Hi, my liewe vriende! Hoe gaan dit met julle? As most of you probably already know, I have been in South Africa again. Spent a whole month there. Left Sweden on the 10th of January 2003 and I got back home on the 8th of February 2003 again. My plane was a few hours late. Flew Air France. My plane from Copenhagen was cancelled and I had to fly SAS (Scandinavian Airlines System) instead to get to Paris, France, where I was going to transfer to my South Africa-plane. In Paris, the staff at Air France put me on a waitinglist although I had booked my ticket already in August 2002. I got furious, but what could I do. I did get a seat in this plane after some hours waiting. I was very worried at first. The Air France staff were all very unfriendly. I hope you will like reading my story, and that noone will feel hurt. I have just been honest here, telling what really happened.
When I landed at Jan Smuts Airport, the black man at the Customs wanted to steal/confiscate my money. I had been writing on my landingcard that I was bringing 10 000:- R in cash into the country. He claimed that wasn´t allowed and that I had to give him 5 000:- R. It would have been allowed bringing much cash into South Africa, if I was bringing it in foreign currency. I was sure he was going to steal my money, and I didn´t know what to do. I had to plead and say ”Please sir”, let me keep my money, a several times. After 30 minutes he gave up, and I was walking out of the Costums with all my money left, and I thought, - Kaffir, jy sal kak!
In spite of what I just mentioned I had a wonderful time there again. I really love South Africa. My friend Antonie Botes (Tony) picked me up at Johannesburg International Airport and his friend Judy and her mum were also with him. We spent the first night in the Pretoria Backpackers guesthouse in Pretoria. The place was familiar to me as I also spent 2 nights there with Tony in november 2001. The first evening Tony and I went out with his friends Johann and Dianne. We had a lovely evening. Went to the ”Dros” restaurant and had a lovely meal. Afterwards we went to a place called ”Down Town”, which was also situated in Pretoria. Had the most lovely shooters like Springbok etc. One shooter called ”Womens revange” was absolutely disguisting!I have to laugh about it when I am thinking about it now. The next morning Johann and Dianne drove us to the busstation and Tony and I took the bus to Durban. We had been planning this vacation for ages. In Durban the owner of the guesthouse ”Honeypot” in Uhmlanga, Bob picked us up. We had booked 2 weeks in that guesthouse. ”Honeypot” was such a cute place. Bob was managing the guesthouse together with his wife Heather and the granny. Don´t know if the ”granny” was his or Heathers mum, but Granny was so cute and such a sweet old lady. Uhmlanga was really beautiful although I hated the humidity there. The beaches were lovely. In Kwazulu Natal are really a lot of Indians, and they spoke in a very funny accent. Went out to eat many times, and we tried Indian curry. It was so spicy and I was sick in the stomach the whole next day. The weather was great all the time except from a few heavy thunderstorms with lots of lightnings.
We also went to the big shoppingcenter called ”Gateway” , which is the largest one in South Africa. We also spent some time at the pool of the guesthouse, and we got a lovely tan, both of us. There was also a sharkboard called the ”Natal Sharkboard” that we visited. It was nice, but a terrible smell of a dead shark.We also took the taxi to Durban, which was quite expensive. I think we paid 100 R, single trip to Durban. And it was only like 200 km´s between Durban and Uhmlanga. Uhmlanga is prounanced UMSCHLANGA in the Zulu langauge. The Zulu´s were very friendly, tall and handsome people.They liked the word "NGIYABONGA" which means thank you in Zulu and they smiled very friendly when you said ngiyabonga to them. I also learned how to say: Hello=Sawabuna, Bye=Salakahle, yes=yebo, no=cha and how are you=Kujani and excuse me=Uxolo. We spent the 2 weeks swimming and being in the sun, eating good food, enjoying good drinks like beer, wine, shooters, Southern Comfort etc. Also bought some nice T-shirts which all looked very sexy on me!
