After the incredible experiences in Zimbabwe, Chobe and the
Okavango Delta we had a fair distance to make up to get back to
Johannesburg. The next few days are
pretty much exclusively travel days, heading back toward Kruger National Park
in South Africa. Once there we spend two
nights then it’s back to Jo’berg and home from this crazy adventure.
 |
| Ines and Alyssa on the drive home. |
To everyone’s chagrin, the alarms were sounding at 5am so we
could hit the road and beat the heat. It
has suddenly got much warmer here and the days heat up pretty quick. Even the evenings and nights are warmer and I
really don’t need much more than my sleep sheet and light overbag to stay
comfortable which was sure not the case when we started out on this
safari.
Botswana is definitely more affluent than Zimbabwe and we
passed a huge diamond mine as well as a coal mine that was situated right next
to a big coal powered power plant. The
people in the cities are often dressed nicely, houses are bigger and nicer
(still very small to North American standards) and you can tell there is more
wealth here. The other notable
observation here is the amount of garbage along the side of the road is way
less. In Zimbabwe there was garbage
everywhere and even South Africa there was way more garbage.
The first night’s stop was Palapye which is 100 km from the
border with South Africa. The next day
was the border crossing and a stop at Polokwane where we had a great grassy
area to set up our tents.... no dirt for one day!!! This was the same place we stayed on the way
up so we had that campsite pretty dialled.
The third day was similar to the tour up with Blyde River Canyon views,
the potholes and the great pancake and biltong places along the way. We set up the tents for the last time in
Kruger National Park for our final two nights of the safari.
 |
| Blyde River Canyon. |
I think everyone is getting really sick of all the dirt and
dust around the campsites, I know I sure am!
Pretty much every campsite we have been to is just dirt so when you walk
or a car drives by you get a stream of dust across the camp. All the houses have dirt around their homes
too which is meticulously raked or swept every day. We were told it is so they can detect if
snakes have slid across the area and into their homes. Makes sense, but it still is really annoying
when you’re camping in it every day! It
also supports Shannon’s thought that she really doesn’t want to be here in the
summer when all the different snakes are out and about.
Everyone is still holding it together but we can all feel
the trip is winding down and there are more thoughts about home as we spend eight
hours a day in the truck. Shannon was
bored and can’t read in the truck so she started a “to do list” for when we get
home. I’m still holding out and trying
to stay focused on working on the blog, getting my book read so I can give it
to Duncan, drinking a few beers, and swapping tales with the crew. The kids are still entertaining themselves
with card games, reading, magic tricks and ipods and Jenna has found the back
seat open so has taken up residence there to get a few more hours sleep
throughout the day.
 |
| Blyde River Canyon |
It has been an interesting experiment taking four families
from different areas along with a number of couples and single people, throwing
them in a bus and asking them to work together to do all the jobs necessary to
make the trip work. It kind of reminds
me of the TV show Survivor except no one get voted off the bus at least not on
our bus but I have heard that it does happen from time to time! The dynamics of child discipline and just
couple interaction has been great and everyone is still stepping it up to get
everything done. There have been some
entertaining dialogues back and forth between Brendan, the tour leader and Flow
but so far no-one has killed each other!
The German contingent of Simon, Tauti, Reuben and Alessandra have been
awesome with the kids and have been a lot of fun to have on this leg of our
journey.
It’s been pretty crazy observing interaction between black
and whites in South Africa. Some people
are very open and often you see younger people mixing but there is still a lot
of bigotry out there. One woman at a
grocery store just budged in front of a black man in line without saying a word
like it was completely acceptable. The
looks you get from whites when you hold open a door for a black woman is pretty
funny too as it is when the black woman finally figures out what you’re trying
to do for her. It’s definitely not the
norm.
Hearing some stories around the fire from Flow of her life
with her white partner of 10 years and the family not accepting her after all
that time is pretty nuts too. In her
other job where she lived with a family cooking for them where she was expected
to put her dishes and cutlery where the pet supplies were and not with the rest
of the plates and cutlery. After hearing
the stories and observing the interactions in public you realize how recently
Apartheid has ended and how reconciliation and forgiveness is still in its
infancy here. I can’t see it changing
for a few more generations but you’ve got to hope things will get better with
education, acceptance and time. It has
been a pretty incredible experience to see it first hand and has been the topic
of conversation often between Duncan, Michel (aka Papaa) and myself.
