NORMAL LIFE: South Africa, The Second Leg (Part One)
Saturday, 22nd December
We woke up quite early on what happened to be the day of South Africa’s midsummer. Last night had been another restless night, having been plagued with diarrhoea for several days now. After a quick shower, we threw on some shorts and t-shirts and made our way to the breakfast area where we were presented with fruit salad, toast and jam, and a fried breakfast with included – amongst the usual stuff – boerwors, a type of crumbly sausage eaten by the Dutch who have made their home in South Africa.
Elise and Wilem, our very sociable hosts, came to keep us company. Wilem tells us that he is twelve years older than Elise. Meanwhile, Elise jokes about his age, but points out that she is proud to be his first wife! What a funny couple, so at ease with us gays!
When we set off, we joined the N4, headed west, then took the R556 towards Pilanesburg, which would be our destination for the next two nights. On the way, as we made our through what seemed like a increasingly remote region, we noticed a few townships. The sky was blue, the climate in the car pleasurable. God bless air-con!
As we neared Pilanesburg, we saw a Spar and stocked up on fruit and drinks before checking into the Kwena Chalets, which is located just inside the Sun City Resort. The Kwena Chalets themselves are inside Kwena Gardens, which started in 1985, together with a sanctuary of 200 crocodiles. Today, the sanctuary has over 8,000 crocodiles, the oldest of which is more than 120 years old! Our receptionist guided us to our Rondawel, named ‘Tana’, after the lake of the same name, which happens to be the largest lake in Ethiopia. Bree was exhausted and, knowing there a was a live crocodile feeding session in a couple of hours time, we napped for two hours.
Before I settled down on the soft, white duvet of the double bed, I read the guest information, which provided some useful info about Sun City. The Lost City – the entertainment complex inside Sun City – cost a staggering R830m (€74bn) to build. Five thousand people were contracted to work on the building of the Lost City, during which an average 4,000 cubic metres of concrete was cast each month. To build the Palace, 3,300 tons of steel reinforcing rods were used, measuring a lengthy 2900 kilometres. Eighty million bricks were laid by 2000 bricklayers. With all these statistics, tiredness soon overcame me.
It was nearly 4pm when I woke up, just in time for the 4.30pm crocodile feeding time at the nearby Sanctuary. As we made away along the wooden pathway, we peered over the walls and into the pits below. Just a metre away, crocodiles dozed in the afternoon sun, waiting patiently for the arrival of their feeder. It was actually quite shocking how much the crocs stank, a putrid smell lingering in the air. We passed a small pack of Meerkats who, as we approached, rushed in our direct and, resting on their hind legs, gazed up at us in wonder! How cute!We continued along the route, arriving just in time for our host’s arrival. He was black, spoke very clear English and led us along the path where his colleague would dangle chicken above the water. Slowly, a huge croc would worm it’s way through the water, leaping an impressive height out of the water at the suspended chicken. It was an impressive show – some of the crocs were more than three metres long and, with so much activity in the water, the smells were stifling! The pathways, now packed with people, sealed their nasal passages with their hands, shaking their heads in disgust, wanting to stay and enjoy the show, but wishing that goddam stink just mercifully disappear.
As the show winded down, the crowds scattered, clambering along the wooden pathway which, at times, scaled above the croc-infested pond. We left Kwena Gardens, crossed a main road and headed towards the Sky Train monorail which would transports us to the Lost City, just in time for the last set of man-made waves at the Valley of the Waves. We were both very impressed by the layout and design of the man-made waves and after a while, now nearing 7pm, we decided to head back towards our accommodation to get ready for dinner. On our way back to the monorail station, we passed the Casino and the Food Village, realising that there was certainly enough to do to keep you here for a whole day.
Back at Kwena, I showered and could feel the sun in my now rosy cheeks. We took the courtesy shuttle bus to another complex inside Sun City, know as ‘The Cabanas’. As we entered the reception area, a life-sized model of Father Christmas, covered with twinkling lights, took up most of the room together with a model of two reindeers strapped to a sleigh. I was thinking that Father Christmas seems so out of place in such a warm country.There was no more room at the Cabana Buffet (you have to book in advance, apparently) so we were left with the option of going Al A Carte. We had a sumptuous three-course meal – it was so good that I can’t remember what it was, I just remember feeling good afterwards – with a bottle of South Africa Reisling. As we ate, a CD was playing, featuring tracks such as ABBA’s Dancing Queen and that 70’s hit, Hey Baby, the singer of which I don’t know.
