Knynsa, Garden Route in South Africa
We flew up to George from Cape Town early, grabbed our luggage and picked up our huge VW wagon. Driving on the wrong side of the wrong in a huge car with the stick shift on the other side was a true feat.
We got to our place in the early afternoon. We stayed at the Elephant Hide Lodge in Knysna. They had literally opened the place for the first time 3 days before we got there. The owners were fantastic. The views were spectacular. The attention to detail in this place was wonderful. 8 small huts on top of a mountain overlooking the lagoon. Each hut is very modern with bathrooms with windows that are open and drop over the mountain. We really loved it here. Good breakfast and dinner too. The picture in side out room over looking the lagoon 
doesn’t give the views justice.
The next couple of days we did a variety of things. We spent one morning in Buffels Bay which is as crowded as Rockaway Beach. Mostly Afrikaner being spoken here. Note there are 11 languages spoken in the country and most people speak at least 4.
One of the coolest things we did was go to Knysna Elephant Park. We had a private walk with the elephants named Harry and Sally. Elephants used to live in the area of the park but are dwindling and in this park they maintain the presence of elephants in the region. The space isn’t really large enough for the 18 elephants that they have so they keep them in a location for sleeping at night and also supplement their food, in essence the elephants are tamed by them too. Elephants are amazing animals. To watch them walk through the trees is hilarious. They just walk through an take out a tree. The kids got to ride the elephant which was very memorable.
The other activity which was fun was Abseiling. It is big there. Think of it as the part of mountain climbing when you are coming down. The difference here is we first canoed out to the place, walked up mountain and then attached on the gear and went down. Jessica and I were the only troopers to do it. It was wild.