As we headed towards the Cango Caves just outside Oudtshoorn, I realised I hadn’t actually been there before. I’ve visited the Sterkfontein Caves in Gauteng and I think I’ve been to some smaller caves on school trips and hikes, but I’d never been to one of South Africa’s premier tourist attractions (supposedly).

Arriving at the caves, the first thing you’ll note is how big the setup here is, a large visitor’s centre complete with restaurant and gift shop lead in a spiral towards the entrance of the caves. Security guards and guides are on standby at the actual cave entrance and were a little too surly in my opinion, blocking the two photographers in our group carrying tripods from entering without much of an explanation as to why they don’t allow tripods in.

Our guide led us into the first small chamber, which had a really blue light and was fairly large. We milled around for a few minutes and she asked us to head further into the darkness, down a pretty steep staircase into Van Zyl’s Hall, which is the largest cave chamber and is definitely impressive. This hall was once used for concerts because of the incredible acoustics, but damage to the caves by revolting humans has put an end to that.

I wish I could remember the name of our guide, I think it was Nazley, but as informative as her speech was, I very much felt like we were being spoken down to as a group, and frankly she sounded so damn bored with her job that I may very well recommend Cango Caves give her a job behind the scenes. I hate to be negative about an experience, but there was just so much more potential for the tour than what we experienced and I would’ve rather walked the caves myself with an information booklet.

Nevertheless, the Cango Caves are incredibly beautiful and the walkways and lights have been well thought out and cater very well for the large numbers of people passing through on a daily basis. Sadly, some sections are evidence to the vandalism that has happened here and I can imagine the Adventure Tour, which goes through smaller sections and was even the scene of a lady being stuck for 11 hours once upon a time in a small sliver between two large rock surfaces, must be incredible to get a deeper view of the caves.

The low light in the caves makes it pretty hard to take photos, so if that’s you’re reason to visit, and you can’t take in your tripod, you may be disappointed. But as a natural attraction and to see the beauty of these caves, it’s certainly worth thinking about the visit for.

Would I go back? Probably not, and that has a large part to do with the poor guiding we experienced. Would I recommend you go? Yes, just pack some earplugs.

My visit to the Cango Caves formed part of my second #MeetSouthAfrica trip and was courtesy of South African Tourism. As with all my posts, editorial control remains with me.