DAY 149: The Cango region just north of the mountains of the Garden Route has many attractions, each with its own brochure fighting for the tourist dollar. Sorting through the options was a bit daunting, but luckily the Bok Bus people figured out three main highlights.

After breakfast on the deck overlooking the beach, we hopped in the minivan and headed to our first highlight: the Cango Caves. We drove over the mountains and through the Little Karoo semi-desert, passed ostrich herders moving their flock along, to the natural wonder found under a very developed tourist complex with restaurants and shops. There were two ways to see the caves: via the Standard Tour or, as me and the Germans Birgit, Verona, Andy and Sonja saw it, via the Adventure Tour.

The Adventure Tour included a walk around the Standard's major caverns, but then added a walk, climb, crawl and slide through narrow passages in the back end of the cave network. Our guide Ilse, a Belgian of South African heritage, started us off in the first chamber, a huge cavern of stalactites, such as the famous "Organ Pipes," and stalagmites, such as the famous "Cleopatra's Needle." With its great acoustics, the first chamber was once used for concerts until too many people used to sneak in the back and break off pieces of the rock to take home. In fact, there is still a reward up for any information leading to the conviction of cave vandals.

The second chamber was just as impressive as the first, with all of the lime rock formations dramatically lit with lamps from the network of electrical cables along the edge of the walls. It was a tourist photographer's smorgasbord and everyone went to town -- some panned around the room with camcorders, some spent lots of time setting up their tripods for the perfect shot. Meanwhile, amidst all the natural underground beauty, my mind was somewhere else.

"Hey, did you notice there's a telephone down here?" I pointed out to Sonja. There was one on the light switchbox.

"I use that to call for food," Ilse said. "It's only to be used for emergencies, but sometimes food is an emergency," she joked.

Ilse led the twenty-two of us up and down steps and through small tunnels, pointing out the crystals in the ceiling, the rimstone jutting out of the walls and the pools of calcium-rich water on the floor. She taught us the history of how each chamber was discovered at different times, and spoke of how Richard Chamberlain and Sharon Stone were in one cavern during the filming of 1985's King Solomon's Mines. Interesting stuff indeed; I pointed out another telephone in the corner.

THE "ADVENTURE" PART OF THE ADVENTURE TOUR invovled contorting one's body through hot, humid and narrow passageways only about 50 centimeters wide -- all with less oxygen too since it only came from the main entrance hundreds of meters away -- but at least the tunnels were lit to keep the spiders away, which made the arachnophobic Sonja really happy.

All of us walked through the "Tunnel of Love," which wasn't such a romantic thing because you had to walk in single file with your head and back lowered. But the worst of these passageways was the "Devil's Chimney," a skinny chute that could only be done one at a time, where you really had to swing your legs around to catch the holds in the rock. Some actually chickened out on it and and one woman even slipped on the damp rocks and nearly broke her ribs. When it was my turn to go up the chimney, I couldn't really get the hang of it either. Ilse was at the top guiding everyone with advice. She saw me struggling.

"Swing your right leg up there and then put your foot there."

I couldn't get it.

"Um, you have to know your left from your right first."

"Oh, right."

(To this day, I still have to think about left and right.)

I managed to squeeze myself up the fifteen-foot 80° climb, only to be alone in a cave. Where the others had gone I didn't know, but the trail led to a tiny slit in the rocks known as the "Post Box." With a height of just 25 cm., I thought this can't be the way, but people had already slipped through to the other side. I slid on through with Sonja behind and eventually all the mails (and femails) had been delivered.

AFTER AN OSTRICH FILLET BURGER at the Cango Caves cafe, we drove to the source of such a meal: the Cango Ostrich Farm, one of the 400 farms in the area where ostriches were bred for meat, leather and feathers. The nearby city of Oudtshoorn used to be the capital in the hey day of ostrich farming in the 1880s. Back then, the elite of the world turned to Oudtshoorn for ostrich products, particularly feathers for ladies' dresses, hats and boas.

Due to a lack of good marketing in a World War I era, this "feather boom" in Oudtshoorn declined in the late 1910's. In addition to those factors, the car had gone public by that time, and women stopped buying ostrich feather hats because they would just blow away while riding in an open-roof vehicle.

Although the hey day of Oudtshoorn has been over for a long time, the elite still turn to the nearby ostrich farms for ostrich products: feathers (for dusters); leather (Ferrari interiors are upholstered with it); and ostrich meat, which although technically fowl, is a red meat similar to beef but with just three grams of fat per serving and no cholesterol. On the flipside, one ostrich egg, a so-called "cholesterol bomb," has the cholesterol of twenty-four chicken eggs.

