Weekend in South Africa with Ang

 

Angela and I spent the weekend at the Drakensberg, and then we headed on to her house in South Africa. She is South African, but is living in Swaziland for the year, serving as the clinic administrator. She still has her house in Durban, so we went to check on it.

We left on Friday morning and headed to "The Berg" (how the South Africans often refer to the Drakensberg.  We crossed the border in Lavumisa (Southern border) and then stopped for breakfast in Pongola. We went to Wimpy for burgers :)  At one point, we started chatting about our friend Jill. Two minutes later, who should show up, but Jill and her friend. It is such a small world! They also live in Swaziland, but had taken a day trip to South Africa. It was so nice to see them.

There has also been a postal strike in South Africa for the last two months. It is awful. It has delayed many of the postcards that I sent, a package I sent to my sister, and it is very frustrating for the clinic as well (unable to get eye drops, etc). At any rate, Mary (Jill's friend) found out we were going to Durban and there were several things she has been trying to obtain for weeks, but can't because of the postal strike. So we agreed to help her out and bring things back for her. Serendipitous!

The kids walking to school on Friday morning. They walk along fairly busy roads to get to school, all with no parental supervision. It is just a different way of life here in Africa. I can imagine all the parents in the U.S. freaking out at the thought of this.

Sugarcane on its way to the sugarcane plant.

Sugarcane plant. Sugarcane farming is Swaziland's largest industry.

This guy was just wandering on the side of the road...

Crossing the border into South Africa...

The ladies: Liz (American), Jill (English), Mary (Zimbabwean), Angela (South African). We were quite the international group!

Houses in South Africa

South African Countryside

A homestead in South Africa, near the Drakensberg.



It was a beautiful day for a drive! You can see the Drakensberg in the distance.

The lighting was really neat!

The Drakensberg mountains (they form the Eastern border of Lesotho).

Ang and I thought that this church was so pretty...unfortunately there was an old toilet bowl sitting out front...

We arrived in the early afternoon. We checked in, and it promptly turned cloudy and started raining. So we read and watched TV (neither of us has watched TV in over 3 months!)


 

Cathedral peak is the most famous/highest peak in this area of the Drakensberg mountains.

Drakensberg

The view out of our cottage window.



Our room at Didima.

Unfortunately, it was a very rainy day. But it was perfect weather for some R & R!

The next day (Saturday) was rainy as well. But Angela and I decided to go on a hike to Doreen Falls. We had a map from the hotel, but we soon realized it was terrible! The map wasn't to scale, landmarks were missing, etc. So our 2 hour hike turned into a 5 hour hike! Along the way, we ran into some Irishmen, who were also hiking to Doreen Falls, and like us, had gotten lost. So we stuck together and the five of us finally made it back to our starting point 5 hours later. It was great fun though, and we didn't get much rain during the hike.



Ang and the Irishmen hiking in the Drakensberg.



Doreen Falls (we finally found it!)



Ang with our well-used (and much hated!) map...

Sunday was rainy (again!), so we got up, had breakfast and headed to Durban (3 hour drive). We drove through the countryside on the "Midlands Meander", which is a route with little rural shops and restaurants along the way. It was a beautiful drive, and we even stopped to test a little South African beer :) We stayed at Angela's house on both Sunday and Monday nights. She was a great hostess and we had a lot of fun.

Rainy day!

Getting out of the cold!

Dinner at Stretta Italian restaurant in Hillcrest

Angela's house.

We made it back on Tuesday afternoon. We met Helen at the horse barn (we had some things to discuss). At any rate, when we got to the horse barn, we realized it was dentist day for the horses! Yep, the South African large-animal dentist came to work on the horses pearly whites. It was quite interesting!

 

Inspecting the bite.

The horse even got a mouth rinse afterwards!

It was a great trip, and very kind of Jono to let me take a couple days to head to South Africa!