Friday, July 25, 2008

Quick Note

We've reached Pilanesburg National Park and are awaiting our transport to Tshkudu Bush Lodge. We got here early because the Apartheid Museum didn't open when we thought it did, so we decided to leave and go to Sun City. When we arrived there, they wanted to charge us to drive into the city. Imagine having to pass through a gate and pay an entrance fee to Las Vegas (supposedly that's what Sun City is modeled after...an oaisis built in the desert). So we have some time to kill here.

Thank goodness for GPS. We rented one in Jo-burg and were very happy we did - I doubt we would have found where we were going last night or today. Of course, when I was setting it up I hit the "shortest route" rather than "quickest route" button which ended up taking us through all different slices of life in the neighborhoods of the city.

I believe that the security industry is probably the largest employer in SA (actually, the country code is ZA or Zed A as it's called here). There is razor wire or electrified wire running over the top of just about every fence (and just about everything is fenced). There are also guards that monitor all of the doorway entries to places, and the guards that were placed at the hotel escorted us places whenever we requested (like to an ATM machine). Still and all, we never really felt unsafe.

Off on our safari - and since spending a relaxing time in the wild is the perfect setting for a competition, we're looking for the Big 5 - and apparently in the past couple of days, they've been spotting the ones we haven't seen...elephants, cheetahs, and lions. No contact for awhile - we'll try to check back in early next week.

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