From Mossel Bay we continued east in the direction of Port Elizabeth. Unsure of where the day was taking us, we left our AirBnB early in search of an adventure. Our car took us the indigenous forest of Knysna, where we found nothing interesting, took a wrong turn or two, and generally wasted two hours of our lives. If not for a domestic bulldog on the side of the road, we wouldn’t seen any animals.
A brief stop took us to the island in the middle of the bay for sandwiches overlooking the water, then we jetted out to continue our journey. 30 minutes later we arrived at an elephant sanctuary a few kilometers east of Plettenberg Bay.
While planning for the our yearlong trip, Nadine acquires student passes for us so we could get discounts when offered. Some places do, many places don’t. The elephant sanctuary offers 10% discount, but it was not advertised and thus we did not save $8 :/ Lesson learned.
This particular sanctuary only had five elephants who they claimed were only living there temporarily until the elephants were ready to live in the wild. They also said that most of these elephants had been living in this compound for the past 10-15 years, so we have our doubts.
The first one we saw a 14 year old Taba (meaning “Mountain” in Zulu) whose parents had died in Kruger National Park when she was two years old, according to our guide and new friend. Next to her was Temelo (“Belief” in Zulu), a 15 year old who was also rescued from Kruger because she had a persistent ear infection that threatened her life.
After a brief introduction about the park, we were introduced to the three other residents of the sanctuary, all of whom had come from the neighboring country of Botswana. Nadine cautiously approaches her new pal Amarula, which doesn’t have a meaning other than it is the name of the African equivalent to Bailey’s liqueur.
Ben also has a new companion, a 24 year old weighing 3 tons by the name of Juba, which means “Happy” in Zulu, and boy was she happy.
We took a pleasant stroll through the jungle, followed by a meet and greet with their trainers.
Afterwards we got to feed them delicious treats of various fruits!
Fun and random facts about elephants:
- Elephant ear is 20% of its entire body weight, seems like too much but that’s what the man said. Every day they eat 5-10% of their body weight, but only process 40% of what they eat. 60% comes out with the dung, when the baboons come to eat their shit.
- Elephants have a 22 month pregnancy. After giving birth, the mothers eat the placenta so the lions don’t smell it, realize there is a baby elephant, and hunt it. Elephants are extremely protective of their children. Women are more aggressive than the males.
- They flap ears for air conditioning or swat away flies.
- When they get older, elephants begin to either sleep standing up, or sleep lying down but with an elephant on guard. Elephants don’t like to sit either for fear of lions attacking them. It takes a bit of them for them to stand up from the sitting position, making them an easy target. The other reason is because as they get older, they weigh more, and the weight can crush their organs/lungs.
Deciding against driving another 2.5 hours to Port Elizabeth, we settled on an AirBNB in a beach town called Plettenberg Bay. We spent quite a bit of time mucking about the forest and needed to stay off the road for the rest of the day. 15 minutes later we arrived in The Dunes, a lovely gated community resting on a bluff overlooking an empty beach.
Without a doubt Plettenberg Bay has been our favorite city, with our favorite AirBnB host Linda (who goes by Lin) and our favorite beaches. We were lucky enough to see about 20-25 dolphins surfing the waves and having themselves a grand time in the ocean!
The next two days were spent beach hopping, relaxing, and spending time with Lin. In the day we traveled to the local farmers market, "Old Nicks." Since Nadine looked like she hadn't slept in days, not true, this delightful older gentleman, eating Sushi offered us some cannabis oil for sleeping. He made sure we had his home phone number and gave us a small sample to check the quality. We then went to the city center which looked just like downtown La Jolla. We came back to Lin's only to go back to the center 10minutes later to the Avis rental car.
At night we met her at a local restaurant pub called The Sportsmans Pub & Grub, whose walls were lined with South African sporting accomplishments from Ernie Else, cricket matches, and the iconic picture of Nelson Mandela presenting the trophy to the Springbok rugby team. We sampled domestic beers and ate the burger special. It was one of those places where everybody knows everybody, so to see two foreigners inside their beloved pub must have been amusing. Lin is friendly with the owners, so they made sure to give us some extra attention. Clearly others were talking about the random tourists, because some random shoeless Afrikaaner summoned us over to the bar to try some of his sheep head. Literally in his bowl was the head of a sheep with its teeth, brain, and eyeballs in tact. Nadine and I both tasted the cheek, which was surprisingly tender and succulent. Ben ate a piece of the brain, which was not unlike eating bone barrow. Nadine, bless her, ate an entire EYEBALL in one bite. Video below!
In the evening, before having to leave Plettenberg, we enjoyed a long, romantic walk on a nearly deserted beach. Lin recommended this walk and we 100% do what ever Lin recommends. We directed ourselves to the Arch Rock, where it is said to hold the true Plettenberg residents. The story goes, who ever can stick a rock on top of the whole over the arch is a TRUE Plettenbergian at heart. Watch and see if Ben and Nadine are true Plettenburgers!(Burgers up) We had a very nice time, it was a perfect ending to a lovely couple of days. Don't miss the fun looking sand snails!
We will miss you Lin and Plettenberg, our second home.
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