The Second Half of the Adventure Begins
So it's now a little less than a week since I left Wits and the rest of my friends from the US have arrived. It's been an incredibly jam-packed few days and it's really hard to think how much we've all done. Especially when you factor in the jet-lag of the people who just got here. Wednesday after I finished up at Wits I was immediately picked up I was packed and ready to move out of my room at the international house. I am now staying at the orphanage in Roodepoort where my friend lives and works and it's been a wonderful place so far. After I left campus, we went to Montecasino, this gigantic indoor entertainment/dining/nightlife establishment near Sandton to watch the US game at the FIFA FanZone there. However, they had elected to show the England game, and not the US game so we were quite miffed. We had not bought our tickets yet though, so we found a bar with some other incensed Americans, ordered some beer, and began watching the most agonizing 90 minutes of soccer I have ever watched. The US v Algeria game left my shoulders incredibly tense, my heart pounding and sense of elation I will not soon forget. I have never been in such physical pain watching a game though. It was also great because there were at least 10 other Americans with us and they were drinking Budweiser and yelling a LOT, so I felt right at home. Montecasino is not at all South African, or even African. Once you're inside, you could be anywhere in the world and you wouldn't know the difference. So obviously the game, although painful to watch, ended up being the greatest thing ever. Not ONLY did the US win the match, we won the GROUP which meant tha
t we had tickets to see them play on Saturday night.
For those of you who don't know, I have been planning this trip to South Africa for about 4 years. Since the Germany World Cup in 2006, my friends from college and I decided that we needed to go to the next one and that we would all go together. Our friend Benji had already been to Cape Town to dive with the sharks for his W&M Monroe Project, so he was excited to go back when we found that it was in South Africa. We bought the tickets to the games on the first day of the first ticketing phase which over 18 months ago. 1.5 years later, everything was coming together. All our plans have come to fruition and the trip is actually happening. I can hardly believe it's happening even as I sit here living it.
So on Thursday, we had the whole day and a rental car with unlimited miles. We drove to the Magaliesburg and visited Hartbeespoort Dam, Sun City resort and Pilanesberg National Park. The Dam is just a lovely spot to get out and take pictures, not much other than that. Sun City was very Las Vegas. It had one extremely opulent, over-the-top hotel called the Palace Hotel. A HUGE fountain and man-made lagoon greeted you upon entry and the hotel itself was gigantic. We are pretty sure a few of the teams were staying there as many official looking people were milling about. We scoped out the Palace hotel, grabbed lunch, made fun of the monorail, tried to play the slot machines, then we visited the man-made beach and while walking over a bridge we witnessed a fake jungle earthquake and lots of smoke, which reminded me of the Indiana Jones show at Disney World. Then we went to their gooooorgeous golf course which made me want to drop everything and go play nine holes right then and there. We headed out and on to the National Park. There's only so much kitsch you can handle in one sitting. (I'll get to it later, but my tolerance and love for South African kitsch is steadily growing with every attraction I visit).
Pilanesberg National Park was fantastic. I'm glad we spent the afternoon there. We saw lots of wild life: wildebeest, waterboks, springboks, kudus, giraffes, elephants, zebras, hippos, rhinos, and lots of different kinds of birds. I kept wondering why it was so much coole
r to see them here than in the zoos where I have seen them all before (except wildebeest). I think it's because there is nothing between you and the animals when you're in these parks. They are just there, living their lives without walls or pens or zookeepers feeding them. Just coming upon a rhino eating his afternoon snack is much cooler than the one who is trying to hide from all the people leaning over the fence to catch a glimpse at him. I wouldn't have wanted to spend too much more time there though because it did get a little hard driving on these really rough, unpaved roads, constantly straining to see animals. I was a little jealous of the people in the huge 4x4 safari vehicles with the open tops. But Pilanesburg has all the big five (elephant, rhino, cape buffalo, lion and leopard) and is an easy day -trip from Jo'burg if you don't have time to get further out in the bush.
The drive home from Pilanesburg was a little harrowing. It was pitch dark and the roads were all single-lane. It was definitely baptism by fire on my first day of driving SA style. The traffic rules in Jo'burg are loosely adhered to and you have to constantly be on the lookout for people who run red lights way after they turn, taxis that suddenly stop in the middle of the road or change lanes into you, and people walking on the highways. All of these happened more than once on the drive home. It made the fact that I was going to be the one driving home from Rustenburg at 2 in the morning after the US game on Saturday a little harder to handle. But it was a great trip aside from that.
Friday was the day the rest of my friends arrived. They weren't due to arrive for a few hours and we had dinner reservations for that evening so we had pretty much the whole day. We spent it with Amy and three of the kids for the first half of the day. We went to the beautiful botanical gardens which had one really nice waterfall with a quick hike up to the top. We saw tons of grasshoppers the look just like leaves on trees. In fact, we wouldn't have noticed them except the leaves on the trees were moving and there was no wind, and on closer inspection, most of the "leaves" were these huge grasshoppers. It was something straight out of Planet Earth. We then had lunch at a nice outdoor cafe with a playground and pony-rides and a small petting zoo for the kids. South Africa has a lot of very kid-friendly places, and I'm getting to know where they are since I've been hanging out with a lot of young ones lately. I think their outdoor cafes are so lovely. Even though it's pretty chilly at night, the days are full of sunshine and have been in the 70's. We had a very nice lunch, and then we drove back to the orphanage and hung out with the kids until it was time to go pick up my friends and then go to dinner.
