Thursday, October 7, 2010

NONONONOO! Snakes!!

Hello family and friends! It's been another interesting two days in South Africa. This time I have photos for you!! So here we go. This is where I'm staying:



Yesterday we had the opportunity to go to a place called "The Cradle of Humankind", which is a World Heritage Site (that's a big deal - like a an official national landmark except on a global scale.) This is the home of the Sterkfontein Caves, which we got to walk through. They were incredible. My photos do them absolutely no justice, but here are a couple of them anyway:



The site is one of the most famous archeological sites in the world, largely because of their recent discovery of the only fully intact Australopithecus skeleton in the world. Australopithecus is one of our most early ancesters, and the skeleton is dated at about 3.5 million years old. Did we get to see it? Um, no. We had a nice dinner at the site in which we were able to hear a lecture by Dr. Ron Clarke, who oversees the excavations there, and who is super famous. I asked him what he sees for the future of the evolution of the human species. He said that our muscles are becoming atrophied because of lack of activity and this will eventually affect the human form. I showed him a few examples of my own atrophied muscles, which seemed to make him a little uncomfortable. What made me uncomfortable was this display in the museum:



Seriously, was that absolutely necessary? No wonder I couldn't sleep last night.

Finally, I want to share with you a photo I took at sunset last night. Apparently I got two close to the grass and a kind African worker ran up to me and shouted "NONONONOOOO! Snakes!" He scared the absolute crap out of me. There was actually no snake - he was just warning me not to wander into the grass. Anyway, I still managed to get this nice photo:



So that's it for today. I miss you all a lot!!!

2 comments:

  1. So did you get to see any more of the non-resort country on your trip to the Cradle of Humankind?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes, but honestly speaking, it looked like Indiana.

    ReplyDelete