Town of Nelspruit

  Nelspruit, South Africa
Saturday, December 31, 2005

Hi Everyone,

We drove another short distance to a city called Nelspruit. We don't seem to be getting very far in the last few weeks, lol!

This city has a population of about 300,000. It has lots of restaurants, shopping, etc. We had been given a reputable car rental companies name where we were told we could get a much better rate than what we had. It was definately a better deal. So our first stop was the Nelspruit airport to get rid of one car and pick up another. Long story short, we are now on our 3rd car, lol. The 2nd one we picked up had a major airconditioning leak, but it turned out to be a good thing. When we took it back they didn't have a similar one in a standard, so we got upgraded to an automatic at no extra charge. No more shifting for Jack, he couldn't be happier.

We checked into another backpackers in Nelspruit. It was not as good as the previous one in Graskop. It did have a nice pool, and friendly enough people, but we had our first experience of someone else using some of our food out of the fridge. Also the stove was a major fire hazard and electrical nightmare. The oven didn't work at all. Only a couple of burners worked, the knobs for temperature from low to high didn't function. You had to turn the whole stove top on or off by a breaker switch on the wall. The burners were either off or stuck on permanent high, so much fun to cook on, lol. If you could find a tea towel at all, it was an absolute rag, more holes than cloth left, so grungy and dirty you were better off without it. I guess some of these places are much better taken care of than others as we are finding out.

It was quite commical as I approached a set of stairs in the hall to go up to the bathroom and was scared to death by a large frog trying to jump up the stairs ahead of me. I am getting much better about this stuff though. Jack is very proud of me. I showered the other day with many friends without any problems. They included two large beetles on the floor by the drain, a cricket on the wall, and a large spider. I brushed my teeth and got ready in front of the sink mirror with a huge spider staring back at me without even really thinking about it, normally I would freak at this kind of situation and demand Jack remove it before I go anywhere near it. My and Jack's hopes are by the time we are done this trip I will return home and laugh at the bugs we have there. I imagine saying things like "you call that a spider!" you have seen nothing.

At this backpackers as well as some others, we met United States Peace Corp workers. They are working in over 100 countries throughout the world in many different fields. These ones were in the education sector. They come here to actually show the teachers new ways of teaching the students. It is amazing what these people go through while they are there. They stay for 2 years, and are volunteers, they are given very little to live on. They have to live in the townships right with the local people. They are put up in a host families house. It can be a range of circumstances depending where they are, no proper running water, erractic electricity, etc. Getting accepted and trusted by the people is a whole other story. A lot of them feel their 2 years spent here was of minimal benefit. You can only teach and help people that want to be helped is the general comment. They get most of their rewards through the community they live in, but it is few and far between.

We went out to a restaurant called the Keg and Jock. It is a chain restaraunt here, and strangly enough is very much like the Keg at home, even the menu, hmmmmm??? They all have different names depending where they are situated. Keg and ...... This one is called the Keg and Jock after the famous South African story of Jock of the Bushveld. We will be buying the book so we can read it. Seems to have the same status as Lassie back home. It is a story of a real guy who lived in this area and his dog Jock's adventures.

We saw Canadian salmon on the menu and ordered it with sceptisism. How fresh could this possibly be. Considering it takes us 2 days to fly here!! It was okay, we will leave it at that. They had a live band, mullets and all, lol! We stayed for a while and listened to the music, mostly 80's as this country seems to be stuck in that decade, lol! We headed back to the backpackers and brought in the New Year with the peace corp folks. No Dick Clark everyone complained, it just wasn't the same. We watched an african countdown special, mostly disco type singing and performances, it was interesting. We felt weird because we knew technically at home it was not new years yet, so we had a little moment of celebration at 10am the next morning too, lol!

On New years day we went to the large mall in Nelspruit, it was weird, the mall was open, but all the shops were closed except the movie theatres, the food court and the book store. Mostly people were wandering around inside window shopping. We went back the next day and recognized a lot of the same people, lol!

We then went to the cities botanical gardens. They were very nice, but mostly green, it was the wrong time of year to see the flowers. I'm sure it is very pretty when everything is in bloom. We saw many unique trees and plants. There were boardwalks that went through forested areas. We came across some trees full of little monkeys.




The next day we had a late start, but packed up and went to a hotel chain we had heard about and wanted to give it a try. It is a great concept they should adopt in North America. I guess the motel 6 is sort of like it, but not quite. They are called Formula 1. They are quite reasonable in price. It is about $45 in canadian. Their moto is we are all you need. They are very clean, spotless infact. It is a very small basic room. It can sleep 3 people and is the same price no matter if it is 1 or 3. All of the hotels across the country have exactly the same rooms, done in the same style. So you never have to guess what you will be getting. It has a double bed, a single bunk bed over top of the double in the opposite direction. The hangover section of the top bunk acts as a clothes hanging rod. Their is a trianle desk in the corner with small t.v. above it. A sink beside the bed with large mirror. A nice large window with very good security locks on it. The rooms all have air conditioning units, that actually work! The best part is the bathroom though. It is called a sani unit. It is a small closet like room with the toilet and the shower, the door closes and it is a sealed up unit. It can all be very efficiently cleaned and sanitized. The shower is the most incredible one we have had yet, it's like standing in a pressure washer. Don't worry about getting clean, it will just remove your skin if you turn it on enough, lol! We loved it. You can have a light continental breakfast for $4 extra in the morning as well. A great concept, it really is all you need.



We went back to the big mall the next day to check out the shopping. We found a place that could almost replicate a chai tea at starbucks back home, so close, but not quite. Urggggghhh, we will have to wait to have one when we get back to London, oh so long from now, lol!

At the mall we noticed that a lot of the shops were just like at home, but with different names. There were matches for London Drugs, Walmart, Chapters, some of the clothing stores seemed very similar too. We decided this seemed like a good place to get our first holiday haircuts that we had been dreading. It actually turned out not too bad at all, thank goodness! Jack's hair was done within minutes and was just as good as his cut at home. Mine was great as well.

See you at the next stop, a whole different country called Swaziland.