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Monday 26th Februrary
Journal entry brought to you by Tami (I know, it's been a while)
Firstly, many thanks to Sophie's patience in writing most of the recent journal entries while I battle with this stupid computer trying to upload the photos. I've got almost 500 already and we've only been here two weeks, so I'm only uploading a few of them. Well, actually that was what I was aiming to do until this computer decided to stop giving me previews so I'm having to upload them all and then delete the ones where I look rough. Ha ha.
So what did we do on the Monday..... Oh yes. We woke up and went for another dip in the hot springs before our journey, however the hottest pool was closed for cleaning so we had to make do with the warm and cold ones alone. We wore swimming gear this time, and discovered that there was actually a huge sign on the wall that said "no nude swimming" which we hadn't seen the night before! Anyhoo, we had a super breakfast and headed off to the Cango Caves in Oodshorn (That is almost definately not how that should be spelt).
We eventually got there (it was a true mission), Keith bought out tickets and we began our tour. The Cango caves are the largest natural caves in the world and in total compromises approximately 30 caverns, but we were only doing a tour of 6 selected caves as we were pushed for time. We entered the first passage way and met our guide for the tour who seemed fairly funny as he began with, "My name is Twhwehnksajknsjufjbjkdjfn", paused for a bit and then said, "Some people call me 'Eric'." The first cavern we got to was the biggest one of them all, and it was MASSIVE, like seriously for those of you from Vodafone, it was about twice the size of the entirety of Balliol house! For anyone else, it was just really really big. It was amazing to think that nothing was holding up the ceiling. Apparently they used to hold concerts in that chamber but then people started breaking off the stalagmites and stalagtights to keep as souveniers and stuff so they had to stop them. Keith told us that when he was younger he'd been to a concert there and it was just phenomenal.
Then Eric turned the lights off for a bit so we had no clue where we were, but then when the lights came back on all the stalagmites and tights were beautifully illuminated and gorgeous.
The second cave was just as pretty but then our guide became a little weirder and started speaking SO slowly it was untrue as though every word he was saying was the most interesting thing in the world, and I tried not to but I got the silent giggles, and then Sophie got them as well so we weren't really concentrating and then we pretended to be really engrossed in the cave so that no one could see us laughing, it was hilarious.
The third, fouth and fifth caves were all just caves, pretty and everything but much of the same, just in different formations. The sixth cave was by far the best because unlike the others where Eric had given us a running commentary of what had happened there and the story of their discovery etc. in this cave he just burst into song. And not just for a little bit of time, but for about twenty minutes! It was GREAT, Sophie and I were just bemused at first, then started to get into it, but when he went into "In the Jungle" we just gave in and sang along. It was so so funny, no one seemed sure what to do!
After coming out of the last cave, we had lunch on the balcony, then piled back into the car to travel to the Cango Endangered Wildlife Ranch. We saw some amazing, wonderful, incredible animals here, first was this cute cute turtle and loads of fish, and a tiny deer, and lots of birds, then we began to walk between sections with individual animals in. To be completely honest, you'll probably get more out of looking at the pictures than if I go on about all the animals here, so just have a look at the "Cango Endangered Wildlife Ranch" photo album to see everything we saw that day.
A few things that you might not see on there though, were super fun exciting things like we went into the cheetah pen and got to pet the cheetahs, they were so cute but it gets a little bit hairy when you're crouching behind one of them posing for a picture and another one stalks up towards you! (Sophie would like to add that the cheetahs did not feel how she thought they would.)
We also got to hold a snake (called Sally) who was very cute.
Anyhoo check out the photos. I realise that right now I haven't put them up. I will get round to it. It just takes AGES to upload them and you can only do 5 at a time, so bear with me.
We went on to our hostel, it was called "Backpacker's Paradise" and it was by far the most luxurious hostel we'd stayed at so far, it was like a hotel! It was gorgeous, clean, large, spacious.....lush.
A bit later on we went downstairs for dinner which the hostel which was kebabed vegetables, squash, peppers, salad, bread and I'm not kidding it was DELICIOUS, so so very nice, the salad was the best salad I've ever ever had. Yum. Then Sophie and I split a truly sinful brownie. It was also delicious. Then we went back to the building where our room was and watched Ocean's Eleven in the lounge, which, by the way, is an AWESOME film (except the ending which was LAME). Really enjoyed it. Then we went to bed. Which was also awesome because the beds were huge and comfy and amazing.
Good day, really good day.
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