South Africa archaeology tour
| country: | South Africa | ||||
| location: | Western Cape, Cederberg Mountains | ||||
| departures: | 2010: 15 May, 14 Aug | ||||
| price: | From R 45,550 - R 46,350 (9 days) excluding flights. Price is based on two people sharing. Depends on departure date. Optional single supplement R 5,580 - R 7,050 . See below for full price inclusions
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| vouchers: | Gift vouchers can be used with this holiday |
the amazing things you'll be doing
Peel away the patina of time at landmark locations where ancient timelines and recent colonial overlays are revealed.
Trace the legacy of an ancient hunter-gatherer tribe, the San Bushmen, through their evocative rock art paintings in a luxurious wilderness refuge that conserves this spectacular ‘open air art gallery’.
Explore divergent coastlines where excavations have revealed significant artefacts left by Middle and Late Stone Age inhabitants. Investigate the oldest known footprints yet found, and a site that contains the greatest diversity in the world of 5-milion year old fossils.
We have a portfolio of guest lecturers with unsurpassed local knowledge who lead each tour, taking you to less-travelled spots, hidden gems and places you couldn’t get into yourself. You’ll hear multiple perspectives from these storytellers, whose calibre is our distinguishing difference.
We use accredited guides as tour leaders who look after the practicalities and accompany you at all times. Itineraries are researched and crafted with enormous attention to pace and variety. Intentionally small groups allow for insider access, let you engage and enquire directly and understand content in context.
Price includes:
Hotel accommodation (two 4-star & two 5-star), all breakfasts, eight lunches and seven dinners with wine, water, coffee, two wine tasting opportunities. All admissions, all gratuities, all porterage, the services of guest lecturers and tour leaders, all transportation from arrival to departure.
Trace the legacy of an ancient hunter-gatherer tribe, the San Bushmen, through their evocative rock art paintings in a luxurious wilderness refuge that conserves this spectacular ‘open air art gallery’.
Explore divergent coastlines where excavations have revealed significant artefacts left by Middle and Late Stone Age inhabitants. Investigate the oldest known footprints yet found, and a site that contains the greatest diversity in the world of 5-milion year old fossils.
We have a portfolio of guest lecturers with unsurpassed local knowledge who lead each tour, taking you to less-travelled spots, hidden gems and places you couldn’t get into yourself. You’ll hear multiple perspectives from these storytellers, whose calibre is our distinguishing difference.
We use accredited guides as tour leaders who look after the practicalities and accompany you at all times. Itineraries are researched and crafted with enormous attention to pace and variety. Intentionally small groups allow for insider access, let you engage and enquire directly and understand content in context.
Price includes:
Hotel accommodation (two 4-star & two 5-star), all breakfasts, eight lunches and seven dinners with wine, water, coffee, two wine tasting opportunities. All admissions, all gratuities, all porterage, the services of guest lecturers and tour leaders, all transportation from arrival to departure.
