Holiday Part 1

Hey, just got back from vacation. I got tired of writing, so this is just the first installment. Both pictures are from Mlilwane Wildlife Sanctuary.

I went on holiday. It was awesome. We caught a ride to Qwa Qwa, the border town nearest me, with my principal and caught the first taxi to Johannesburg. It left reasonably quickly and we got to Joburg in about three and a half hours. From there we transferred to a taxi to go to Nelspruit. The taxi took a little longer to fill up, but was a larger minibus and much more comfortable. Surprisingly we left before the taxi was completely full, so Mel and I had the entire back seat to stretch out and try to get comfortable for the 5 hour ride to Nelspruit. We both started going a little stir crazy about 3 hours into the ride, then we got a flat tire. They got it changed out in about 20 minutes and we were on our way again.

We were both tired when we got to Nelspruit and it was dark so we took a 4+1 (private taxi) to the backpackers. A man in a camouflage jump suite of pastel greens walked into the office ahead of us, and we followed him in. He sat down at the desk and looked at us. We looked at him, then at each other, then at him.

“We have a reservation for a double,” I say.
He says something in Zulu to Mel. She tilts her head a little to the right to amplify her quizzical look. “I speak English.” He speaks in Zulu for a much longer time. Mel just shrugs her shoulders at him.
“Do you have a double?” I ask again.

“Yes. Follow.”
We followed. The backpackers was cool. There were gazebos and bbq pits and a pool and ferns and palms. We certainly were not in Lesotho anymore. At one point he turne his camouflage jump-suited body around to point and grunt at a step down in the path. A few moments later he found a spherical lamp that wasn’t working and in a fit of maintenance inspiration began pounding on it with his palm and yelling at it. He must not have hit it properly because it didn’t turn on. We moved on.

He opened the building that our room was in, which appeared to be an old house that had been converted into a mixed backpacker building. He showed us what must have been the master bedroom. “You sleep here.” Okay. Then we shut the door and he opened the door to another room. “Or you sleep here.” Umm… Then he opened another room’s door, “Or you sleep here.” Mel and I looked at each other. We were too tired to figure out if this guy was just entertaining himself at our expense or if somebody had actually left him in charge of a large hostel. “We’ll just take the first one.” A nod from Mr. Camo confirmed the deal and we made our way back to the office to pay.

We put down our stuff and headed off in search of food. To our surprise and unmitigated joy we found a Chinese restaurant. Orange Chicken, rice, Shrimp Fried Rice and a bottle of their cheapest wine. It was a delicious meal and the first Chinese food either of us had had in 8 months. We slept well that night.

The next morning we walked back to the taxi rank and caught a taxi to Mbabane in Swaziland. Maybe caught isn’t the right word because it might lead you to believe that it left quickly. In actuality we found it easily then waited for 2 and a half hours for it to fill up. The trip to Mbabane was about 4 hours and fairly painless.

More will follow soon. School starts Monday, which is scary. Um, that's it for now.