Hidden away within the bouldery outcrops shrugging up above Yzerfontein and the West Coast, you will find one of the Cape’s indisputable tourism secrets. At the heart of #khwattu is their #San Nature Guide Training Academy, but this coastal Renosterveld and fynbos property is also an adventure paradise of note. Superb #mountainbike and #trailrunning routes zig and zag amidst a profusion of indigenous vegetation, with eland and other plains game roaming wild.
The stand-out experiences, however, are their world-class interactive museum tours, or joining young San guides from all over the sub-continent as they take you to touch, smell, see, taste and feel the indigenous medicinal and edible plants their ancestors gathered in the area for up to 6000 years or more.
Hendreas Vaalbooi – pictured in some of the accompanying photographs – is one of the stalwarts at !Khwa Ttu (the ! denotes a proper palate click). He has been instrumental in creating the #GatheringGuides on San Ethnobotany and Archeobotany, and spending time with him gathering #veldfood is like having a walking, talking encyclopedia at your side. Much of the foraged food ends up on the menu at the outstanding !Khwa Ttu Restaurant, and eating here should be one of the Cape’s #bucketlist cuisine experiences.
Go check them out now at www.khwattu.org before the rest of the world finds out …