By way of nightlife, Sun City has very little to offer us. There IS a nightclub, but there were a lot of black people on-site and I didn’t want us to run the risk of being the only gays in a club full of black people. We headed back to our Rondawel, downing a drink on our porch, listening to the very verbally active multitude of invisible crickets doing whatever it is they do. When we settled down inside, we switched on the TV and watched Beauty Shop, a hilarious, feel-good black movie starring Queen Latifah. And so it was with a full tummy and a smile that we went to bed.Sunday, 23rd December
We woke up quite early at 8am and breakfast turned out to be quite pleasing: cereal, muffins and custard pastries. The day was set to be a hot one, but fortunately we had a program that worked out well. First of all, straight after breakfast, we headed to Pilanesburg Safari Park, less than 2km from Sun City. After signing a disclaimer at the entrance, I paid the measly R70 (€7) fee and we set off on safari. In the first hour or so, as we slowly made our way along the rough surface, we saw baboons, zebra, giraffes, buffalo and a solitary elephant.
Just after midday, we took a break by pulling into the Pilanesburg Centre, which featured an observation point as well as a small supermarket where you could buy nibbles and soft drinks. I downed an ice-cold coca cola, Bree an ice cream and, on the way back to the car, we noticed a herd of elephants making their way across the plains in the distance. It was wonderful to see, better than any movie, as we shared the contents of a packet of salt and vinegar crisps!
We spent an uneventful afternoon cruising the plains for animals – we saw lots of kudu, impala and zebra, but nothing else. We headed back to Kwena Chalets and, after a nice cup of tea, took a nap. We woke up an hour and a half later, and took a bus (it’s quicker than waiting for the Monorail) to the Entertainment Centre which serves as an entrance to literally everything Sun City has to offer – restaurants, shops, fast food outlets, bars, casino and, where we were heading, the Valley of the Waves.
We spent two hours at ‘The Valley’, trying to body surf along the man-made waves and queuing for countless water slides – there was only three slides to choose from, but one was two scary, a kind of steep Kamikaze ride, while the other two, Viper and Mamba never lost their appeal in weather as good as this! Afterwards, we took our rubber rings into the Lazy River where, instead of being relaxing as was its intention, Bree and I raced and soaked eachother.
One hilarious incident was when Bree, underestimating the strength of the man-made waves, was sitting down in the shallows. Before we knew it, a one metre high wall of waves was bound for him and the gush literally knock him backwards, forcing his legs upon in the air into some kind of backward roll. It was funny as he spluttered back towards the surface of the now one-metre deep water, picking himself up afterwards.
By now, our skin was starting to bronze and coming to the Valley in the late afternoon had turned out to be the right thing to do. With the intense South African sun being what it is, you probably do need to be black to be outside all day in the heat. Before making out way back to the Entertainment Centre, we went for a quick walk around the pool area; lying some fifty metres above the man-made wave pool is a Greek-styled pool with an impressive waterfall in the distance – I think a lot of visitors don’t even get round to seeing this area, instead focusing on the boutiques and shopping, the eateries and the wave pool and water slides.We scaled the hundred or so steps towards the five star Palace Hotel which, I have to admit, looked impressive enough from the outside. Unfortunately, the area was open to guests only so we couldn’t see the well-publicised immaculately pieced together interior for ourselves. After taking photos of an even better waterfall than the one we had seen earlier, we made our back towards the Entertainment Centre, passing through the casino on the way. There were two types of casino: the serious fruit-machine types or the general gambling and gaming area.
For fun, we changed up R50 (€5) into coins and played the cascading coins machines. After I dropped a couple of coins, I could tell there was going to be a windfall as all the coins edged closer and closer to the metal edge. I was dismayed somewhat when my reward came in the form of tickets, which you had to redeem for gifts. We managed to leave with two whoopee cushions, one for each of Bree’s cheeky, young nephews.
We took the shuttle bus back to our chalet with just enough time for a quick shower and a Bacardi with cheery-ade before heading back to The Cabanas for dinner. We feasted on salads, meats and puddings at the all-you-can-eat buffet together with even more South Africa vino.
Back in our apartment by 10pm, we read our books (I was still making my way through the all-to-predictable John Grisham’s ‘The Innocent Man’), aware that somewhere in the roof, insects were moving. Oh no!, I thought, insects, insects, insects! God, I hate insects!
Monday 24th December
A restless night - because of those bloody insects playing on my mind – led to my awaking on Finland’s Christmas Day and England’s and South Africa’s Christmas Eve in a rather cranky mood. As we breakfasted, however, my mood was blown away as we saw that a young black boy, a little over two years old, had found a new friend, a young white girl of the same age. Probably speaking different languages, they delighted eachother anyhow playing hide and seek and squealing when discovered. It was amusing to watch them, a reminder of something that would have been forbidden during the Apartheid era.
We spent the morning at the Royal Spa, a Greek-styled swimming area we had happened upon the previous afternoon. Bree read his thick-as-a-brick Finnish novel while I check out some of the novelty trekking routes in the nearby hills which led up to the Palace Hotel; it was nice to wander among the lush vegetation on my own, bare foot.
