Grocery shopping again.
Rural life.
Scenes from our Cascades hike.
The new group: David, Megh, Linda, Manus and Sima.
Monday, December 4th.
We packed up, had breakfast, loaded up
the truck, said goodbye to John and Stephanie (who is shattered that
she is going home and we are continuing). Then we set off for
Drakensberg. It was about a three hour drive and we stopped once at a
service station. At Drakensberg we did another Spar grocery store
shop for the next two dinners and lunches for ourselves.
While standing in a line with Jay to
pay for the groceries a white woman, who was about 50 lined up behind
us with hers. When she saw the size of our two grocery carts she
asked where we were going and where I was from. I got to talking to
her and she told me that she is South African and has moved to
Drakensberg because of work. She does not like the town and that it
is not safe to go out after eight and that women have to be careful
if they are alone. She told me that the white population is
decreasing as people feel that the country is regressing and not
progressing and that racism is getting worse. So people are
emigrating. I mentioned that I have not seen any pictures of Nelson
Mandela anywhere and she said it is amazing how fast people forget.
She said the country is getting scary. I saw she was checking out
with a cake and said it looks like you are going to a party. Turns
out it was her birthday.
Then we drove to the backpackers place.
It the best place so far. Great rooms and facilities. I have a new
room mate for some reason, I now have Nathan.
We all went to the reception area to
hear information about hikes for tomorrow. Then we all re-boarded the
truck and Colin drove us to Royal Natal Maloti Drakensberg Park,
which is a World Heritage Site. Here we went on a three hour hike
called The Cascades which took us pretty steeply up to a large
lookout rock that gave us a great view of the area they call the
Amphitheatre as the mountains form a semi circle around the area.
Really a beautiful place and a great walk.
On the way down we saw a couple of bush
buck and three baboons. We drove back to the backpackers and Jay
prepared us a braai (or barbeque dinner).
New roommate!? Should'a stayed with Mama!
ReplyDelete