April 2013 - Johannesburg

A bit of an interlude.

First things first - Thanks to Pam Northing for answering the question everyone had on their minds. This is what she sent us

“I have just looked up Belgium and it covers about 30,528sq km.......ranks 141 in size in the world…..like Lesotho.…...and Rwanda is 26,338 and.......UK 243,610” 

Thanks Pam.

So now we know when we are told that we should compare to an area the size of Belgium we know exactly what we are talking about. I don’t see any reason to use Kilometers, I feel it would make me quite, well, French!

I also looked up the other place that is used for meaningless comparison and I found out two things.

1.       Wales is 8,022 sq. miles in area and

2.       if they flattened out all those mountains it would be bigger than England.

Fascinating fact -  Lesotho is about the same size as Belgium.

17^th March 2013 

Having had such an interesting few days in Durban, where we were reunited with our home, we then spent the week end with Sheryl and Gary's family and friends, where we were thoroughly spoiled and well looked after. Our experience of South African hospitality just got better and better....wow!

Dinner with Sheryl (L) and Gary 

Eating again in their beautiful garden

18th March 2013

We returned to the Shoestring Lodge in Johannesburg  after an exhausting 8 hour drive.  The journey was so tiring partly because we are now driving on 1^st world quality roads and so we found ourselves driving 600 km in such a short time. It is easy to underestimate how much traveling you can cram into such a time.  Some folks are never satisfied.

We visited my old friend Charles whom I have known from our nursing days. Charles has had an astonishing career, having left (then) Ian Smith’s Rhodesia many years ago to arrive in Britain as a student nurse. I am delighted to find that he has gone on to have a distinguished academic legal career in South Africa. Wow! Professor and Doctor, not sure which title to use.  We had such a nice reunion having not met for more than 30 years. I very much hope it won’t be the last.

Shoestrings is a different kettle of fish. The place and the people have not changed, but the ever generous owners, Rob and Tabitha, now have us camping in their huge and lovely garden. They have allowed us to take our time and do all the cleaning and maintenance that is now needed on the van after the punishment of driving through West Africa.

Pegasus parked in with the incredible fleet of Wicked hire vans.

Rob has even permitted us to use his workshop, I am overwhelmed with such generosity.  So we are taking a fairly leisurely time to get all our housekeeping and repairs done.

The van is clean and serviced. YES! We have had the electrics sorted out, we hope, once and for all. We have decorated the van a bit and I am currently making some structural changes inside the van to give us a bit more storage space.

Rob preparing for one of his legendary Shoestrings barbecues

Life at the Shoes String Lodge is never dull. Many visitors come and go, some stay for a night, others for longer, but they all have a story to tell. Like our previous encounters with other travellers  we find ourselves meeting and talking to the most fascinating of travellers - people of all ages, backgrounds and nationalities. We’ve experienced many interesting meetings; some people we very much hope to meet again. It has been enjoyable stimulating and informative.

The different nationalities gathering daily at the dining room table can sometimes provide a good anthropological study of social behaviours . It's difficult for me to be an observer, but one particular afternoon, I found myself doing just that. As it happened, there were a number of people around the table when I sat down to drink my tea. Around the table were: a young American with an unfortunate sense of humour, a very quiet young German Girl, two Indian men, whose English was good but their comprehension of what was happening around them was a bit lumpy. They also appeared to have a bit of an agenda going  between them, a little bit of friction. There was also a vocal Swedish man who was really quite deaf but seemingly unaware of the fact.

I sat and watched / listened to the most spectacular display of miscommunication which burned steadily for most of the afternoon. It was quite chaotic and largely unproductive. Added to this, a quite distracted woman would enter the room every now and then, and try to join in with the conversation, either make a statement that would reinvigorate the discourse or ask a question but not stay around for the answer. With the two Indians sniping gently at each other and the Swede making some provocative statement and then failing to either understand  or sometimes to hear the responses. It became a little like a pantomime. Nobody was actually listening to anyone, if they did, they appeared to respond as though they have not understood what was said.........but they seemed to be enjoying themselves.

This went on all afternoon,  that was until, with the house fully booked, the group of non English speaking Chinese turned up with no reservation and proceeded to join in, mainly to try to get someone at the table to help them meet some seriously unrealistic wishes and expectations of their coming days touring. There was much gesticulation and arm movements, in the end, I felt sorry for them and asked Ping to see what she could do to help. She could not manage German, Swedish or Hindi, but she did step in and, in Chinese, she soon sorted them out. No small undertaking. The others carried on as though nothing had happened.

25th March 2013

We remain living at Shoestrings, Rob & Tabitha have adopted us and refused to let us leave. They have allowed us to be very much living as part of their everyday life rather than as hotel guests. This has been such a benefit and Ping has been doing what she does so well and producing some pretty good dinners.

Good Friday

Tune in ,Turn on, drop out., but do the cleaning first

There are still some jobs to be done on the van and we are stalled a little as our next move will be to drive to Kruger National Park but we are strongly urged to leave it until after the school Easter break. Apparently it gets seriously crowded during the holidays.

Easter Monday

What of our plans?

In a week or so we will set off for Kruger National Park which sounds like a truly fascinating place to be. We plan to spend 3 or 4 days there and maybe finally  get to see some lions and tigers. We will then travel to the coast and to do some serious tourism along the way. We have made plans to meet with our friends that we travelled with for a short time way back in Morocco. That seems like a lifetime ago. We hope to link up with them in Namibia or there about.

Just before submitting this I would like to add three 'stop press'  items . 

• Having spent a fortune on electrical work  our fridge has again stopped working. this is really not fair! Auto electricians full of apology, taking van back tomorrow.
• The Chinese left having a fairly major disagreement between themselves  but nevertheless  they trooped off to Kruger to see the lions and tigers.  However one of them has just returned alone!  No real explanation, according to Ping,  as to what became of the others. Hmmmm!
• We have just met a chap over breakfast. He seemed a nice enough chap. When I asked him what he does for a job .  He told me that he has a job in Cape Town where he  pushes people off a bridge!  'Oh' says I how do they feel about it. He held my gaze and with a stony expression he flatly said " some of them scream and some of them go quietly"

The  Executioner

So there we are, we're off to Soweto now, and day after tomorrow, we'll set of to Kruger

Love you all! 

Cheers

Noel+Ping

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