Well so much has happened I guess I'll start where I left off last. Had a great time in Cape Town, went on a wine tour and got crazy boozy. Basically we visited 4 wineries, had multiple wines in each place and then went to watch the Bafana game with all the people from the tour. It was a massive messy night and we pretty much drank for 19 hours straight and didn't get in until 4am. The photos are hilarious. We also made it to Robben Island which was awesome cos I missed that last time. This is the prsion where Nelson Mandela was incarcerated and its now heritage listed. We got shown around by an ex political prisoner, a very humbling place.
From Cape Town we went to Rustenburg and the Nelspruit for the second and third games and well we all know how that turned out. But I have to say that these games were much more enjoyable than the first, the stadiums were smaller so you could actually see the match. I'm becoming a bit of a soccer convert actually, singing all the chants like a true hooligan. And even though we didn't make it through the fact that the one game we did win was against Serbia was so so sweet. I'm gonna give Dusko so much shit when I get back!!
After the last game we said our goodbyes to Michelle's family and hopped on the bus again, Botswana bound. I saw in a doco in South Africa that Bots has been named the most peaceful nation in Africa and I have to say that compared to South Africa, the place is sooooooo much more chilled out. It also seems a lot more economically balanced than SA. Like there's still poverty but its not the in your face shanty towns of SA and there's not the exorbitant wealth, mulit million dollar mansions of SA, just a lot more average middle class homes that could be seen in any suburb of Aus. Right now I'm in Maun, in the north of the country, having just retrned from a mokoro (dug out canoe) trip up to the Okavango Delta. The scenery is absolutely breath taking, just gliding along, not a care in the world, just you and the bush. That all changed when night fell however. We slept in a tent, there's no fences around the camp and there's no guns to scare off over curious animals. Of which there were many. Elephants about 10 metres away. Hippos coming out of the water and stampeding right past my tent. Various other grunts and weird animal noises. Anyone who knows me will understand how traumatic this was for me, as even at home in Gladdy I'm borderline schizophrenic when it comes to noises at night when I'm trying to sleep. Needless to say I basically lost my shit in the middle of the African bush. But the next day, rationality restored I came good and managed to go for a walk around with my guide, again completely unprotected, observing elephants and other wild life and it was pretty cool. So I have learnt about myself that I don't like camping in the bush in Africa and when I'm scared and I can't run away coz there's nowhere safe to run to, then I will lose my shit in a very big way. Good things to know about one's self!
