I do…

We are walking on a beautiful island. The view is stunning, nothing but white sand and turquoise water, and nobody around for miles! It’s absolutely amazing and incredible to walk along the beach of Magaruque Island.
Magaruque is one of the islands that belongs to the Bazaruto Archipelago in Mozambique and that morning we sailed there with a traditional dhow-boat.

Suddenly Tinus asks me to sit down and magically pulls some sheets out of a bag that he apparently had hidden away before.
He starts a beautiful story about our lives together, and the fact that he was very proud to be able to call me his wife in Malawi. In Malawi you’re officially married when you live together for more then 6 months. But now, since we are going back to Holland, he looses that privilege. And he does not want to ;)
He gets down on one knee, looks me in my eyes and asks: Amy, will you marry me?

How romantic…Of course I said yes! So…we’re getting married! Party!

It’s a little bit difficult to imagine where we could go to for our honeymoon if you’ve been proposed to on a tropical island, but that’s something for later. As well as all the details. No, I don’t know how, what or even when, we’ll figure that out when we get back to Holland!



On the road to nowhere…
Unfortunately we had to leave our tropical island eventually to make our way back to Majete. It took a little bit longer than we anticipated.
First stop was Gorongossa. Where it rained!
The next morning we left for Caia. From Caia to Sena where we wanted to cross the bridge over the Sambezi to get to Muturara.
We drove the 65 km on a bad bumpy dirt road to Sena and drove up to the bridge…and then the road stopped! The bridge was closed. Or not so much closed, as well closed for cars. They had rebuild it to a railway bridge. And only did this a couple of months ago! How were we supposed to know? Aargh, that meant we had to go back to Caia.
In Caia we had no choice but to stay there for the night.
We slept at a locally run campsite and went to bed early. Somewhere in the middle of the night I heard something approaching our car, followed by a bump. A hippo did not see our car in it’s pathway until the last moment, but fortunately could change his path and he ran under the doors (which were open because of the heat).

The next morning we continued our journey. We had asked around and we could probably take a 4x4 route to Muturara. This meant we did not have to take a detour of about 450 km, so we decided to take a chance. It did mean however that we had to cross two rivers (the Zambezi and the Shire) on a ferry. Another challenge. And Bertha had not been on the water yet.

Bertha on the boat
The ferry over the Zambezi was fun. A lot of people and music and that at 7 am! It never ceases to amaze me how trucks, buses our cars have goats tied on the top of the vehicle and drive them wherever they go. Life goats, I might add.
Debating of a 4x4 track would have an official sign post, we missed the first turn off (no sign post) and drove 30 km too far before we decided we had to go back. So that was 60 km of extra effort and fuel. That made the total, including the way to the bridge and back, 190 km of unnecessary bouncing in Bertha!
But from there all went well. The road was not as bad as we had expected. Although we still could not drive any faster than 40 km an hour. But we were happy and Bertha was happy.
After a couple of hours we reached the ferry over the Shire. We were both a little bit scared that it would not fit our car and we would have to go back to Caia again, but it did!
Everybody was excited to see that big car on their little ferry and it was great fun. We reached the other side without any problems and continued our way to Villa Nova da Fronteira. The border with Malawi.

Villa Nova gives you chills
Driving there we made our way to a long stretch of former refugee camps. People who stayed there after the war or simply never left, because they had nowhere else to go. A lot of small houses and now and then Unicef Tents ripped apart by age gave it all a sinister ambiance.
When we reached Villa Nova it was like the air itself was holding its breath. The weather was hot, but the place had an atmosphere as cold as ice. Houses and even the building of customs had been ruined and you could see bullet holes in the walls. The guy at customs was very friendly though, but this place gave me the chills. Let’s go to Malawi!

Nothing has changed, Malawi is still corrupt
At the Malawi border we had no problems with our passports. Or not much anyway. Until we got to the next office for our car. The whole office smelled like beer. The eyes of the guy were red and he had taking his shirt half off. He was leaning back in his chair talking to someone on the phone. Although I suspected he was just pretending. This guy was obviously drunk and I could see trouble coming.
He checked the papers of the car and started babbling something about that we were not allowed to export the car for more then one month. We knew we could never win this battle and had to sit it out the best we could, hoping that somewhere along the line this guy would lose interest and let us go.
But he did not lose interest. He wanted us to pay over $ 200 to enter Malawi. We had no idea what he was talking about and suggested to call the headquarters of the MRA to check his story. But then suddenly he changed the subject started talking about blacks and whites and all the wrongs that had been done to him. We would never trust him blablabla. And he was right, I did not trust him at all, but this had absolutely nothing to do with the color of his skin!
In the end we had to pay him so he could buy drinks for his buddies outside. We paid and got away as soon as possible, both with a bitter aftertaste in our mouths.

