Safari to South Africa with Adventures by Disney - Part 2

A few weeks ago, I began a series on a unique trip I took to South Africa with Adventures by Disney (ABD). If you've never heard of ABD, it's a unique arm of Disney Travel which creates fully planned vacations around the world. You can get caught up on the first part of my adventure here: South African Safari Part 1.

Day 5 Garden Route
Word of the Day: Knysna --Knynsna means ferns
Early 5:29 am

We met the group in the lobby where the hotel provided us a continental breakfast. We then were given a boxed lunch on the way to the bus to eat in route to the airport. When we got on our South African flight in Cape town we were served another light breakfast. I was definitely well fed and ready for the flight to our next destination.

We were met at the George Airport by our trusty bus driver who had thoughtfully driven most of our luggage the day before (so we would not have to bother with luggage hassle at the airport!). Our next stop was the scenic Fancourt hotel where we arrived about 9am and had a sprawling (you guessed it) breakfast We then went to . . .

MONKEYLAND!!

Wow, this place was awesome! (with a name like Monkeyland, it has to be good!) The monkeys are all surrendered by their owners who were overwhelmed by the difficulties of keeping these intelligent wild animals as pets, others are surplus primates from zoos.

This place is amazing. Imagine walking through your local woods, but instead of seeing squirrels everywhere there are monkeys!! There are many types of Primates here: Prosmimians (lemurs etc), New World Monkeys (Found in central and south America, all with prehensile tails), Old World Monkeys (All Monkeys from Africa and Asia) and Apes (represented in Monkeyland by Gibbons and Humans).

We were amazed and amused by these great creatures, and found out one important tip: When your guide says no food, this means dried fruit also.

One of our group took out a PIECE of a dried apple to eat quickly (diabetic and needed to raise blood sugar) and a gibbon did NOT like that it was not his and got quite close, showed his teeth and his posterior to us! At that point, the apple was quickly tossed to the offended monkey and we scampered to the gift shop. Whew!!

Birds of Eden is a short walk next door.

Birds of Eden sanctuary was created with the intention of re-homing a number of unwanted birds, giving them the opportunity to live in a more natural environment. The birds here were quite beautiful and many got quite close to us. There were also marmosets which followed us around almost like a puppy. We did not touch any of these animals, but they got rather close to us.
After our tour of Birds of Eden it was lunch time!
Good thing we had multiple small breakfasts earlier, as it was about 2pm and we were hungry. In my opinion, was one of the best meals of the trip!

Lunch at Bramon Wine Estate?fresh homemade food, great wine Lunch was set up on picnic tables in the vineyards. The food was incredibly fresh and the wine was phenomenal.

Next up was a motorcoach ride to Pezula. Normally ABD stays at a hotel in town, but this trip Pezula was our hotel.

WOW. Pezula is called the Pebble Beach of South Africa. There is a golf course running throughout the grounds, and there is even a castle you can rent!

We got to see the castle as part of our hotel tour. Nelson Mandela stayed here, as well as many rock stars and celebrities wanting privacy. We went through 5 privacy gates (with guards!) to get to the castle.

Built into the rugged cliff-face with direct access to the beach, the castle complex has its own chef, executive butler and housekeeper. I can certainly see why the rich and famous like it here!

After being wowed at the castle we went to check into our own rooms at Pezula.

banana republic apple store academy barnes and noble nook 12 days of christmas a christmas carol arkansas football player dies