Dinner that night was at Carnivore which is sort of out in the country. If you have ever been to a Brazilian steakhouse before (Fogo de Chao or Texas de Brazil for DCers), they come around with huge pieces of meat on skewers and it's all you can eat. Carnivore is the same exact thing except with African game meat. On the menu for the night was wildebeest, impala, crocodile, zebra, kudu, among other things. I liked the crocodile the best. It was a pleasant intersection of chicken and fish in one meat. So the meat was more novelty fun than truly delicious. It was a great place for us to go on everyone's first night in town though. They were exhausted but still managed to find energy to eat some strange animals and drink some Castle lager.
t we had tickets to see them play on Saturday night.For those of you who don't know, I have been planning this trip to South Africa for about 4 years. Since the Germany World Cup in 2006, my friends from college and I decided that we needed to go to the next one and that we would all go together. Our friend Benji had already been to Cape Town to dive with the sharks for his W&M Monroe Project, so he was excited to go back when we found that it was in South Africa. We bought the tickets to the games on the first day of the first ticketing phase which over 18 months ago. 1.5 years later, everything was coming together. All our plans have come to fruition and the trip is actually happening. I can hardly believe it's happening even as I sit here living it.
So on Thursday, we had the whole day and a rental car with unlimited miles. We drove to the Magaliesburg and visited Hartbeespoort Dam, Sun City resort and Pilanesberg National Park. The Dam is just a lovely spot to get out and take pictures, not much other than that. Sun City was very Las Vegas. It had one extremely opulent, over-the-top hotel called the Palace Hotel. A HUGE fountain and man-made lagoon greeted you upon entry and the hotel itself was gigantic. We are pretty sure a few of the teams were staying there as many official looking people were milling about. We scoped out the Palace hotel, grabbed lunch, made fun of the monorail, tried to play the slot machines, then we visited the man-made beach and while walking over a bridge we witnessed a fake jungle earthquake and lots of smoke, which reminded me of the Indiana Jones show at Disney World. Then we went to their gooooorgeous golf course which made me want to drop everything and go play nine holes right then and there. We headed out and on to the National Park. There's only so much kitsch you can handle in one sitting. (I'll get to it later, but my tolerance and love for South African kitsch is steadily growing with every attraction I visit).
Pilanesberg National Park was fantastic. I'm glad we spent the afternoon there. We saw lots of wild life: wildebeest, waterboks, springboks, kudus, giraffes, elephants, zebras, hippos, rhinos, and lots of different kinds of birds. I kept wondering why it was so much coole
r to see them here than in the zoos where I have seen them all before (except wildebeest). I think it's because there is nothing between you and the animals when you're in these parks. They are just there, living their lives without walls or pens or zookeepers feeding them. Just coming upon a rhino eating his afternoon snack is much cooler than the one who is trying to hide from all the people leaning over the fence to catch a glimpse at him. I wouldn't have wanted to spend too much more time there though because it did get a little hard driving on these really rough, unpaved roads, constantly straining to see animals. I was a little jealous of the people in the huge 4x4 safari vehicles with the open tops. But Pilanesburg has all the big five (elephant, rhino, cape buffalo, lion and leopard) and is an easy day -trip from Jo'burg if you don't have time to get further out in the bush.The drive home from Pilanesburg was a little harrowing. It was pitch dark and the roads were all single-lane. It was definitely baptism by fire on my first day of driving SA style. The traffic rules in Jo'burg are loosely adhered to and you have to constantly be on the lookout for people who run red lights way after they turn, taxis that suddenly stop in the middle of the road or change lanes into you, and people walking on the highways. All of these happened more than once on the drive home. It made the fact that I was going to be the one driving home from Rustenburg at 2 in the morning after the US game on Saturday a little harder to handle. But it was a great trip aside from that.
Friday was the day the rest of my friends arrived. They weren't due to arrive for a few hours and we had dinner reservations for that evening so we had pretty much the whole day. We spent it with Amy and three of the kids for the first half of the day. We went to the beautiful botanical gardens which had one really nice waterfall with a quick hike up to the top. We saw tons of grasshoppers the look just like leaves on trees. In fact, we wouldn't have noticed them except the leaves on the trees were moving and there was no wind, and on closer inspection, most of the "leaves" were these huge grasshoppers. It was something straight out of Planet Earth. We then had lunch at a nice outdoor cafe with a playground and pony-rides and a small petting zoo for the kids. South Africa has a lot of very kid-friendly places, and I'm getting to know where they are since I've been hanging out with a lot of young ones lately. I think their outdoor cafes are so lovely. Even though it's pretty chilly at night, the days are full of sunshine and have been in the 70's. We had a very nice lunch, and then we drove back to the orphanage and hung out with the kids until it was time to go pick up my friends and then go to dinner.
Dinner that night was at Carnivore which is sort of out in the country. If you have ever been to a Brazilian steakhouse before (Fogo de Chao or Texas de Brazil for DCers), they come around with huge pieces of meat on skewers and it's all you can eat. Carnivore is the same exact thing except with African game meat. On the menu for the night was wildebeest, impala, crocodile, zebra, kudu, among other things. I liked the crocodile the best. It was a pleasant intersection of chicken and fish in one meat. So the meat was more novelty fun than truly delicious. It was a great place for us to go on everyone's first night in town though. They were exhausted but still managed to find energy to eat some strange animals and drink some Castle lager.
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