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Destinations, Feature Trips, Social Work, South Africa, twoOregonians Tour the Cape

Social Service Excellence: OPTIONS Care Center

October 4, 2012

It’s easy to post photos of South Africa’s gorgeous scenery; it’s natural to tell stories of delightful dinners and fine wines and sweet new friends. It’s harder to know which words and images to share when touching on troubling tensions in the land.

Communities carrying burdens. Families seeking answers.

Limited resources and widespread problems.

Recently, I was struck by a fellow landscape architect’s comment on issues of conservation, sustainability, and management: “We know the problems. We need to spend our time talking about the solutions.“

In that same vein, I’m not going to spend much time talking about the problems. The world knows much of the South African story already:

Fallout from Apartheid.

Poverty.

HIV/AIDS.

Instead, I want to shine light on the good men and women sinking their life’s work into making solutions a reality in their own community. Continue Reading…

Destinations, Feature Trips, Food, South Africa, twoOregonians Tour the Cape

Sedgefield and Knysna: Another Edition of Oregon Twinsies

October 2, 2012


Proteas and fynbos for sale at Wild Oats Farmer’s Market, Sedgefield, South Africa

Can’t help it: I’m always stacking the world up against Oregon. My home-state is in my blood, and I’m proud of it.

Local food? Gorgeous scenery? Check, check. Good friends? Double check.

Thanks to relationships built over our month-long stint volunteering at Carmel by the Sea, Ted and I were treated to a little taste of home way on the opposite side of the world.

Our new (and hopefully life-long) friends Gary and Susan surprised us on our last weekend at Carmel with tickets for a cruise on the Knysna Lagoon, gifted to us by the organization in thanks for our time volunteering. (No thanks needed, though! We’re still thanking them for three meals a day for a month and a beautiful retreat on the Indian Ocean…)

The Saturday itinerary: straight out of the playbook for a perfect day at home. Imagine a community farmers market (with a little taste of Eugene’s Oregon Country Fair thrown in the mix), and then a trip up to Oregon and Washington’s Columbia River Gorge for scenic views across majestic cliffs and waterways… Got the mental image in your head? (If not – here are a few cheat sheets from other visitors.)

Now just jump to South Africa, change the names, a few of the faces, and tell me if you see the similarities: Continue Reading…

Destinations, Feature Trips, South Africa

A Cartwheel at Nature’s Valley

October 1, 2012

Road tripping along South Africa’s Western Cape, finished with game drives and indigenous forest tours and stays in treehouses, we returned west toward Cape Town, enjoying scenic pit-stops along the way. One of the best quick detours off the highway: a Garden Route classic – Nature’s Valley.

Some people visit for extended vacations; we stayed for a cartwheel.

And it was beautiful. Continue Reading…

Destinations, Feature Trips, South America, twoOregonians Tour the Cape

Ted’s First Whale and Other Tales from Hermanus

September 29, 2012

When Ted was a kid, he thought whales were the big white things rolling up onto the beach.

You know, waves.

He learned better after a childhood obsession with Free Willy (filmed on the Oregon coast, by the way), but fast forward three decades later and he’d still never seen a whale in the wild.

Our two and a half month visit to South Africa changed that. (The seeing a whale in the wild bit. Not necessarily the Free Willy obsession.)

Continuing this week’s theme of wildlife tourism in South Africa, whale-watching (and watching-Ted-whale-watching) made for fantastic memories during our time in the southern hemisphere. Too, I’m happy to report that no animals were harmed in the making of this feature…


The Hermanus Whale Crier plays his kelp horn to signal a Southern Right Whale sighting Continue Reading…

Destinations, Feature Trips, South Africa, twoOregonians Tour the Cape

Are Game Drives A Suitable Substitute?

September 27, 2012

“You’re not going to Kruger National Park? Shame.”

I know, it was a shame. The near-mythical stories of wild African animals roaming the bush and crossing the rivers, attacking prey and staring tourist in the eye send a surge of excitement through most any traveler’s heart…but we knew we’d chosen to focus our trip on the Cape, and veering off course by 1,700 kilometers to go north to Kruger wasn’t in the cards.

