The Cradle of Human Kind: The maropeng center and Sterkfontein caves

Catch up post 1 of 2 (pre-bush)

** Gotta get this post out of the way in order to get to my magical bush experience.. i'm just sorting out over 14Gb of pictures right now. Once pictures are sorted and uploaded then the posts will come, promise**

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There are few places in the world where it can call itself "The Cradle of Human Kind" without getting too much skepticism from its visitors.

Derrick, a friend of my friend Kanya was visiting Joburg (actually Pretoria, next city north) for the weekend and Kanya thought it would be good to connect us so that I can have a partner as I continue my Joburg exploration.  Initially, I didn't have too much of a plan for the Saturday knowing that I will be leaving early Sunday morning to begin my magical 2-week long journey/work trip to the game reserves (the conservation area where people do "safaris" as it is known to the rest of the world  or in more proper terms: game drives).  More on that later.

Anyways, with a fellow visitor and the desire to make the most out of the few weekend days that I have left in Joburg, we set off to find the cradle again.  The reason why I used the word "find" is because Peter  (Aussie Volcon) and I have tried to find it but got epicly lost the first time.  The map on the website is terrible (see here) and taking pictures of google maps apparently didn't help.  Finally we called (as advised by the map) and got GPS coordinates.  Thinking that GPS coordinate is quite reliable, we calmed down a bit.  However, we ended up in a residential area and then we gave up and went home.  Peter figured it out afterwards that the lady happened to give us the latitude of one of the sites and the longitude of another. *facepalm*...  (The cradle and the Sterkfontein caves).

Anyways, knowing that it is easy to get lost, I looked up the GPS coordinates ahead of time of the Cradle and entered it into the GPS.  Lucky for me Derrick also has his BB with a working data plan, so we could use Google map if we do get lost.

Derrick was in town on a side trip from work.  He is a consultant in the transport/infrastructure space working for a company based in Ottawa with lots of work in Africa.  He was on a work trip to Botswana/Nigeria this time and decided to stay in Joburg for the weekend because of ridiculous flight costs to go home on a Friday night.  He told me about what he does and that apparently it is in the working that the old TTC trains will be sold to Nigeria(?).  Quite cool eh (apparently old train carts used to get sunk into the ocean.. hmm)

After about an hour in the car (because of pathetic road designs - a lane would end and then immediately across the intersection it'll return again.. causing traffic jams), we finally made it to Maropeng center.  Success!

Let me tell you a bit about the Maropeng center.  It is an indoor exhibition center that focusses around evolution. It is one of the The Cradle of Human Kind's main sites.  The Cradle itself is a World Heritage site and famous for the amount of fossils that have been excavated from it throughout the years.  

Like other South African museums that I have been to, it is important to get a brochure/guide.  It is TOUGH to navigate as things are not very intuitive in terms of where to start and where to go next.  Once you enter the center you are to start your trip by going into the basement.  You then walk through a tunnel with dates that goes backwards (as if you're travelling  backwards through time) .  At the end of the tunnel you will find the underground boatride.   Through the boat ride, you explore the elements of the earth.  I must say, it was quite cool, but a bit creepy at times.

Once the short boatride is over, you are then deposited at the front of the exhibition room (yes it's one giant long room, pretty much).  You are then encouraged to walk through "evolution", to look at replicas of fossils, to understand how human evolved.  It was like Grade 11 Ancient civ all over again.  If only we have something similar back home, it would've been a very cool field trip.  I will let my pictures speak for now.

we walked through the vortex - there's derrick still doing well.. by the end of the bridge, he felt the spinning...

dodo bird!

fossil replicas

evolution

more evolution

random teeth molds to illustrate the evolution of the jaw structures

Derrick is omnidextruous, so we were testing his "dominant" hand (supposedly left) with this puzzle - and yes it is left

World's most dense city - apparently at the time of this publication it's tokyo!

Literacy level - i really like the pencils! Some surprising numbers

The US is so far ahead.. maybe it's just coz it's expensive?

Can you spot what I drew/wrote?

read some of this, it's funny! I think it's for school groups to fill out to submit to their teachers as an activity

After our visit to the center (which only lasted for about an hour!), we set off to the other site - the Sterkfontein caves (again using GPS coordinates, I immediately saved these places in the GPS just so that if Peter needs to come in the future, he won't get lost).

The Sterkfontein caves is famous because it is  where the famous fossils (and also supposedly the missing link, early hominins) Mrs Ples and Little foot were found.  These are limestone caves with natural openings (so when the unfortunate little thing falls in, they end up getting stuck in the caves, dies and then turns into fossils.

We were right in time for a guided tour and hiked over to one of the caves that was opened for public viewing.  Walking down was a bit difficult as the caves tend to be wet (so you really have to pay attention to where you're stepping to not slip and fall).  We saw the area where little foot is still being excavated (apparently it takes a looong time), and also an underground lake.  The walk was about 30 mins, and the cave was quite chilly.

my hand compared to little foot!

this sun dial was fancy.. but it was about an hour ahead

The elephant chamber, because that looks like an elephant

our guide was trying to show us little shrimps that live in the cave water (that was a bottle cap)

Stalagmite formation (will form after many many years from now)

parts of the caves got very narrow, reminds me of spelunking at warsaw back in peterborough, ON

After we emerged from the caves, you have the option to walk the long way and see the Mrs. Ples excavation site or the short route.  We were still early for dinner (we made dinner plans to go to Carnivore (see next post)) so we decided to just take the long route, might as well.

I believe this was Robert Dart

And this person I cannot remember, but if you touch his hand you get wisdom, if you touch his nose, you get luck!  I figure with age comes wisdom, so i better go for the luck! haha

South African paintbrush! Pretty eh!

Mrs ples excavation site

I really enjoyed my time at Maropeng and Sterkfontein.  There's just something about being right there, in the same spot as some of our ancestors that just makes it special.  And like what I've found in most attractions in South Africa, you definitely do not need to spend all day here.   Combined, I think we spent about 3 - 4 hours including driving between the two sites.  Interestingly enough, they sell a discounted combined ticket for both sites, but they refuse to sell it after 1pm in order to "allow guests to have enough time to see both places"..  but really.. it doesn't take that long.

Thanks to Derrick for being a good travel buddy!

Next catch up post is on Carnivore. It was quite a special experience that it deserves its own post.  Then it's bush magic ;) Stay tuned!

Hawker on the street - selling whips!! hahah!