Exploring The Cango Caves in South Africa

The Cango Caves near Oudtshoorn (pronounced Oats-horn), South Africa, are far and away some of the most impressive cave systems open for touring. Not that I’m a cave connoisseur, but I’ve definitely been in a cave or two (or ten).

Cave entrance

View from outside cave entrance

The cave system, which resides in the Klein Karoo Precambrian limestone ridge in the Swartberg range foothills, is best accessed via Oudtshoorn, a mere 29 kilometers south of the entrance.

citation

Organ pipes

There are various types of tours available. According to their website, they are the only show cave – in all of Africa – that offers both standard (easy) tours (R75/USD8/EUR6) and adventure tours (R95/USD10/EUR8). We went on the standard tour (due to timing and our schedule. I actually wanted to try the adventure tour).

The standard tour lasts about an hour and brings you through massive halls and chambers, up and down stairs, and through small passageways to explore stalactites, stalagmites, columns, and other unique cave formations.

The people in the bottom right corner give a bit of perspective, demonstrating the vastness of the caves.

In this shot, you see how dark it is when the lights aren’t illuminating, the only lights being the floor lights.

The Cango Caves have a Dracula-like feel to them. I guess it could be the connection of vampire bats to bat caves. Then again, it also had a gothic castle feeling, on such a grand scale, a la Bran Castle in Transylvania, Romania (inspirational home of Bram Stoker’s Count D).

Chandler

It looked like the walls and ceilings were melting. Very creepy.

Is it worth the 30 to 45 minute drive from Oudtshoorn to see the Cango Caves? Definitely. As I mentioned in my last post, Oudtshoorn is a great detour off the Garden Route, filled with many interesting and fun activities, like ostrich riding, cheetah petting, and caving.