Goodbye, Africa; Hello South America!
Trip dates: April 12, 2017 - April 13, 2017
We came back to Joburg for our third and final time for our last stop in Africa. We took an early morning hop over from CPT to JNB to beautiful skies and a view of South Africa from up high.
The last thing on our agenda was to go check out the Cradle of Humankind, a paleoanthropological site where some of the earliest human remains were found in the mid-1900s (australopithecus africanus to be specific) and current excavations continue to this day.
Annekie, who we used for our Africa travel planning/booking through Catz Tours, decided to actually be our tour guide for the day so she could meet us and see how everything went. She was a great story-teller and sounding board to relate things we had learned about Africa over the previous weeks and to also get her perspective on current issues.
The visitors center had been recently redone, so everything was quite tidy and clean. Once Annekie got us our tickets, we got our special hard hats and hair nets and then went to a little museum/waiting area they have before you can actually go down to the caves. There was a lot of cool information in the museum and diagrams to help show the information about what was discovered, as well as how those discoveries helped paleontologist and scientists understand the evolutionary history of humans. I'd say more, except it's been a year and I don't recall much more than that (oops).
Inside the caves, there was a guide who highlighted the different types of fossils that were embedded in the rocks all around us. They explained a lot of the different types of rocks and why they were special. There were numerous fresh water lakes underground that were so see-through, it looked like there was nothing there at all. However, the people there don't even know how deep the water goes so best not to fall in. There is still active excavation going on at the site, both inside the caves and the surrounding area. Frankly, it seems not fun to be a paleontologist working in cold, dank, conditions sifting away through tiny sections of dirt. But hey, to each their own.
Overall, it was interesting to go and see this site. It had been on Lishan's list from her previous trip but she didn't have time. Not exactly something to go back to over and over again, but it was worth spending the afternoon to check it out for our last activity in South Africa (and Africa overall).
We then had our final evening at the African Rock Hotel, where we had stayed each of our three previous times through Joburg. It was bittersweet, as we had come to view the hotel as an oasis of calm throughout the back and forth travel. The staff and drivers were all very nice, the amenities were good, and the food was delicious. Annekie had given us a nice gift of local wine that we also shared with the staff (shh don't tell management).
And with that, we were off again on a continental hop! Our next set of flights was from JNB to GRU (Sao Paolo) via South African Airways, before connecting locally to Foz do Iguaçu (IGU) via GOL Airlines. IGU is on the Brazilian side of Iguazu Falls but we would be staying on the Argentina side at the Sheraton Iguazu Falls which is located within the park boundaries.
We had read that there were relatively pre-set rates for taxis picking up at IGU to go to the Sheraton, at around 1300 ARS (around ~60 USD). This seemed pretty pricey, but it does include them helping you go through immigration in Argentina and we just ran with it.
Thus also began my stressful journey to actually get Argentinean pesos (ARS) too! Since we came in on the Brazil side, we had no opportunity to get ARS. The cab driver took Brazilean reals, since they operate on both sides, but the park only took ARS for entrance. However, since we arrived late in the evening, we didn't have to pay to enter the park (sweet). Good thing, because we tried to use the ATM at the park entrance and it was out of order.
I'll leave the rest of our Iguazu Falls details for the next post - enjoy some pictures of our flight from Joburg to Sao Paolo!