I had been in touch with a guy called David on the net. He is an englishspeaking South African. All my other South African friends speaks Afrikaans. Tony and I spent one day with him and his friend Adriaana. David picked us up outside Wimpy in Uhmlanga and we drove to Adriaanas beautiful apartment in Ballito. Ballito was even more beautiful than Uhmlanga, a lot greener, lots more flowers and the beach was beautiful there too. Adriaana took us to the beach and we drank some wine and shooters there that we all had brought along. It was quite nice laying there in the seawater getting a bit tipsy! Adriaana invited us for supper, and we went back to her place after the day at the beach. Adriaana is the daughter of a former South African Minister, and she also has a 9-year old daughter called Jessica. Jessica did Tony´s and my hair! Her big dream was to become a hairdresser. She was also quite good at the Zulu language, something that Adriaana didn´t like! LOL :-). Tony and I were quite surprised when Adriaana started talking about ”Dora”´s. I won´t tell you what that is, if you don´t know for yourself! LOL :-) The next day we went to see a guy called Werner, who we had met at Adriaanas party. We had some nice wine on his terrace. It was a lovely evening, and the sky was full of stars. We saw the ”Southern cross”, which was great to see. The weeks in Uhmlanga passed by quite fast. When our weeks there was over Bob took us to the busstation in Durban. Those Greyhoundbuses are really quite comfortable and it was nice going the scenic route instead of flying, seeing the wonderful beautiful nature along the road. We were in Pretoria around 7 pm. We had to wait at the busstation for 30 minutes before Johann and Dianne came to pick us up. It was quite scary as there were many drugaddicts outside the busstation. Johann and Dianne came and they drove us from Pretoria to Pietersburg, or Polokwane as it is called these days. Dianne wanted to go to Pietersburg anyway as she originally comes from there, and she wanted to visit her mum. Pietersburg changed name to Polokwane very recently. Nowadays the blacks wants to have black names on all cities and remove the former white names. Pretoria is called Tshwane now in the Sotho langage. We arrived in Pietersburg around midnight, after having been driving 300 km´s. Tony´s mum Tannie Ritta was waiting for us. I also met Tony´s new dog Dimitri for the first time. I really loved Dimitri. He is the cutest and kindest dog I have ever met. And Dimitri was really fond of me too. He absolutely adored me. In Pietersburg I met more of Tony´s friends like Ilana, for a meal out at a pizzaplace.( I have met Ilana before and I really like her), Jock for a drink. He is a nice guy too, Michael very shortly at his birthdayparty, and Jocks sister Liezel and one of her friends out for meal and drinks. Also met Lisa very shortly at the Savannah shoppingcenter. Tony got me a beautiful silverring at this shoppingcenter. Tony had recently got his driving license and he showed me nice places around Pietersburg such as Tzaneen, the Pietersburg game park etc. We had a braai (barbecue) in the park after the gameviewing Tony and I and Tannie Ritta. Stayed a week in Pietersburg, and it was very nice. The only thing which was boring is that Tony is obsessed with TV. He is watching everything available and it isn´t even possible talking to him while he is watching TV. He isn´t listening at all. During my stay in Pietersburg I did Swedish cooking, meatballs or minceballs what ever you prefer with hasselbackspotatis (potatoes made in the oven) and mushroomsauce for Tony, Tannie Ritta, Tannie Rosa and Oom David. They all loved it.
The last week I was supposed to spend with Ronel and Anton van Zyl. They are very good friends of mine and I have met them twice before during my previous trips to South Africa. Tony was supposed to drive me to Potgietersrus. We drove a few case and Tannie Ritta was along. Suddenly the car broke down. We had to call Tannie Rosa to get someone who could come and pick us up and the car as well, and we had to go all the way back to Pietersburg. There we had to borrow the car of Liezel, Jocks sister. And I finally got to Potgietersrus. There Ronel and Anton were waiting for me. It was so nice to see them again. The memories of our previous exiting trips together were in my thoughts when I saw them again. First we went into a small museum that we found in Potgietersrus. It was a quite interesting small museum, with old ”boer”-things etc.
Then we started our drive to the Mabula game farm. We drove quite far and it was very warm in the car. We had to stop to buy cool-drinks along the road. We also stayed in Warmbath and did some shopping for groceries, as groceries are expensive at Mabula. In this shop in Warmbath I forgot paying for a bag of coal that we had underneath everything in the shoppingtrolley. I paid for everything else though, so I didn´t do my shoplifting on purpose! LOL! Mabula was absolutely lovely. We staid in a lovely lodge with 3 bedrooms, and the living room was huge. We had lots of wild animals around the house, gecco-lizards climbing the walls, squirrels peeping in and even running the floor!, and we had huge porcupines coming to the lodge at night. We used to feed them with cabbages, mango´s etc. They absolutely loved the cabbage and the ate like pigs! LOL. We feeded the African wildcats around the house with meat.
