Catch up time

I'm back in Johannesburg, after several days on a safari trip in the African bush. We were in a pretty remote part of South Africa that ... didn't have internet!

But I still captured all my bloggie thoughts on Word document, so now I'm going to paste them here, for all to read.

Downtime

According to our original itinerary, Charlotte York and I are supposed to be enduring a four-hour drive from Ladybrand to Johannesburg, before boarding a flight to Nelspruit airport where we are to be picked up for a three-hour drive to our safari lodge.

Fortunately, we changed our plans and made the hike to Johannesburg last night. We booked a last-minute room at the Silverwood Manor and we're spending this morning in lounge mode. It's a beautiful, sunny day in Johannesburg, but we've been warned that it's a pretty unsafe town so we're just reading and lying around.

Sadly, the current renovations have robbed us of the chance to use the gym or to borrow a DVD (We're not quite sure what the renovation has to do with the DVD library, but we decided not to push it.), but it was nice to use the very luxurious shower after our refusal to get clean while in Semonkong.

Toasty

This morning, I was introduced to Beefy Bovril, a savory meat and vegetable spread that South Africans spread on their morning toast. I was a bit apprehensive (mostly because of the substance's name), but it turned out to be quite delicious!

The mountain kingdom

Yesterday morning we woke up early and made the nearly four-hour drive from Ladybrand to Semonkong, Lesotho. Our destination was the Semonkong Lodge, a rustic little lodge high atop some of the most magnificent mountains I've ever seen.

Lesotho is often called the "mountain kingdom" and for good reason. It wasn't like there was a single mountain range to cross, but we kept going over mountain pass over mountain pass, along a very rocky unpaved road. You can imagine how my back felt after the rickety journey.

Along the way, we passed many little tiny villages of thatch-roofed huts and corrugated tin shacks. Men and women walked alongside the roads with beautiful, heavy wool blankets pinned across their chests and boys herded sheep along to find new grass upon which to graze.

The people of Lesotho, the Basotho, are very peaceful and we encountered one little boy, approximately four years old, who tried to hold a conversation with us. He spoke to us in Sosotho, and we explained that we couldn't understand him, but he continued to hold his end of the conversation until he got bored of us and walked away.

We made our way to the Maletsunyane Falls, a very spectacular waterfall that is apparently home to the longest abseil drop in the world. I can't really describe how spectacular it was, feeling like you're on top of the world, gazing across a huge gorge at a stunning waterfall.

At each of our meals in Semonkong, we had the most delicious bread, crusty on the outside and soft on the inside. They used it as toast for breakfast, to accompany our soup, as a bun for a cheeseburger and as a pita for shwarma. But we didn't get tired of it and I really couldn't get enough.

Because of the altitude, it got very chilly at night, but fortunately we had some of those local blankets to keep us warm at night. And night came early because the lights cut off at 8pm, thanks to the unpredictability of the region's electrical supply.

While at the lodge, we met a few American Peace Corps workers and all were shocked that we chose to spend our vacation time in such a remote part of the world. But this past weekend was much more like the Africa I looked forward to visiting. People who live simpler lives, untouched natural beauty and spectacular skies for miles and miles.

Where everybody knows your name

We're spending the night in Ladybrand, a tiny town in South Africa near the Lesotho border, where our friend lives. It's a tiny, dusty little town and we're told that it's in the heart of Afrikaner country, the equivalent to "redneck territory" in the States.

After a very lovely dinner at a Chinese dinner (I might add that it was a very good Chinese meal in the middle of nowhere, Africa.), we headed out to one of the local bars. It was still early in the evening, so there weren't very many people out, but all of the other bar patrons were speaking Afrikaans.

Our host was the belle of the ball and she made her way around, saying hello to all the other locals. The bar's walls were adorned by a few liquor and beer advertisements and the three flat screen televisions were tuned into a cricket match. Under the fluorescent lighting, there was an interesting lighting effect that sprayed red and green dots all around the bar and an adjacent room had three pool tables, one of which we quickly took over.

It was actually a really interesting experience, being in the middle of nowhere, in a divey bar that played Eurotrash dance music (with a fun "Poker Face" remix thrown in for good measure). Our host's friend told us that if we were to walk in five years earlier, with our same eclectic group (two white South Africans, one black South African, an Indian woman, a Chinese American and a two white Americans), it might not have been a pretty picture. You really can't escape the ghost of apartheid in this country and it creates a tension that I am certainly not used to in San Francisco.

Brick shit house

This morning, we travelled to Lesotho, a tiny country completely surrounded by South Africa. It's a beautiful, mountainous country where 50 percent of the population is unemployed and HIV/AIDS rates are alarmingly high.

We met up with a former colleague and some of her friends and traveled to Maseru, the country's capital. There we joined some volunteers from Tzu Chi Foundation in helping to build a bathroom for a children's day care center.

At first, it was difficult to help out, and I largely felt useless, moving cinder blocks from one pile to another pile, closer to the structure. But eventually, I got into the groove and was troweling cement, laying bricks down and shoveling cement to different areas of the structure.

I can't say that I worked terribly hard, but it was nice to get into the community, work alongside some Basotho men and work toward building a needed structure in the community.

Farewell Cape Town

For our last meal in Cape Town, Charlotte York and I checked out the trendy restaurant, Beluga, where Prince Harry's girlfriend celebrated a recent birthday. It was a fun restaurant and I had the chance to try kingklip, a local fish that came highly recommended.

Now that the Cape Town portion of our vacay is over, I have mixed feelings about the city. It certainly does have natural beauty, but the disparity between black/white, poor/rich is very startling. Furthermore, the fact that it's not safe to explore on one's own was pretty disappointing.

I think I'd go back and experience the beaches and nightlife during the summer, but it doesn't feel representative of the African experience I'm looking for during this trip.