out of Africa 24

Absolute heaven to lie in this morning, not sleep in but not getting up either except to make a cup of tea. Today is our last day as tourists here in Africa. We have organised a trip to Soweto ( south west town) with our hostel. It is here that the ‘blacks’ were first forcibly removed to and the beginning of Apartheid. Our guide, who also works at the hostel was bought up in Soweto so was a great source of info. We began the tour in Kliptown which is the poorest of the poor. Tiny houses made of whatever they can find, but we have seen a lot of these as we have travelled through Africa. They don’t own the land so are forever temporary shelters. They have communal water points and no sanitation. Electricity is available as a prepaid system which everyone bypasses. We also visited a kindergarten and youth centre here and with the help of many volunteers and qualified teachers they are doing great things. They are also involving the community, not just the kids. We then visit the Hector Pi...

Ok, we are getting up early, last time and last packing up of the  tents. We don’t care really, it’s a long drive and we will be in Johannesburg this evening. Slow old trip out of the park to the gate as the speed limit is only 50km/hr so we don’t hurt our animals. Once back on the highway, the driver makes short work of doing 120km/ hr till we hit the hills and the fog and the rain. First real rain we have seen in a while. Driving up through the mountains and again nothing short of spectacular. Certainly keeping me awake! Take a turn towards “the panorama drive”. Up higher into the fog. It clears a little and we can see we are driving along the top of a canyon. This is called Blyde River canyon. 3rd largest in the world. Grand Canyon is 1, Fish River canyon in Namibia is 2 ( we did go there too) Truly amazing and the fog is just making the views more atmospheric. A little further we visit the Blyde River pot holes. Doesn’t sound inspiring given our recent experience with dodgy ro...

  Another seriously unholy time to wake up, 4am but the sweetener is that we are being picked up by 4x4 jeeps and leaving the Intrepid truck and crew behind. They have kindly offered to take our tents down  and put them up for us at the camping ground inside Kruger National Park. The gates to Kruger open at sunrise and we have about an hours drive to get there, thus the early wake up. Took a good half hour or more for the guides to get the passes. What puzzles me is they don’t have a season pass or something. Didn’t matter we were throughly entertained by a young male elephant as he was chasing birds and also one of the most spectacular sunrises I have ever seen. This is the little guys dad, in the car park! A couple of km’s further we were taken to a sourvenir  and coffee shop ( with barista!) We had to queue in the shop to pay for coffee, then queue to give our payment receipt to the queue again to receive coffee. I love Africa…. Anyhoo, here to see animals. Another glo...

Our guide , Eunice did mention that Friday night is party night in the village maybe loud ( small village, makes sense ) Ha, it was loud and didn’t stop till about 5.30 am. We didn’t mind too much tho as it was African music and settled us to sleep.  When we woke, we were able to settle again. Greeted by a couple of buckets for our wash, one hot , one cold for our wash outside. Stuart’s feet in the tub Eunice, me and my camp mum and granddaughter  Breakfast at Cecile’s house, another homestay mum brings the group together again and was loads of fun. Cooking breakfast We head off eventually and enjoy a morning driving through the most beautiful scenery. Photos won’t do it justice but a couple of tunnels and also high into the mountains. Down on level again it’s the land of orchards. Citrus farms with oranges mandarins, lemons. Also we spy mango and avocado trees and also papaya.. Lots of stalls along the road. Chef buys pizza for us all for lunch and we eat along the way. Arri...