It was time for us to check out of our apartment, but before heading back, we enjoyed Carrot Cake (my favourite sweet thing) with coffee. Having checked out, we were back on the road for what would turn out to be a spot of motorway madness. Making our way from Sun City, we followed the route the way we had come two days earlier. On the N4, we turned off at a place called Randburg, but the Randburg Lion Park was nowhere to be found! We stopped and asked for directions seven times and each one just sent us on yet another wild goose chase which led to nothing.After several hours, we seemed to be driving into a very black area, the likes of which I had not seen since I was at Lusikisiki a couple of years ago (read here). I got worried when I could see the tell-tale signs of Johannesburg in the distance which was somewhere we did NOT want to go. Tempers flared, like they do in these we-got-lost-because-you-didn’t-read-the-map-properly situations that couples often get into. To cut a long story short, we finally pulled into the driveway of the Lion Park, but was told by the ticket office that the park would close in twenty minutes. Bugger, I thought, but the guy said that they were open tomorrow, on Christmas Day!
Admitting defeat, we returned to Route 14, heading South on the N1 and into our next squabble over the map. Once again, we were seeing signs for Johannesburg so we pulled into a service area and reviewed the map once again. We should have gone North, not South. Bloody bajesus, Bree, you had the map upside down! Turning back on the N1, we reached the N4, went one junction east and, within minutes, pulled into the driveway of the guesthouse.
As much as it would have been nice to rest, we made a promise to pay a visit to Wia and Kalie so, after a quick shower and a visit to the food store, we turned up an hour late, apologizing profusely: we told them about how we got lost, how great Sun City was and how nice it was to visit Pilanesburg. On the porch, we tucked into assorted cheeses, breads, biscuits and crackers, grapes and lychees. It was gastronomic simplicity and tasted delicious.
Later on, we all crammed into Wia and Kalie’s home office where Wia proudly presented some of her collages, using photos she had taken – her photography has improved so much since we were last in the same room. Time flies whenever you’re having fun and, soon, it was pushing 11pm. We made tracks, but as we walked out to Wia’s driveway, she pointed out the planet Mars, a coppery red orb suspending in the sky. Before bed, we down the obligatory Bacardi, a sign that something was needed to help me sleep. And sleep we did, on this warmest Christmas Eve of all.
Elise had already placed our breakfast in the fridge the night before so that we wouldn’t disturb them - and they wouldn’t disturb us - on this most holy of public holidays. Having been forewarned by Wia that the Christmas buffet they planned to take us to was very filling, we ate the cold yoghurt with hot tea before Kalie and Wia arrived at 8am.
At Bree’s request – because he had been really looking forward to visiting Randburg Lion Park – Wia and Kalie had offered to go there with us. Bree and I muttered bitterly when, just fifteen minutes later, Kalie pulled into the driveway of the Lion Park, having found it with ease.The Lion Park – my second visit - was great: we saw white lions (including lot’s of animalistic copulation!), lion cubs, hyenas and cheetahs. The highlight, however, has to be the ‘Touch A Cub’ cage where a limited number of visitors could wade among a floor of lion cubs. Awww! The giraffe feeding was also a rather special memory – their tongues are sooo long!
Midday came and we arrived at the St George Conference Centre, where we would sit down for the traditional Christmas lunch. And traditional it was, with lot’s of British trimmings including turkey, the crackers and Christmas puddings; the history of this country was evident in the food that was available on this special holiday. After the lunch, we were stuffed and the hot weather wasn’t the best for lugging around a stuffed tummy. We took a drive through the city of Pretoria, including the Paul Kruger Building, the Union Buildings and the Vortrekker Monument. 
By 3.30pm, we got back at the guesthouse with nothing on our minds, but sleeping. We woke up again at 5.30pm and spent the evening with Kalie and Wia. Wia showed off the lovely photos of the Jacaranda trees in bloom in Pretoria. We finished off the cheeses, grapes, mangos and lychees along with a custard tart! Yummy! Mars wasn’t visible in the sky tonight for some reason, but we weren’t hanging around for long either as our bed was beckoning. We hit the sack by 10pm, amazed at how quickly another Christmas had come and gone.Wednesday, 26th December
In the breakfast room, coffee awaited us and bang on half eight, Elise comes to serve up a breakfast of fruit salad, juice, toast, coffee, eggs, bacon and mushrooms. As we ate, Elise told us about when she had visited London, to see her daughter who was working there in Leyton, quite a rough area; she hated the central heating and, to get some fresh air – and unbeknownst to her the dangers of Leyton – she would leave the front door open all day!
