April 17 Total km today = 525 (previous 2
days total was 635 km).
What a mixed day this has been.
We were disappointed not to hear the lions during the night though the Game
Lodge owner, Pieter, assured us he had heard them. We did hear the jackals
yipping – sounded similar to our coyotes.
The morning started out with the
usual visit to the ablution block (toilet/shower house in SA) only to have
Norma walk in on a young naked black man showering in the ladies shower.
Remember how we had said the game lodge was full with mine workers and they
don’t usually have women staying there? Not sure who was more upset about it –
Doug or the poor naked man! I did stop Doug from summarily evicting him.
After today we know you cannot
judge how long anything is going to take to drive to. The road conditions
change constantly. We found ourselves
driving for the first hour with tall electric fences on both sides of the roads
and every one going 120. Then came the signs saying “no fence - watch for
livestock”. AND THEY MEANT IT. Cows, goats, donkeys and chickens all over the
road. Sometimes there were people with them but mostly not. Amazingly we only
saw a few road kill for all that. Also the school kids were out around 11 am as
well as lots of adults walking on both sides of the roads (and crossing
regularly). Result: slow to 20, slow to
20, etc. Then there are the potholes, of course.
 |
| Seat belts optional |
You could see the poverty in various
areas. We tried to get some photos but not sure it really gives the impact.
Also numerous stands along the road selling fire wood, straw brooms, tomatoes,
avocados, oranges, etc. and even BBQed corn. It seemed like as soon as we got
out of Limpopo (the poorest province supposedly) things seemed richer.
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| Roadside BBQ |
We were seeing roadside “booths”
also selling numerous other things including new blue jeans! We began to joke
about the SA shopping mall until out in the middle of nowhere we found a huge
mall. In spite of that we still found more of these road side establishments.
There were also frequent road side car washes. We had been wondering why all
the cars were so clean. This is probably another way for the poor fellows to
make a few Rand.
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| Car wash |
 |
| Fresh chicken for dinner |
Got to Kruger Park and had an
upsetting occurrence. The man checking us in stated that the camp we had booked
last November no longer existed, it had been on the news and he was sending us
down the road. After toying with us some more including saying they had emailed
us this information he then said he was JOKING! After dodging goats, people and
potholes all day Doug was in no mood for this nonsense and told him what he
thought of his joke. When he saw how upset we were he apologized. Too late,
Benard Makhubele, when your superiors get an email about this incident we will
see who gets the last laugh from your cruel joke. About the best part of this
whole experience was watching the lawn mowing crew at work around the gatehouse
– warthogs are good grazers!
Anyway we finally made it to the
campground, found there was no internet available in spite of having advertised
this service and even with having booked in November of last year we had to
drive around and get whatever we could find in a limited camping area. We did
have a greeting committee though – several monkeys along with a baby and mom were
trying to get up the trees and away from us. We had seen some along the road
earlier, as well.
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| Welcome to our campsite |
April 18, 2014
Had our best sleep so far. We
both woke up at 6 am and headed to the shower as it sure wasn’t busy at that
hour.
Decided to stay put today as with
it being the long weekend there are limited camping spots and people moving in
all around us. This doesn’t work like at home where you have an assigned site
and it is yours. If you leave you aren’t sure what you are going to return to.
Not sure what all the noise was
last night but we think it was the lions. The monkeys are all over this morning
and very vocal. We think it is the males warding off other males from their
mates but not sure. Lots of little ones too.
This morning we took a walk to the
shop and bought some souvenirs as well as some springbok jerky (biltong as they
call jerky). The reception building roof was being inundated with baboons. Next
we signed up for a 5 am – yes 5 AM guided bush drive and are really looking
forward to it. They say dress warmly and we can see why. It really cools off
when the sun goes down but was 25 degrees during the day yesterday.
Note that internet access is
problematic here so posts may come irregularly – today we are using a borrowed
code from the park manager.
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