day-by-day itinerary
| Day 1: | Cape Town. Take a trip up legendary Table Mountain, followed by a scenic orientation drive around Lions Head and Signal Hill, overlooking the vibrant Waterfront in the heart of the working harbour, led by a geologist who contextualises the timelines and compass points. Dinner is in a private home, with several invited guests sharing their perspectives. Overnight on the cosmopolitan seaboard in Cape Town for the first of three nights. |
| Day 2: | Cape Point. Explore Cape Point, one of the most dramatic viewpoints anywhere on earth, where the jagged finger-shaped promontory thrusting out into the sea is the end point of the African continent for most. Celebrated for its astounding floral diversity, array of indigenous flora, wildlife and fascinating marine diversity, this national park offers a rich cultural heritage stretching over millennia, with relics of immensely significant prehistory. Nestling between huge granite boulders view a colony of African Penguins, a flagship species for conservation, from the only place in the world where you can get this close. To understand the past, read the rocks while travelling along the spectacular Chapmans Peak drive with varied geological formations and clearly visible contact points. The evening is at your leisure, with an opportunity to try out local fare. |
| Day 3: | Historical heart. A visit to the South African Museum to see its pre-colonial archaeological highlights follows a behind-the-scenes opportunity to engage with precious artefacts, led by the resident archaeologists. After lunch, walk through the original heart of the city, the Company Gardens to the Slave Loge, with an historical archaeologist explaining the building’s multiple uses to quantify colonial mindsets - and social context. In the evening, a visit to a world famous collection of gold artefacts from ancient African civilizations precedes a Pan African food banquet of immense originality in the courtyard of a 1753 townhouse. |
| Day 4: | Langebaan Lagoon. Travelling north, visit a living celebration of San Bushmen, with insights into their culture, heritage and folklore shared by accredited San guides along a trail in a nature reserve. In the afternoon, drive around the magnificent Langebaan lagoon in the West Coast National Park reserve, to where ‘Eve’s’ footprints were found (so dubbed because DNA measurements suggest that all humans are descended from a very small group of African hominids, living between 100,000 – 300,000 years ago). Meander along the shoreline, taking in the glorious views from lookouts on granite outcrops of this Ramsar site (so declared because of its ecological importance). Stay in a homestead perched on a bluff overlooking the lagoon, dining on west coast fare which is synonymous with seafood. Overnight Langebaan. |
| Day 5-6: | Coast to the Cederberg. Go back five million years to a time when the region was inhabited by extraordinary life at the Fossil Park, a proclaimed National Heritage site. Visit several important excavation sites that have yielded evidence that improved food resources gave early humans a behavioural advantage, enjoying a taste of authentic ‘boerekos’ yourself en route. Head for the mountains, driving through ancient sandstone formations, to reach a spectacular wilderness retreat in time for an evening game drive and sundowners. This 5-star sanctuary for indigenous plants and animals is the Relais & Chateaux Environment 2007 trophy winner. The next day is leisurely, with guided rock art excursions among some of the 130 sites in an open air art gallery, and a host of outdoor activities to refresh the senses, in the heart of the craggy Cederberg mountains. |
| Day 7-8: | The Overberg. Leave the mountains for the valleys, arriving at a landmark estate for a light lunch. Visit a spot that chronicles the valley’s history from Stone Age man through colonialism, slavery, apartheid up to the arrival of democracy. Drive through the picturesque town Franschhoek, where the Huguenots settled, having fled from religious persecution in 1688, over dramatic mountain passes, to a coastal haven with panoramic views overlooking Walker Bay, set in 4,000 acres / 1,700 ha of fynbos for the first of two nights at a different 5-star private nature reserve. Soak up exquisite ocean and mountain views from this hillside sanctuary, where luxury abounds in harmony with nature. There are morning drives with resident botanists and evening walks with marine biologists. From here explore several fascinating caves along this coast, looking over sites that have given humans shelter and food since middle stone age times. |
| Day 9: | The Helderberg. The coastal road from Hermanus skirts lagoons, crosses rivers, passes rocky outcrops and sandy coves shaded by ancient milkwood trees, and snakes along sheer cliffs as they plunge to the ocean below, taking you towards the Helderberg wine region, to a spot conceptualised as a ‘model estate’ some 300 years ago, and now acclaimed as the leading South African wine farm, and a Biodiversity & Wine Initiative champion. Spend an open ended day here, lunching languidly, with options to tour the manor house, visit the interpretive centre, taste wines, walk through the expansive landscape, view the spectacularly sited hilltop winery that mirrors the octagonal walled garden - before being dropped off at the airport for your return flight north. |
small group cultural tours
Typically you will be sharing your experiences with between 4-20 like minded travellers (depending on the trip, operator and how many others are booked on the trip) and you'll have a group leader with you. Whether you are travelling alone or with friends it's good value, and a great way to meet new people! While itineraries are pre-planned there is some flexibility and you'll have plenty of privacy. This trip will appeal to travellers of all ages who enjoy meeting new people as well as experiencing new cultures.how this holiday makes a difference
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Our belief is that each step we take matters, and that door opening journeys are about travelling with a curious mind, an open heart, and light steps. Our aim is to share South Africa’s cultural richness, diversity and natural beauty in such a way as to beneficiate all involved.
