I
arrived in East London, on the southeastern coast of South Africa, on Saturday November 9th. I had planned to spend the weekend relaxing on the beach before studying the Hofmeyr cranium on Monday the 11th . However, Kevin Cole, the principal scientist at the East London Museum, offered to pick me up at the airport, and after discovering that I had no plans for the weekend, offered to show me around the Eastern Cape. I had read a lot about the famous bird sanctuary located just outside of East London (all the Hotels reference their proximity to the sanctuary) and it turns out that Kevin was the guy
who founded it. So Kevin takes me out to some of the most beautiful coastline imaginable to show me the sanctuary (it's not hard to see why it needed to be protected from developers). It just so happens that the 200,000 year old
Nahoon footprints were discovered nearby and Kevin took me out to a new excavation site where they recently discovered some more prints. As the day wound down, 
Kevin invited me to go hiking with him and his wife Mary (a snail taxonomist). 
So early on Sunday, We headed out to the coast again to see some of the worlds oldest dolomite cliffs. We spend the day wandering the incredible coastline looking at Khoisan shell-middens and 2.5 billion year old stromatolites. On Monday, Kevin picked me up and took me to the East London Museum, which has to be one of the best kept secrets in the world. Not only does the museum house the Hofmeyr cranium, an incredibly important human fossil. The museum also curates the Nahoon footprints, the world's only known Dodo egg, and the original "rediscovered" specimen of the Coelacanth. In my opinion, East London is one of the world's hidden gems and I can't wait to go back one day.
