Monkeyland, Birds of Eden, & Tsitsikamma National Park| South Africa, Day 6

Thursday, September 20, 2018
I didn't show the best part of our airbnb in the last post because it was best appreciated in the morning. This was the view right outside of our bedroom. I could literally look over from our bed and see:

For breakfast, we tried Steers, one of South Africa’s most recognizable quick-service restaurant brands. Their Egg, Cheese & Tomato Pita was my fave breakfast - and their fries were amazing! [Er, sorry, chips; I always default to American context.] I was disappointed to find that not many Steers actually served breakfast, or I'm sure I would have ate more.

Our first planned attraction was Monkeyland, a roaming multi-species primate sanctuary. I was worried it would be more of a glorified zoo, but we ended up thoroughly enjoying our visit. We were warned that the monkeys could be kleptomaniacs and to watch our stuff. We were definitely able to get pretty close to the animals. Close enough to touch, but we restrained ourselves.

The first monkey we saw was a Squirrel Monkey.

This little guy from Central and South America crept closer and closer to us until he was literally perched right next to me on the railing.

There was a haunting noise as we entered the jungle. You easily could've mistaken the howler monkeys for a large predator based on their loud, deep roars.  They are also native to South and Central American forests.

We observed the vervet monkeys snacking. These little gray cuties are found mostly throughout Southern Africa, and we saw them at several different places throughout our trip. Parking lot monkeys, roadkill monkeys, etc.

This was actually a guided tour through the sanctuary, so our guide introduced all of the monkey species to us. He actually started the tour by getting peed on by a monkey from above lol.  

Capuchin Monkey from Central America and South America

While Monkeyland is an open sanctuary, there was one enclosure for the newer arrivals whose temperaments were still being assessed.

We came across some lemurs, which are of course native only to the island of Madagascar. Fun fact: Madagascar was 100% in the running for our vacation destination of the year. Some day...

Our guide pointed out a couple times how monkeys only fall in love for a season, hence the term 'monkey love'. We also learned that South American monkeys carry their babies on their backs, and African monkeys carry them under their bellies.

The Lar Gibbons are found in Asia, and they are the only ape species to be found at Monkeyland. Another tip we picked up during our visit: monkeys have tails, and apes don't.

They also claim to have the longest suspension bridge in Southern Africa measuring at 128 meters.

Since this was a guided tour, we went through the attraction at a much more leisurely pace, which isn't usually our speed. Perhaps a little too leisurely as I was starting to get anxious about how much time it was taking, knowing all we still had to do today. Luckily, our next attraction was actually just right across the parking lot, so we were able to pick up the pace a little bit here. Birds of Eden is the world's largest free flight aviary and bird sanctuary, and we got a little bit of a discount by purchasing admission to both the birds and Monkeyland at the same time. 

You are probably aware by now that I am a total bird nerd. This golden pheasant was my favorite.

I was also very fond of the Knysna lourie

and this ringneck parakeet who bid us farewell on the way out. They are considered to be the most widely distributed parrot in the world today.

As we exited the Monkeyland/Birds of Eden complex, we saw a large group of baboons in the grassy field.

I was absolutely awestruck at every chance we had to observe wild, roadside baboons!

This guy almost jumped into my car window!

We were planning to stop at Bloukrans Bridge, one of the world's highest commercial bridge bungee jumping sites, and watch some bungee jumpers but we ended up bypassing. As usual, time was short, and we weren't sure how to get to a good viewing area without driving through a more formal entrance gate and possibly having to pay some kind of fee.

This left more time to stop at Tsitsikamma National Park, which turned out to be much bigger than I thought.

This is an area of the Garden Route National Park that encompasses a marine reserve, deep gorges, and other natural attractions. We entered the park and walked over by the water and decided to walk the Mouth Trail, which crosses a suspension bridge over Storms River. We ended up walking a little over 2 kilometers round-trip. 

By that point, the evening was starting to turn more chilly and we just had one more stop a little further down the road at the Big Tree, an 800-year-old Yellowwood.

Tonight's airbnb was on Zuurbron Farm. We pulled up to this fairly isolated location, managed to get buzzed in through the front gate, but we were still left with a lot of uncertainty about check-in.  Finally, a lady came walking over and showed us our place. It was very rustic and cute, but there was no WiFi and no door to the bathroom. The host said we could drive back 10-15 minutes to town, so we decided to just make do with crisps and biscuits for the night.

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