Thankfully, there are alternative ways and places to spot South African wildlife. Continue Reading…

Destinations, Feature Trips, South Africa, twoOregonians Tour the Cape

The Questionable Ethics of Wildlife Tourism in South Africa

September 25, 2012

“When we think of Africa, we think of its wildlife. Yet it is the African wildlife that the tourism industry too often exploits, abuses and neglects in pursuit of profitable tourism. In order to turn a profit, the industry trades, hunts, butchers, cages, orphans and experiments on its most valuable resource.”
-Fairly Wild

Wildlife Tourism in South Africa: Ethics, Experience, and Eyes-Open Travel

I was maybe thirteen when I overheard an adult bragging about his hunting trip to Africa. I honestly don’t remember the details, but his slick mustached smile and grand hand gestures illustrated the point: he had spent big bucks to have big fun in hopes of bringing big bragging rights back to Oregon. Continue Reading…

Destinations, Feature Trips, Photography, South Africa, twoOregonians Tour the Cape

Stumbling Into Myst

September 23, 2012

So, I have this thing for relating travel destinations to games (board or otherwise).

Remember that computer program Myst? In the 1990s, I sunk ages into solving its digital riddles. Analyzing puzzles, traversing other-worldly landscapes, pulling at threads in a storyline until the mysteries finally unraveled. The game appealed to my inquisitive, persistent mind.

Imagine the fun a few decades later (um, can that be true?!), when Ted and I stumbled into the real-world graphics of Myst 2.0 at the Robberg Peninsula, 8 kilometers to the south of Plettenberg Bay, South Africa.


Robberg Peninsula, South Africa

Classic Myst, Circa 1990s

We pulled into Robberg Nature Reserve at 4:30pm.

“Park entry closes at 5pm, visitors must be out by 6pm.”

A race against the clock? Okay, fair warning. Continue Reading…

Destinations, Feature Trips, South Africa, twoOregonians Tour the Cape

What Lies Beneath: Caving and Craft Beer

September 19, 2012

As I wiggled like a worm through damp crevices, claustrophobia gripped me. I trepidatiously advanced into the belly of the earth, one.five kilometers away from sunlight, deep within the recesses of Mother Nature’s time capsule, where beauty wore darkness to veil its secrets.

I eagerly agreed to visit the Cango Caves, just ninety minutes from our lodging in Wilderness Bay, South Africa, not knowing just exactly what to expect. Bethany stayed behind to catch up on work. I took the car across a major mountain pass, up up up and then down down down, threading my way inland, looking for what is known as one of Africa’s seven natural wonders.

Guests can choose between two routes at the entrance of the caves. Both are guided. Neither are for the faint for heart. I chose the first route, an easier distance which didn’t require tight squeezes or belly crawls. However, the caves manager talked me into the second route, extolling the additional beauty I would behold, and assuring me that I could “turn back and wait” if at any time I felt uncomfortable.

Okay. Considering I get claustrophobic if I wake up with a pillow on my chest, embarking on the second option was my equivalent to shark cage diving or jumping head first off the world’s highest bungee. But I agreed, and off I went. Continue Reading…

Destinations, Feature Trips, Featured Partners, Featured Places, South Africa, South Africa Tourism, twoOregonians Tour the Cape

Better than a Bicycle Built for Two: Canoeing in South Africa

September 18, 2012

The verdict after all day on the water? Ted and Bethany are way better at team-canoeing than riding a bicycle built for two. (Oh, Victoria, British Columbia! Cycling in Stanley Park really got the better of us…but that’s another story for another day.) This story finds us in South Africa on an August winter morning, unsure of whether we’d be in for a day of sprinkles or blue sky.

We wore our hiking clothes and packed the rain jackets. Canoeing on the mind, we headed for a classic Garden Route excursion with Eden Adventures.

Pulling up to the entry kiosk at the “Ebb & Flow Wilderness Section South Camp” point of the Garden Route National Park, we paid our 22 Rand each (a total of about $5.45 for the two of us) and drove just a bit further into the park. Down by the reeds and the river stood a brown building on stilts, hovering high enough to avoid seasonal floods and provide an overlook to the fifty or so canoes and kayaks waiting down below. Continue Reading…

Destinations, Feature Trips, Food, South Africa, twoOregonians Tour the Cape

Local Food + Pink Martini: Dinner at the Veg-Table

September 16, 2012

We were out driving around the Cape of South Africa, stopping from time to time to ask residents what they might recommend, explaining that we love finding small scale producers and local food. The next thing we knew, a woman in Sedgefield was scribbling down a phone number for a fellow named Brett. “Give him a call,” she said.

And oh, we are so glad we did.

On a Wednesday night, we pulled off the rural road and our car headlights illuminated the promise enchantingly hidden in the woods: “Veg-Table Private Dining Room.”


Love the sign. It loosely translates to, “This way for slow, cow-friendly food”

Down the dark drive, we pulled up to a little cabin, lit with candles and filled with music swirling through the rustic rooms and drifting out the open doors… Crackling open flames danced on the hearth and smiles crossed our faces as we were shown to a tiny table adorned with antique green and white fabric and perfectly mismatched giraffe figurines. Continue Reading…