We went on quite many gamedrives. We went up very early to go on the early gamedrives. Then we went up around 5 am. It was different gamerangers driving the routes different days, and that was kind of fun comparing their way of being towards the people in the 4x4 and their different knowledges etc. We had one gameranger called Michael, and he seemed to be obsessed about ”shit”. He loved showing us dungbeetles and different dung (shit) from different animals. LOL! We saw lots of different animals like impala, wildebees, elephants, rhinos, hippos, lions, jacals, hyenas, crocodils, giraffs etc. You can see some of the animals below and there you can also see Michael, or ”Mister Shit”, what ever you prefer. We also went on sunsetgamedrives. Loved the gamedrive with one gameranger called Tania. She had so much knowledge about everything. Also loved the smell in the bush in the early mornings. I will never forget that smell. It is the real smell of Africa, and not any perfume in the world is nicer than that smell. I loved the company of Ronel and Anton. We had nice braai´s in the evening and watched all the wild creatures from the terrace of our lodge. After one day Ronel and Anton´s friends Carel and Adele came to visit. I must say that I really liked Adele. A very nice woman and very friendly. Carel is very nice too.I did some cooking at Mabula too for Ronel, Anton and myself.It was filet of pork the swedish way with jasmin rice and green peas. The day Carel and Adele came we had the leftovers of my meal for lunch. We did go on a liondrive too. The gameranger stopped the 4x4, and started talking in his communicationradio. Then suddenly the male lion of the lionfamily that we had stopped the car to watch, started running. He was charging us and Anton and I bent over to protect ourselves and were hoping that the lion would jump over us, and take the people who were sitting in front of us instead. Ronel was calm and she was just sitting there taking pictures of the charging lion. The gameranger heard us shouting and he started the car, and I must say we were seconds from being lionfood. It was quite a scary experience. I was shivering for half an hour afterwards. The evening that Carel and Adele were going back to Pretoria they had been ordering delicious "yummy" food for us from the Mabula main lodge. And afterwards we had a braai(barbecue). We also drank wonderful Chardonnay wine which Carel had brought.
We also used the swimmingpool at the mainlodge and also the swimmingpools around the camp quite a lot. You really needed to get in the water after sitting in the heath for a long time. The swimmingpools were absolutely lovely.
The last day we drove from Mabula early in the morning. We stopped at Hartbeesportdamm, and there I bought craft again from the blacks. I have been to Hartbeesportdamm before, and I must say it is one of the most beautiful artificial places in South Africa. Bought a tall woodengiraff this time, and it looks good with my hippo that I bought in Zimbabwe 2001. Also bought some other small stuff. I was going to fly home 9 pm, and before that Ronel and Anton showed me the ”Menlyn” shoppingcenter in Pretoria. This shoppingcenter was quite similar to the ”Gateway” shoppingcenter in Uhmlanga. Ronel flattered me when I came home ICQ:ing me saying that the women kept watching me in the shopping Center! I hope it wasn´t because I was ugly! LOL!
My plane was delayed, and I must warm you guys. Never fly ”Air France”. It is such a shitty company So I am home again now. I want to thank Antonie and Anton and Ronel for a wonderful vacation!I love you guys! Hope to see you all again very soon. (Ek is nou regtig seker, dit ek ´n Afrikaaner in my verlede lewe het gewees!) LOL! Tot siens! Anders
Pictures from Uhmlanga and its surroundings! Above you can see the Honeypot Guesthouse
Antonie and I in the garden of Honeypot
The breakfastroom at Honeypot
Bob, Heather and Granny
Me at the Natal Sharkboard
The woods next to the lagoon
This is me in the wood
Tony in the wood
The lighthouse at Uhmlanga
At the beach in Ballito
Tony and I
This is David and Tony
This is Adriaana
Beautiful Uhmlanga
Pictures from Mabula Camp
Our lodge at Mabula
Lions
Lions in the veld
A curious Giraff
Ronel, Anton, Carel, Adele and I.
Mr. "Shit", Michael.
Dungbeetles
Rhino
Zebra´s
A buck and a zebra
The terrace of our unit.
The view from our terrace.
Ronel, Anton, Carel and Adele
Me in the middle at the poolside.
April 14, 2006: David died a few years ago. He was a very nice guy. The candle is burning for him in eternity on the internet. Rest his soul and the memory of him!