To wash away this taste, we stopped in the next village to buy a Green! A Malawi Beer. To celebrate that we were back in Malawi again!!!
It was still a long way to Majete, but we were determined to reach Majete today!
And we made it! After the longest day of driving (13 hours) we had made our way back to where we had started.

Highlights
Almost 11.000 km through Malawi, Zambia, Namibia, Botswana, South-Africa, Swaziland, Mozambique and back to Malawi again! We did everything we wanted to do and probably need another year or so to process everything we have seen and done. We have met some great people and had great fun. We are very proud of the fact we did all this in an old Landrover 109 Series III Ambulance and actually made it! Which proofs you can do anything you set your mind to!

We will stay some weeks in Majete to chill and visit the new community projects of Gift4Gift, before heading home end November.

I’ll try to update you some more on Gift4Gift, but unfortunately my laptop really died this morning (RIP) so I don’t have easy access to a computer anymore.

Lots of love,
Amy, Tinus and Bertha

Whale shark feeding

It’s early in the morning, but the sun is already up. In the far distance of my cloudy head I hear the ocean roaring. I wonder how it is possible that our bed is filled with tons of sand again. Vague memories of a puppy running around in our tiny tent last night slowly form. I reach for the telephone to check the time as it suddenly rings in my hand. Instinctively I answer: Amy speaking. The woman on the other line enthusiastically introduces herself as Kaye from … divers. Divers….divers…ah, my memories of the night before slowly spin together…

We wanted to go to bed at a decent time and we’re walking from the bar back to the campsite. At the campsite however some people were drinking a beer after enjoying an incredible dive that same day. We joined and met Joost and Lydia. A nice couple from Eindhoven that quit their jobs to go traveling for 16 months.
After some hours and wines the plan developed to go diving (for the divers) and snorkeling (for us) with the whale sharks at this specific diving school they were boosting about. We already had booked something in Tofo, but they were more then twice as expensive. At about midnight we tried to reach the diving school, but surprisingly, no answer ;) We decided to go anyway and call them the next morning. This diving school was about 50 km back to the road, but it would be absolutely worth it.
The evening progressed and we went to bed at about 3.30 after promising to each other we would all be awake by 7 to hit the road at 7.30.

When the phone rang, it was 6.30. I managed to book us a trip for the day and told them we would be there at about 9. I looked next to me where Tinus was still passed out. I opened the tent and saw no movement in any of the other tents.
I dragged myself out of the tent, convincing my head that today would be the day I would see one of the biggest fish in the world! My stomach disagreed a little bit though. I tried to wake up Tinus and managed to get him out of the tent, where he collapsed onto the plaid in front of the tent. Well, at least I made some progress. I walked to the communal kitchen and put up the kettle. I thing a lot of coffee would be needed. Then I did my round to the other tents to wake up everybody and hold them to their promises. Nothing would stand in the way between me and the whale sharks today!

As always is the case in ‘the morning after…’ everybody got up to a slow start. Our international group of 5 divers (2 Dutch, 2 Australian, 1 Israeli) and 3 snorkelers (2 Dutch and 1 English). At about 8.30 we were all gathered and ready to go, sort of. Bertha was coming as well. In this state it reassured our passengers to be traveling in an ambulance. We packed all in the back and drove the bumpy road back to Inhambane again and then to Coconut Bay.

By the time we got there, everybody was awake. Bertha made sure of that! The atmosphere at the place was really relaxed and they had coffee! We were greeted by the two most beautiful Rottweilers I’ve ever seen. Unfortunately I was not allowed to keep them :(.

The divers got their gear and then to our surprise we got wet-suits as well. Cool! The weather was still quite cloudy grey and the wind quit strong, so on the open sea it could get a little bit chilly. I put on my wetsuit when Tinus comes wiggling in the room. The wetsuit stuck halfway between his knees and upper body. He looked like a penguin!! I could see the expression on his face and big question marks in his eyes. This one is too tight I think. I look at him again and can’t help bursting out laughing. He'd put the wetsuit on backwards, with the zipper in front ;)

After the safety briefing we started of in their Landrover 101 with the big rubber dingy boat on the trailer. As a team effort we pulled the boat in the sea and of we went! With immense speed we crossed over the waves to Manta Reef where the divers would have their dive. The waves were big, but with the speed we were going it was very refreshing for all our hangovers!
At the spot, the boat was stopped and the divers got prepared. With no motor the waves started playing with the boat and I imagined this would be what it felt like inside a washing machine. I looked at Tinus who was starting to look a little bit white, as well as some other people.
When the divers we’re off, the snorkelers could either wait in the boat, or jump in the water to swim and maybe see a Manta Ray, whale shark or humpback whale. Tinus thought he’d attract them by feeding them and was hanging outside the boat, head down….
Since the boat was making us all feel sick, we jumped in the water.
I put on my goggles, looked down…and saw absolutely nothing. And then it hit me: OH MY GOD! I’m swimming in the Indian Ocean, I can’t see the bottom and the sight was not very clear. For all I knew this 20 meter whale shark could be right besides me and I wouldn’t be able to see it until the last moment! Tinus really felt miserable even in the water and climbed back in the boat. Ian, the other snorkeler, and I stayed in the water. I was in a constant fight with myself if I did or did not want to see a big shadow approaching me. The current and waves were quite strong so the boat sort of circled around us as we drifted away from the lifebuoy of the divers. When it was time to pick them up, we hang next to the boat, holding on to the ropes. This was the washing machine tumbling at high speed! I felt more and more refreshed by every gulp of salty wave that hit me in the eyes, ears, and mouth.