We headed off once again just after 9am, heading north on the N1 to Polokwane which, due to the black government’s determination to strip away parts of South African history, is apparently the new name for Pietersburg. How confusion to have a map which says Pietersburg, but signs telling you that Polokwane is ahead with Pietersburg no where to be found! If we hadn’t been told this, we would probably still be trying to find it two months later!
Two hours later, we joined the R71, stopping some thirty kilometres before reaching the town of Tzannen: we stocked up on food (knowing that at Kruger National Park, we could grill our own food), filled the tank with petrol and lunched at KFC. Using our credit card to buy KFC this far out into the countryside – it was very remote out here with simple box homes dotting the roadside and the poor hoping to sell mangos – turned out to be a bit of a drama. It seemed that they had installed the ‘chip’ system, but nobody knew how to use it. Bree showed the manageress how to use the console because, in South Africa, when the magnetic strip is used, our cards are not recognised for some reason. As the transaction was accepted and the receipt rolled out of the hand-held device, the manageress looked relieved and thanked us. Altogether, it took about twenty minutes to get our food! Hardly fast food, eh?
As we downed our chicken, fries and coleslaw, we got greedy and got two chocolate brownie sundaes to take away. I struggled to eat the sundae as we passed the meandering route along Hertsenberg, an area of immense greenery and forestry, housing tea and bananas plantations. We were approaching Phalaborwa, the northern gate for entry into the Kruger National Park when Bree pointed out the signs that said that the Dole plantations, which supplied apples and mangos to Finland, was actually here.
The last few kilometres of road were straight, stretching for what felt like forever and it started to look familiar from my visit back here in 2005: the smattering of hotels and bed and breakfast places, the petrol station where we had filled up before the park. We registered out arrival at Phalaborwa about 3.30pm and had three hours until the gates at Olifants closed. Olifants was about 90 minutes away so any game viewing today had to be brief otherwise we would be locked out with the wild animals!
We drove slowly along Route H-9, observing the 40 kilometre speed limit, before taking the S61 loop route to Sabie: here, we saw Impala (one of the many types of common antelope), the tail-less Zebra I had spotted in 2005 and Waterbuck, another type of common antelope with a very distinctive, unmistakable white ring around its rump. Having completed the loop, he were back on Route H-9 and, within minutes, we saw a lone elephant, which looked rather miserable as it snacked on some nearby leaves. It actually looked like it’s back had been burnt, perhaps by one of the recent bush fires, but Wia would later tell us – I took a photo of it and showed her – that it could have been dried mud.
Time was pressing and we had to move on so we took a detour towards Letaba, taking the S96 towards the S131. When we reached the S131, on that very corner, we saw a herd of elephants. Unaware that they were there, behind the bush, we had arrived quite speedily and so one of the male elephants was very cranky, flanking his ears at us in disapproval of our abrupt arrival on the scene. Having stopped, and detecting his unhappiness with our presence and not wanting to risk a stampede, we slowly drove away, indicating our surrender. Just metres away, however, we were blocked off by twenty of so elephants (including young calves, awww!) which made there way from bush-to-bush via the sandy road just five metres ahead. Wow!
Further along the S131 still, we saw a mother elephant and her young calf near the roadside. Mum was rubbing her back against a tree and her enormous weight caused the tree to shudder. We were alarmed when, rather suddenly, the mother stampeded one or two metres towards us, her massive ears waving, bidding us to get lost! In haste, not wanting to be victims found in a crushed car, we drove on.When we reached Letaba, we headed south on the H1-5, with nothing to see. We later joined the H8, bound for Olifants, arriving just before 6pm! We registered our arrival at the reception and check into Rondawel 13. As I parked and walked around the Rondval (the entrance was on the far side), I nearly cried! The view of the Olifants river, far below and in the distance, was amazing. We dumped our stuff in the apartment, then got hold of our binoculars and scanned the river below: hippos bobbed up and down in the water, while one wadded along the rich green banks on the right hand side.
We ate on the insect-infested porch, and noticed a HUGE stick insect hang on to an overhead light fitting – it was an amazing creature, the likes of which I had never seen before. It was so ugly yet mesmerising at the same time. We had left some sausages cooking while we ate our first plate-load of food so, having eaten, we returned to the front yard where we could see our neighbours, each one finishing up their own barbecue. We ate the boerwors and gazed up the stars – even through the dense branches of the tree-rich camp, you could see thousands of stars, more than I have ever seen in my whole life.
Back on the porch, we turned off the lights in a bid to get rid of the swarm of insets attracted by the fluorescence. We parked ourselves on the brick wall and, sitting close together and holding hands, we watched a lightning storm unfold somewhere far off in the distance. It was amazing to see the lightning reflect off the surface of the Olifants river which, now invisible in the darkness, was still audible.
posted by About Me: @ 10:55 am
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