It’s hard out there for a monkey, as we learned bright and early one morning at Monkey Land in Tsitsikamma National Forest. We saw squirrel monkeys, lemurs, baboons, gibbons, and a few others we can’t remember the names for. Oh yes, and a quick squirrel monkey gang rape. Apparently monkeys are retardedly horney.

Now let me back up a bit: We decided to take a road trip from Cape Town to Mount Frere, with pit stops in De Hoop Nature Reserve, Tsitsikamma National Forest, and a village called Hogsback.
In De Hoop we stayed at a wicked place called Buchu Bushcamp. We drove in on the most god-awful road I’ve ever encountered—and being from New Mexico, I’m used to god-awful roads. We got there a bit late, and didn’t get to fully explore it, but there were beautiful birds (and avid French birdwatchers); a sweet camp host who reminded me of Thurman Murman from Bad Santa; gorgeous sand dunes; and exotic plants.

Next we stopped in Tsitsikamma, home of the words highest bungee jump at 216 meters high. No, neither of us decided to do it. I had been bungee jumping at Victoria Falls once so I thought maybe I could do it again, and Andy thought maybe he should prove himself … but one look over the bridge and our knees started to wobble.  216 meters is really freaking high. Instead we took a walk to the “big tree.” Everyone seems to have a big tree. But it was big: 800 years old, and so wide around that it would take 8 people holding hands to reach all around it. We stayed at a backpackers called Tube n’ Axe, which was otherwise entirely occupied by 20 year old American girls all trying to sleep with the hot South African bartender (who reminded us both of Future Man from Bottle Rocket). After watching them play beer pong and flirt heavily, we decided to watch the stars from our tent and enjoy the uncharacteristically hot evening.

Our last stop was to a village called Hogsback. Their claim to fame?: The place JRR Tolkein based The Hobbit & Lord of the Rings. Upon further reading, it turns out that’s basically a load of crap, but they have run wild with the Hobbit theme. We stayed in a hippy-dippy backpackers called Away With The Faeries. The guy at the reception desk was wearing a T-shirt that said: Tap H2O Makes You Lesbian. If you know what that means, please let me know. Anyway, our double room was called The Hobbit, but if we’d splashed out, we might’ve been put in Frodo’s suite. Too bad for us. But we still enjoyed our room, and Andy even made a fire! The next morning we took an awesome hike down to Swallow Tail Falls and got to enjoy a lovely little waterfall. We took the “very difficult” path back to our car, and yeah, it was effing difficult. Practically straight up, hoisting ourselves up jagged boulders. Fun times!

And then, finally, on to Mount Frere!!! Stay tuned…