Day 3 21/6/2010 Cabin Fever

• Off to to the northernest, most isolated part of South Africa; Mapungabwe National Park. To get there it takes about 8-9 hours. The road is potholed and dangerous.
• We pass Kwena Dam, which has fog and mist coming off it. I call it the Cloud Lake.
• Drive thru Burgersfort. This is real poverty. Shantytown that seems to go on forever and ever. Each time we stop for fifteen minutes at a time as the highway is being worked, people and children come up tp the car selling fruit, vegetables, trinkets, papers, sweets. The houses are dusty - no grass, women are sweeping the dirt from their front yards. Kids are playing soccer or on swings or just walking around. The houses are just one or two bedroom shacks with outhouses, but the African people seem to be very proud of their houses, growing vegetables. Cattle and goats cross the road. Outside a school in the distance a man blows on his vuvuzela so Roy engages in a vuvuzela off with the bloke! Early on it looks like Roy is matched, but finally the bloke gives up! Victory for Australia!
• Stop off in Polokwane for lunch before driving up to Mapungabwe. On the radio we listen to the Portugal v Cote d'Ivoire game. Unfortunately it is in some African language and we have no idea what is happening! All we here is blah blah blah Portugal one blah blah blah Cote d'Ivoire nil! Portugal end up winning 7-0.
• A few hours later we drive to MNP. After seeing baboons, monkeys, ostriches we see our first African animal - giraffes. They are munching away just by the side of the road. We get to MNP around 4:30. As the sun is slipping away we need to get to our accommodation quickly - not allowed to drive after 6 in the dark. So off we go on a road that really requires a four wheel drive into the most beautiful terrain and lanscapre you will ever see. Every five minutes we stop and analyse footprints and poo for clues where animals are! Nothing. We are too scared to put our hands out of the car, but Roy and I decide to swap driving, so Roy and I jump out and sprint around to our various seats! Fastest I ever see Roy run! (Why do I bring this up? Patience!)
• The most beautiful sunset as the sun sinks lower and lower over the horizon. We get to our camp - Vhembe Wilderness Cabins. Thought it would be protected by fence, guards from nature etc. Nothing. There are four cabins in the middle of nowhere - we take one each! Each has two beds, toilet, shower, deck looking over the valley! Stunning. There is a communal kitchen in the middle but to get there you have to walk through the dark. All manner of beasties and nasties could walk through the camp (and do!). As I walk out to meet the others, Roy jumps out from behind and scares me! I jump about two metres in the air! We were so worried getting out of the car to swap seats, and here we are walking around in the dark with possible lions and leopards.
  
• Meet at Roy's cabin (gee that sounds funny) and make a toast to our good fortune, drinking red wine, eating chips and cheese, watching the stars over the now dark landscape, just us, no lights, the cold, annoying bugs, satellites, space stations and galaxies overhead, in the middle of nowhere, the middle of Africa.