Environment We uphold the philosophy of giving back, making a voluntary donation to Food and Trees for Africa, calculated on the carbon footprint accumulated by each visitor's journey to, from and within South Africa. We are linked to Friends of Conservation for alternative ways to participate in projects that either extract CO2 from the atmosphere, reduce harmful emissions, or protect wildlife and bring benefit to communities. We endorse the South Africa Sustainability Seafood Initiative (SASSI), abiding by their approved seafood guidelines when making selections on clients’ behalf. We support The Biodiversity and Wine Initiative, which applies diversity guidelines to the wine industry by choosing its members when selecting wine estates to showcase. We believe in leaving only our footprints and provide all visitors with Golden rules which in the natural environment include not picking flowers or removing any items, feeding the animals, littering, or deviating from paths – and in the built environment not wasting water, being ostentatious with possessions, handing out randomly or behaving respectfully among other cultures. We undertake to lighten our impact wherever possible, such as using the internet as our primary communication medium, limiting the size of groups, consciously selecting low impact options, biodegradable materials, recycling paper, and implementing ''turn it off'' policies with equipment. To mitigate the impact of the long haul travel, we offer several add-on options to our fixed tours. Community We are a member of the Open Africa network of Afrikatourism, a collaborative movement linking the splendours of Africa in a network of tourism routes from Cape to Cairo, with the aim of creating jobs in synergy with conservation, under the patronage of Nelson Mandela. We support Fair Trade in Tourism in South Africa (FTTSA) which is based on fair share, democracy, respect, reliability, transparency and sustainability, and its members wherever possible. We seek out initiatives such as !Khwa ttu San Cultural and Educational Centre that highlights issues facing minority cultures, Solms Delta museum for its oral history focus, Grootbos private nature reserve for its dedication to the Cape Floral Kingdom and eco tourism benchmarking, and Bushmans Kloof wilderness retreat for highlighting San culture. We support only local initiatives: family run hotels chosen for their warmth of welcome and charm, and owner managed restaurants that offer seasonal produce and regional wines. We select preferred service providers that are local and owner managed, such as for our transport and in our links we seek similarly-minded associates who share our vision such as Mogalakwena Artist’s Retreat. Believing in the principles of abundance and co-operation, we offer our web based hub for the beneficiation of all involved with us, while supporting others who subscribe to our principles. We provide our clients with a comprehensive pre trip information and we select useful additional nuggets to inform free time choices. Operationally, we subscribe to an ethical code of conduct. We practise fair trade policies. We uphold high delivery standards and train wherever required, since our undertaking to our clients is seamless service and attention to detail. We passionately advocate raising the tourism industry bar and take responsibility for the upliftment and awareness this challenge requires. Economically the tourism industry is the biggest generator of jobs in the Western Cape, and unemployment is the biggest threat to social stability in the land. Taking the opportunity to showcase what is unique to the Cape, telling our stories informatively - and having them ’witnessed’ - substantiates our sense of self, our pride of place and our purpose of being. |
Tourism can be good and bad for destinations & local people. We carefully screen every holiday against our criteria for responsible travel. 'Look behind the brochure' to find how each holiday makes a difference (see left). We don't claim to be perfect - there is no global accreditation - but we've led the way since 2001 and screened 1000's of holidays. We invite every traveller to write a review about their experiences and responsible tourism. This valuable feedback is sent to the people who run the holidays. We keep a very close eye on it and take off holidays that don't live up to our standards. |