STERKFONTEIN CAVES WORLD HERITAGE

You can enjoy a guided tour of the caves every hour between 9am and 4pm. The Sterkfontein caves are a Unesco World Heritage Site, as are the nearby Swartkrans and Kromdraai. Beware if you're prone to vertigo, as access is via a vertiginous staircase. Make sure you don't miss a step! The deepest point is 46 m below ground. Sterkfontein's worldwide renown is due to Dr. Robert Broom's discovery: the skull of a woman who lived here over two million years ago, Mrs. Ples, or ratherAustralopithecus africanus. Since the 1930s, some 800 primitive hominid specimens have been removed from Sterkfontein. In the late 1990s, Professor Tobias' pupil Ron Clarke discovered the finest and most complete australopithecine ever found. The aptly named Little Foot lived even before the famous Lucy! Phillip Tobias, the pope of South African paleoanthropology, claims that "this new discovery is the most important of the ^20th century after the skull of the Taung child". At the far end of the cave, you'll find a lake 150 m long and 30 m wide, said to be magical. The tribes of the region come here ritually to fetch water, in order to heal their sick. Blind people attribute miraculous virtues to it, so they bathe in it, hoping perhaps to regain their sight.