An African Weekend. In Africa.

This past weekend was probably the best weekend I’ve had since in South Africa. The weekend we spent in Durban three weeks ago is a close second.

The plan for the weekend was to go to Swaziland to participate in and see the celebrations taking place for the King’s wedding to his 14^th wife. The plan. But what are plans when you’re in Africa? On Friday morning, Madison and I took a minibus to Budget car rental downtown at 8:30 and left the parking lot around 9:45. First just let me say how nice it was to be in a car with a friend going down the roads in Pretoria, free as a bird: it was nice; I was absolutely giddy. Madison, Brooke, Carmen and I left Tuksdorp at around 10:30 and headed south to Johannesburg on the N1 where we would connect with the N17 which heads east and leads right into Swaziland. Again, that was the plan. We got lost in Joburg attempting to navigate the interstates for about an hour until we finally found the N17 in the direction of eMbalenhle (there are no N, S, E, W directions on highway signs, only which major towns the highways go through – this proved difficult, as we had to scramble to find what towns were where in our atlas before taking a ramp). After a five hour drive on the N17 through towns and over mountains and plains, we ended up in the town of Hartebeeskop which is about seven km (4.3 miles) from the port of entry into Swaziland of Oshoek. For miles outside of Hartebeeskop we saw signs that read “Domestic animals, no fences.” It was true. There were cows and goats wondering the roads just grazing like nothing was going on. We were in Africa. When we arrived at Oshoek, it was about 4:45 PM (it gets dark here around 5:30) and there was a line of cars about half a mile long waiting to get in. It only went downhill from here (literally and figuratively – see pictures to follow). We waited on the road in the car for about four hours. During those four hours we walked around the road, witnessed a bar fight on the hill, got snacks at a convenience store before the border, listened to our iPods, and laughed at the situation we found ourselves in. But mostly we witnessed lots of people jumping the line, oftentimes driving on the wrong side of the road to get ahead. There was bribing, too, but not to the extent that there was just outright cutting. When we arrived there were about 60 cars in front of us but with the cutting it may have gotten all the way up to 150. Eventually we got passed the fence border cop and into a parking lot where we had to get out of our car that contained all of our belongings and get in another line with just people. That was at about 8:30 PM. We stood in line (this time no cutting) here for about an hour and a half. This is where we started to lose it. The man behind Brooke and I apparently had not heard of the magic of bathing. He was rank. I almost gagged. Several times. We covered our noses with our sweatshirts and mostly laughed about that half of the time we were in line. At some point we learned that there was only one immigration official working for the thousands who were in line both in person and in cars that by then extended about a mile and a half down the road. The border would close at 10 PM. People in line (more like people in mob, but whatever) were shouting and pushing, demanding to be let in or for someone else to come and stamp passports. All the cops were doing was laughing and further pissing people off. It was getting serious. It was suggested further back in line by Brooke and I to leave. “It would be funny,” we said. And in our delirium, it was funny. We left. We were over Swaziland by then. While attempting to leave the direction we came, we almost had to run people over in line to get out. The pedestrian line had gotten longer, the mob of cars in the front was thicker, and the line in the back was longer by about half a mile. We laughed for quite awhile on the road about how we had gone to the Swaziland and waited in line 5.5 hours only to turn back virtually at the window. It was worth it. We witnessed the occasional inefficiency of African government first hand. That was Africa. It was the African experience. And we loved it.

