Our Blog - South Africa Safari - Day 11

Our last day, and the majority of our group headed to the airport early this morning for their next leg of the trip. There were 6 of us (3 couples) who were not continuing on, and so the 6 of us decided to take a trip out to the Cradle of Humankind. We had never heard of this but it was recommended by our tour guide, who said that Johannesburg is not really much of a "tourist" city. There are a couple different parts to the Cradle of Humankind, including a visitor center and a complex of limestone caves. The caves were formed by acidic rainwater seeping into the soluble dolomitic limestone and eating away the bedrock.

In one of these, the Sterkfontein Caves, they found a 2.3-million-year-old fossil Australopithecus africanus (nicknamed "Mrs. Ples") in 1947. More than a third of early hominid fossils ever found prior to 2010 were found in these caves. The caves are made of limestone and limestone miners noticed fossils and called in a set of scientists to look at them. Here is the Mrs Ples skull, which was found here in 1947 (sorry for the glare).

We started with a guided tour of the caves. They require hard hats because in come cases, the ceilings are fairly low. Good thing too, since I hit my head a couple times!

The entrance is down a short set of stairs, and you can start seeing that the openings are a little narrow.

Many of the pictures aren't that great (again, just an iPhone) because it was very dark and even with the flash, it wasn't that great.

This was kinda interesting .... the deposits that will eventually form stalactites and stalagmites glow when you put the flashlight on them.

These were really cool ... you can see the mineral deposits that have formed from the rainwater seeping through the ground and into the caves. They have a rippled pattern to them.

The tour lasted for about 45 minutes, including a couple places where you almost had to get down on your hands and knees to get through the small hole. They are still doing active excavations within the cave, which is now actually owned by the local University.

This was our guide along with a statue that shows the Mrs Ples skull and the archeologist who had found the skull. You can maybe see that his nose is shiny, as well as the hand that is behind the skull. You rub one or the other, depending on if you want luck or wisdom.

And a couple pictures of the exterior of the caves. There are actually openings on the surface where people can fall down into the caves (hence the specific pathways).

We then headed over to the Maropeng visitor center. In an open field next to the parking lot, 95 life-size bronze statues all walk in the same direction, symbolically towards freedom; some on foot, others on horses, one on an ox and Sol Plaatje on a bicycle with a typewriter on the back. This is called "The Long March to Freedom" exhibition, which commemorates the lives of those who played a role in South Africa’s freedom and the journey to democracy. The exhibition continues to grow, with the latest one, Winnie Madikizela Mandela’s statue added in February 2019. The plan is to grow the exhibition to than 400 bronze statues over time.

The visitor center was interesting, although we had a deadline to get back for our flight, so we didn't go through and read everything. It starts with a little boat-ride that I think is meant to take us through the journey of time, from the ice age to the future. You can see the white walls in the 3rd picture, which is the ice age, and then the steam coming up from the ground (hard to see, I know), and finally the red lava indicates the time when the earth was heated and all of the volcanic activity was going on.

Then we headed back to the airport. What did we learn? That we actually *did* like safaris and I can envision us going on another one. Perhaps Tanzania or Kenya, where it is more savannah or grassland, so the animals are easier to see. Maybe a private game reserve where we can go off-road. Also, we may want to invest in a better camera, we'll have to see. And we have to remember to take our binoculars!