We left Tugela with heavy hearts and a box full of pottery from Suzie, the local potter. We stopped off at Mandini, the town closest to Tugela as I wanted to buy some meat there for the next stage of our trip. You can buy beef fillet there for R79 per kilo and they are big fillets. The local folk are not into fillet. They prefer heads and feet and guts and stuff like that, so the fillets get frozen and you have to ask the butcher for some and then they fetch it from the “fillet freezer”.
I must say visiting that SuperSpar is an experience. It is a cross between a Spar as we know it and a Macro. The ordinary area is much smaller and then the rest is a “bulk buying” area, but the meat section is my best. There is no pre-packed meat really. There are just the huge masses of frozen chicken and you obviously as for a quantity. Next to it is a huge fridge with lose frozen mixed veggies and then there is a section just with frozen chicken feet. We didn’t buy any chicken. At the butcher it is heads of any sort, loose guts and stuff. I didn’t look too closely and then a sausage, which is clearly very popular, as there was a massive quantity of it being processed. It looked something like fat pork sausages, which I am sure it was not, and a guy was separating them one by one and dumped them into a huge white container. This is not happening in the fridge, just there in the path of the customers. I tell you, African retail at it’s best.
The Spar complex is huge and there are a few other shops as well, but right in the middle in the front sits the owner. I would guess a good traditional Jewish trader, at his “work station” with a cigarette in his hand and a laden ashtray in front of him. I assume that nobody in their right mind will dare challenge him regarding “smoking laws”. We also guessed that not only the Spar, but also most of the surrounding businesses and the garage all belonged to him, as they all carried the same name. Must be a dying breed of business people in S.A.
We travelled on the R103 as far as Empangeni in order to avoid the Toll road. Along that road it is just Cane fields and more Cane fields and then large forestry areas in between. The landscape also gets flatter and there are not as many huts along the way. We stopped for a roadside lunch at Empangeni at what in its time surely was a regular stop for many travelers. It was good for us for the mini pizza bought on the way and our daily anti malaria drink of and Gin and Tonic. Not long after the lunch stop we stopped for our dessert. This was at a roadside market that sells fresh fruit and veggies and crafty type of stuff. Anyway this is one of Dick’s regular stops with his groups and we had a pineapple lolly!. The lady peels the whole pineapple and cuts away some of the leaves and then you eat it like a lolly. It was delicious.
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| Pineapple "lolly" |
Closer to Mkuzi the landscape changes again and it becomes more African bush. That is o, so good to see that, the bush and then the beginnings of the Lebombo mountains on the right as we were travelling. We got to Umkhuzi Game Reserve early afternoon a as we were staying in a Rest hut we did not have to set up camp and we were off on a game drive. This is one of the oldest game reserves in the country and it is relatively small, if one were to compare it to Kruger, etc. The rest huts are fully equipped,, however you have shared ablutions and a central kitchen area. This was no problem as we were one of 3 huts in use the one night and alone the next night.
We were not very lucky with our game spotting on the first night but the next day we were doing a whole lot better. We spent about 2 hours at a waterhole in the morning and we witnessed the “Animal Planet” being acted live for us. There were a few different herds of Wildebeest that came drinking at different times. They all run for the water and then within a few minutes they take off as if there was a great looming danger. Then the Zebras that walk right into the water and stand dead still for minutes while they sip up the water and then fart- fart they are off again. Then the Warthog come and they kneel at the edge of the water and drink and the 2 big daddies came for their mudbath. What a sight to see. They waddle and scuffle and look so funny and when they done they walk off sort of stiff legged and “windgat”.One was still having his mudbath when another one approached and there was nearly big drama. Then there were the single male Impala chasing the young ladies around and snorting and grunting and generally behaving like teen agers. And so it went on and on. That is why we are having such a good time and not missing TV!!!
There are lots of Impala and Nyala , Zebra and Wildebeest in the park, however we also saw about 15 Giraffe and many a Warthog. It is also a wonderful place for spotting birds and we saw quite a few that we could tick off on our “holiday spotting list” Our best was the fact that we had a Nightjar that came out every night to sit on the Electricity pole outside our hut and hunt from there. Needless to say we could not identify which one it was, as I think the only way to identify a nightjar is when it is dead.
And so 2 wonderful days in a wonderful place ended and off we were for the town of Mkuzi on Saturday morning and from there on to Swaziland. Just outside the park we were met with2 young “dancing boys” in the road. They could not have been more than 8 years old. Clearly the objective of dancing in the middle of the road was to get some money, but sorry, not from us!. As we drove past, Dick saw one of them picking up a stone and throwing it at us. Well, never before has the Terracan stopped so fast and went into reverse so fast. I think those 2 boys were up on the hills faster than they had ever done that before. I am also sure they never expected us to reverse. A few non publishable words were yelled at them.
We stopped in Mkuzi at the Ghost Mountain Inn to have a long time promised G+T and to say Hi to Christine the GM of the Hotel. Dick has often stayed there on his trips and it was lovely just to sit down and have a chat to her and enjoy the sun and the splendid environment . It is a beautiful set up and real “Colonial Style” hotel. It is also lovely for me to see and experience the places that he has been to and often talk about.
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