth several fossils of huge ancient creatures it was converted to a fossil dig and research center. Apparently this is one of the world’s largest findings of fossil remains all in one place. Most of the fossils here are believed to be about 10 million years old, not old enough for dinosaur remains but still containing creatures that are long extinct. The guide showed us an old digging site where they unearthed remains of ancient whales, an extinct African bear, and an ancestor of the giraffe called a sivathere. We also saw a newer digging site where paleontology students from Arizona State University were working. They were all very excited to meet a large group of Americans and told us all about their work. A lot of the fossils they were finding were of small creatures like mice and frogs. Although not quite as impressive as fossils of large animals, these kinds of fossils are very important for scientists to learn about how some of these animals evolved and changed over time.
On the way back to Cape Town we stopped to visit another beach in the town of Bloubergstrand, We were close enough to Cape Town here that we could look across the bay and see the city center and Table Mountain. We could also see Robben Island from here, farther out in the bay. The waves were huge here and came up very high on the beach. Some of the others and I had fun running down close to the water when the tide was out and then sprinting quickly back up the shore ahead of the waves as they crashed in. It was fun to just run around on the beach as if I didn’t have a care in the world. A few others from the group decided to crazily brave the cold and put on bathing suits and go swimming. The rest of us had fun watching them walking into the cold water and getting knocked over by the waves. It was a very fun and relaxing weekend and it was nice to spend lots of time with everyone in the group again after a couple weeks with our host families.
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