"Eat three and you will die," Christopher our ostrich farm guide told us, who was also responsible for all the ostrich historical trivia you just read.

Christopher was an energetic one, who led us from the history room to the incubation room where newly-hatched ostrich chicks sat in incubators to keep warm -- until the occassional tourist came along for photo opps. From the babies of the infirmary, we met the adults outside, the first being a female named Linda who, if you put a food pellet between your lips, would "kiss" you. Let me tell you, it was more frightening than romantic to be kissed by a big bird, it staring you in the face with its big bug eyes before lunging at you with its beak (244k Quicktime MOVie).

"That's the first kiss I've had in months," Chris said. Luckily for him, he didn't kiss the older and more aggressive Eve who would have probably ripped his lips off with her beak.

From the pens, we went to the place where, as Christopher said, "all your dreams come true:" the ostrich rodeo, where willing participants could actually ride an ostrich.

HOW TO RIDE AN OSTRICH

• Step 1: Round up an ostrich. First, find an ostrich. You may find this easy if you go to an ostrich farm outside of Oudtshoorn, South Africa. Have two ostrich wranglers chase one of the big, flightless birds -- one to hook its neck with that big hook thing they used to pull bad vaudeville acts off stage; and the other to put a canvas bag over the ostrich's head.

  "Ostriches are stupid birds," according to guide Christopher. "They think if they can't see you, you can't see them." (This is why ostriches put their heads in the ground to "hide" from predators.) With the bag over the bird's head, have the two wranglers simply escort the bird to a mounting area.
  
  

• Step 2: Mount your ostrich. When your guide asks the audience in the stands, "Okay, who wants to go first?" and everyone is quiet and wishy-washy, raise your hand and say, "Alright, let's go." Stand up and walk down to the mounting area. This will be accompanied with applause and people cheering, "Go Erik!" (assuming your name is "Erik").

  Using the V-shaped fence where the ostrich is in, climb the first rung and swing your right leg around the bird's back. (You have to know your left from your right first.) Tuck your feet under the bird's front and cross your legs as best you can. Hold onto the elbows of the wings to keep yourself from falling when you lean back, back straight towards the bird's tail.
  
  

• Step 3: Ride the ostrich. (picture above) When the guide removes the canvas bag from the ostrich's head, it will soon realize that not only is it not invisible, but there is some guy sitting on its back. This will cause the bird to run around the rodeo like a three-year-old that has had way too much sugar. Hang on for your life -- the ride will only last for about ten seconds. To transcribe the words coming out of this author's mouth:

  "Oh Jesus! Whoa! Hahahahahaaa! Woooo! Hahahahahaha! Okay, falling off, falling off, falling off..."

  Hopefully the two ostrich wranglers have been running behind the ostrich the whole time and will help you dismount the bird. Walk back to the bleachers and receive your applause.
  

(Click here for the 424k Quicktime MOVie.)

AFTER FEEDING THE BIG BIRDS, we went to a feeding of big reptiles and big cats at the Cango Wildlife Park. The Bok Bus arrived just in time for the feedings of the American alligators and the Nile crocodiles on ostrich wing tips. On the other side of the zoo were big cats: pumas, leopards and tigers, all feeding on antelope or, if you were in the "royal" lion family, calves' heads. The park looked like your run-of-the-mill zoo -- reptile house, cute mammals in little pens, kids with sloppy ice cream mouths -- but the main thing that distiguished them from others was that the park's mission was to breed the almost extinct cheetah back into existance, which they had been doing for several years.

FROM THE CHEETAHS BRED IN CAPTIVITY, we drove 69 kilometers into the wilderness -- Wilderness the town that is, for our accommodations of the night: The Fairy Knowe Backpackers. (The term "backpackers" is a noun in South Africa which means "(youth) hostel." Set in the lush greenland between the mountains and the beach, the backpackers was the former summer home of a farmer and the oldest existing building in Wilderness. The place was run by Elmerie who not only had to single-handedly manage, cook, clean and bartend for our group and a handful of pairs, but for a whole busful of French students on an English language school trip.

The Frenchies kept amongst themselves at the pool table as the Bok Bus group dined outside near a fireplace with bowls of lamb potjie (stew) and rice. Elmerie served up beers, local ciders and Nordic Ices while Tom went out for a marshmellow run.

While roasting marshmellows on the fire that I volunteered to tend to, I met a couple from Seattle working and studying medicine in Johannesburg, on vacation for a couple of weeks. They were doing the Garden Route in a rental car in the reverse direction as we were and were planning to see the ostrich farms the following day. Having been there earlier that day, I could have given them directions, but then again, it was probably better if I knew my left from my right first.

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