After getting home around 2 AM and sleeping until about noon, the plan for Saturday was to go to the Lion and Rhino Reserve outside of Pretoria. Carmen, Madison and I (Brooke, who is allergic to gluten, had something on the way home the previous night that didn’t agree with her) headed out and after some searching the countryside for signs that didn’t exist, finally found the reserve. We wound around the reserve’s main road for about a kilometer (half-mile) and came to a stopped vehicle ahead of us. They were looking at a warthog. At which point so were we. Pumbaa (Lion King reference, anyone?) was grazing on some grass and looked oh-so-shappy and content just being alive and munching away. We continued driving and stumbled upon a feeding area with more warthogs, ostriches, antelope, zebras, water buffalo, wildebeest, and other animals I don’t know the names for (see Facebook pictures for visual). We also drove by some rhinoceros and ostriches before entering the predators’ enclosures. We had to agree to a waiver that we wouldn’t exit our car and would leave our windows up 66%, among other stipulations in this area. We drove by vultures feeding on a carcass and hyenas wondering around the road. Once we entered the lions’ area, we saw they were all feeding on a carcass (presumably dumped for them by the reserve). A lioness and some juveniles walked by the car once they got bored with dinner. We continued to the cheetah enclosure where once we arrived where all the cheetahs were lounging, had one walk right passed the car within about three feet. I could have petted a cheetah if I had stretched far enough and didn’t want to risk losing my arm. After this, we drove to the nursery of sorts where they keep the baby and juvenile lions until they can be released to be with the rest of the pride. There was also a zoo of sorts for other animals like tigers and leopards, but because of my opinion of zoos, I’ll leave this depressing scene out. All over the area there were signs not to touch, mock, or feed the animals. There was also a sign that read “Lion petting R30.” Okay, I’ll pet a lion for $4 even though you’re telling me not to. And we did. Madison, Carmen and I petted (I’m starting to realize how much I don’t like the word ‘petted.’ I would prefer the past tense of ‘pet’ be ‘pet’. Petting as present participle is obviously still okay.) baby lions. They were adorable. Remember the scene in The Lion King where Simba trys to imitate his father Mufasa’s roar? They did that. They were adorable. They wrestled with each other and wrestled with us to the extent that they could. They were adorable. Did I mention that they were adorable? Because they were. I want a baby lion. Kthanks. Over all, the day was really great. We had our African drive-thru safari, although the drive-thru safari in Grapeland, Texas will always hold a special place in my heart. That night we went out to eat and had a great (and entertaining/awkward/funny) time dancing in the club down the street till about 2 in the morning: a typical 20-something end to an otherwise out of the ordinary day.

Sunday we all slept till around noon and left for a reserve just on the outskirts of Pretoria at about 1 PM. We hiked around for about an hour before our 3 PM appointment to go horseback riding (notice my American preoccupation with time? Yeah, that’s proved difficult meeting Africans in the past several weeks. Note to self: eventually write a post on the concept of time and how Africans keep time, because it’s true what they say.). All the horses’ shoulders came up to about my shoulders and had English saddles. Western saddles, I learned, are bigger and much more comfortable and practical. I realized that I like Western saddles better. We all chose our horses and took off. We walked at first but because we all had experience on horses before (Madison and Carmen even have their own at home), we soon started trotting, and then cantering (this term I also learned on the day – a canter is the pace at which only one foot is one the ground at a time whereas a full out gallop is when all fours are off the ground a lot of the time. In a walk, only one foot is off the ground, and a trot is where it’s two on and two off.). I liked walking, cantering, and galloping. Trotting was painful. Whether that was due to my lack of experience or that the saddle and stirrups were uncomfortable is unknown to me. I like to think it was a combination of the two and not solely my fault. We soon came upon a couple of giraffes walking around the plain. There we were: on horseback staring down the mother of all horses and the tallest living animal. We snapped some pictures and continued only a few hundred meters where we came across a herd of zebras. Okay, maybe not a herd, but there were about eight of them. Yet again, horse and rider meet another African horse. We didn’t see much after that, but it didn’t matter to us. We all absolutely loved being on horseback riding through the African nature reserve. After an hour, we returned, dismounted, and walked, awkwardly and bowlegged, back to the car. We were all sore, in pain, bruised from the saddles, and sweaty but had huge smiles on our faces.

Again, this was probably the best weekend I’ve had since I’ve been here. Nothing went according to plan and it was all improvised, but I loved every minute of it. It was truly a weekend in Africa. I look forward to Zimbabwe and Victoria Falls in a week and a half, and Spring Break in four. I’ll keep you updated. Have a great week and love your life! Every day is an adventure.