We arrive in Wilderness a little sweaty, but no worse for the wear. If you ever come to South Africa, do not expect air conditioning. If you ever ride the Baz Bus, open the window and stick your head out. The hostel that we stayed in at Wilderness (that's the actual town's name- isn't it funny?) was called Fairy Knowe and was RIDICULOUS. It's owned by a woman named Monica, and it's a series of colonial houses from the 1800's with hardwood floors and thatched roofs. The bar (every hostel has one, alcohol is big money) is a tiki hut, manned by a rather effeminate Brazilian in his mid-twenties.
I went for a run (read here "casual jog") with Alex and did a little exploring of Wilderness. It's a cute little place. We ended up in some dude's backyard and he yelled at us. Sorry, man. Back to Fairy Knowe. Olivia and I took outdoor showers, Monica cooked us a delicious dinner, and we roasted marshmallows around a campfire with some Englishmen and a couple of Germans. They were fascinated by the concept of a s'more. Maybe because the only marshmallows we had were passion fruit flavored.
For all of those who Skype called me that night, you know I went to bed really early. The beds were so comfortable, and I was mildly freaked out by a beetle that I saw in the hallway and wanted to forget about it, so I went to bed. It was a huge, crunchy brown beetle right out of the Lion King. You know, the scene where Timon and Pumba eat bugs? Just like that, except in the hallway right outside of my room. I've been making a lot of Lion King comparisons lately. I wish I had a picture of that damn beetle.
The next morning we woke up to a fabulous breakfast by Monica and put on our bathing suits in preparation for kloofing. What is kloofing, you ask? Singularly the greatest outdoor sport ever invented. EVER. Think of a river with a lot of boulders and cliffs. Throw in the occasional waterfall. Put on a wetsuit. Swim through that river, climb over the boulders, and float down the waterfalls. That's kloofing, an Afrikaans word that means something similar to canyoning. Kloofing was the best time ever. You’ll notice, if you look at the picture above, that there’s only one guy with us besides Paul. That’s Isaac, there in the white in the center. Poor Isaac had a difficult kloof. He lost his shoes, lost his glasses, and was wearing a miserably tight wetsuit. Poor Isaac. He was a good sport.
Paul, our guide, was great. He was clearly annoyed by our loud and girly Americanness, but I think he secretly enjoyed it. Maybe not, though, because at one point he decided to throw rocks at giant old trees along the river that were filled with bee metropolises. Thanks, Paul. Olivia and Erin got stung on he head and the rest of us dived into the water for cover. I think Paul himself got stung a couple times. Kloofing jerk.
After kloofing, we removed our wetsuits and gratefully ate some cookies provided to us by the kloofing company. We stopped at one of the two ATM’s in Wilderness, paid Paul his due, and headed back to Fairy Knowe to gather up our things and catch the Baz Bus to Knysna (nys-na). Oh God. Knysna. Wait until you hear about Knysna.
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