Pilgrim's Rest and Zuleika

We got up early on our third morning in South Africa. Today, we're heading to Graskop's neighbor town called "Pilgrim's Rest." Pilgrim's Rest has a history of gold mining and is home to the famous Alanglade house museum. Unfortunately we did not get to see the museum because it was closed when we were there. However, the town's Information Center has a decent presentation that tells the story and history of the place, so we did learn something. We parked our van and walked along the main street, went into a few craft stores and spent quite a bit. I found several random things in the stores I thought would make good pictures:

We left Pilgrim's Rest and headed back to Graskop at around noon, so we could have lunch at Graskop's famous Pancake restaurant. All of the shops and galleries were open by then. I came across this store that made this "curtain" (I don't really know how to call it) out of plastic bottles, and it looked amazing and amazingly "African."

After lunch, I visited a small art gallery next to the restaurant. There was a piece that caught my attention. I don't have a picture of it, but it's a very simplistic, abstract painting of a red rose against white background. After talking to the gallery keeper, I found out that the artist is Munro, who apparently is quite famous in South Africa. I wanted to buy the piece for my condo. Though because the price was quite expensive, I decided not to buy it. I've regretted the decision ever since.

We said goodbye to Graskop and started heading towards Zuleika, our destination for tonight. The drive was supposedly about 100 km or so, but we made several stops for sightseeing. The most impressive sites were the Bourke's Luck Potholes and the Three Rondavels in the Blyde River Canyon. It's difficult to explain what's special about them, so please look at the pictures I took.

Bourke's Luck Potholes:

Three Rondavels:

There were street vendors waiting to sell craft products to tourists at these sites. We actually bought quite a few things. At one of the stops, there were local people singing and doing what appeared to be some sort of a tribal dance. It didn't take my mom and my aunt long to go join them.

We got to our destination, Zuleika Country House, at around 5pm. The route was very scenic all the way up to here. The hotel is nice. The estate is beautifully manicured, and it's enveloped 360-degrees by beautiful mountains (the view from our terrace is amazing!!!) The owner has a border collie, JD, who walks after guests and play with them. There's also a very cute cat with the most beautiful yellow eyes I've seen on any cats. Everything was perfect... except for the fact that they served a pre-fixed menu for dinner with lamb as the main dish... and I don't eat lamb!

Zuleika Country House:

View from our terrace:

I wish I could tell you all about our safari experience right now, but I have an early flight to Capetown tomorrow, so I must head to bed. Will post more tomorrow!