27th Sept Polokwane

27th Sept. Polokwane, Limpopo, Sth Africa.
Well, it’s all coming to an end. A week’s time we will be packing ready to fly home. We crossed into Sth Africa a few days ago and have been at Polokwane since then. On Saturday we booked the bakkie in to be serviced today and camped at the Municipal Game Reserve the first night but last night and tonight we are staying in on of their rondavel chalets. Very comfortable and the first real bed we have slept in since July. It appears they have to replace some bushes and other work which will take until tomorrow. After that we will wend our way south to Pretoria through, we believe, some beautiful country. We thought it best to have it serviced so when we come back next year it will be ready to take off.
The game reserve here is the biggest municipal one in the country; we went for a drive last night and saw our first rhinos on this trip as well as sable antelope, a type we hadn’t seen before.
Polokwane is the capital of the Limpopo Province. Joan wanted to do a bit of shopping at one of the new malls. It was out in the more prestigious areas and seemed to have more whites shopping than blacks. However the next mall we went to in the middle of town I think we were the only whites in the place. It was quite amusing. Queues of people everywhere with a paucity of baskets. Even to get too a checkout took 15 minutes of queuing.
I was getting short of reading matter, the bookshop we went to had on its shelves the South African classic, ‘Jock of the Bushveld’. By Sir Percy Fitzpatrick. The story of a man and his dog in the north east of the country in the late 1800s. I mention it because we used to have the book in the house when I was a kid. Not sure how my mother got it but at the time I was a bit young to read such an adult book. The edition I bought was a 100 year anniversary of it being written and as we are going into the area where it was set I am finding it an easy, interesting read. In those times game was plentiful, 2 metre fencing would have been unheard of and bullock carts were the mode of transport.
Something I forgot to mention when we were staying at Kasane, in the north of Botswana: the camp we were staying in was on the banks of the Chobe River. The afternoon we were there we walked through the acacia to the river bank to see if hippos or crocs were in the area. On the bank of the river was a massive dead croc. Or he would have been massive if he still had his head which seemed to have been sawn off. It was too neat to have been bitten off by a hippo. We asked the friendly lady in the office who wasn’t aware of its presence. She thought it may have been killed and its head used in some ritual, they were still common in the area she said. Religion is very strong in Southern Africa but you wonder how far below the Christian beliefs animism is still practiced.