The divers came back and we continued the boat trip to look for whale sharks. At this point, Tinus was actually imitating Shrek. Or his skin color did. I never believed that people could actually turn green, but Tinus proved it. He felt so sick, he sat down on the floor of the boat and did not move again, praying for it all to be over soon.

I must admit that if the boat was lying still, it was terrible, but as long as we we’re moving, it was bearable. So now we we’re going to find some whale sharks!!!
We cruised around and suddenly our captain shouted: anyone wants to jump in the water with a baby whale shark, it’s right over there!
I woke up from my state of absence realizing I was not ready yet to jump in the water with a whale shark and slowly started gathering my flippers and goggles and snorkel. Okay, next one, now I’m ready ;)

Whale shark, all jump off!!! All divers professionally rolled of the boat backwards into the water. I was totally confused and in shock when I saw this huge shadow next to the boat. The captain shouted: other side!! 'Oh lord' I thought. With my flippers on and a boat rocking from left to right, I managed to get to the other side. I paused for a little while thinking I would never pull it off to take the effort to sit down and roll in, so I gracefully sort of half dived-half jumped in ;) Altough Tinus later had seen the whole thing and said it made more an impression of a duck.
In the water I did not see anything anywhere and was also busy trying to record it for Tinus as proof, when suddenly this big black and white spotted tail appeared inches from my face. What the…??? I got a big fright (don’t try to shout when you are under water), but I caught my breathe. I looked down and saw this huge thing swimming under me. I followed it for a while, but he was way faster, so in the end I only got a glimpse of the tail and an estimation of the whole beast. When I surfaced I realized I forgot to film the whole thing…oops.

I got myself on the boat, which was a tiring effort on its own, when there was another shout: Whale shark! O Lord, there we go again. I jumped in and same thing happened: I did not see anything until the tail appeared in front of me. Film it! I thought. This time I got to see some more of it, but I was still too scared to follow it. I know they only eat plankton, but you never know if he woke up at the wrong side of the ocean that morning. Okay, I’ve seen it, bye whale shark, have a nice life.
I got back in the boat realizing that I had filmed something, but it only started when I thought I was finished...oh no.

Another shout: whale shark! Last chance, all in! Oh dear lord. I looked at Tinus who still did not move and thought, okay, I’ll give it one last try…
I jumped in again and saw…nothing. Only a lot of bubbles created by my fellow snorkelers. And then I stopped breathing all together. In front of me is this HUGE face of a whale shark coming my way. It all happened in a flash of a second, but that was long enough for me and I think I’ve never swam that fast in my life. When I thought I was safe again, I looked around to find the rest still following the beast.
Great, I thought. That means I’m here on my own in this patch of ocean with God knows what. I looked down to see if not anything too big too handle would appear from below, when I faced a couple of little jellyfish. I hate jellyfish! That’s it. I’m done. I’m a land person, a bush person, a city person, but I can honestly say now: I’m not a sea person. Snorkeling along the shore is something I will consider from time to time, but not in place where things are crawling too big for my taste. Not that I don’t like the look of them, I would still love to see a whale up close or dolphins, but from the safety of a boat please.

I managed to get in the boat again and as if the whale shark knew, he swam up to the boat to probably laugh at me or something. I did not care. I was proud I had done it anyway and to be in a position to say: never again. Tinus was still to sick to even lift his head to spot the whale shark, but I could tell he would also share my opinion.

We finally got to the beach where Tinus lay for about 15 minutes before speaking. But slowly he recovered. We drove back to the diving school and had lunch with big stories, except Tinus, who still was trying to get back to his normal color. But in the end he got well and as I predicted he shared my opinion. Altough he never saw the whale shark, even he got an experience he will never forget ;)

So we’re still in Tofo. It’s chilled here and we’ve met some nice people. Tomorrow we will continue to Valinculos. 375 km from here, but also on the beach. We want to go sailing there, a much more relaxed way to explore the ocean.

Lots of love;
Amy and Tinus

Sun, sand, white beach...life´s hard

It’s the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen…
My eyes widen as my jaw slowly drops. I am staring to one of the most beautiful creatures I have ever seen in my entire life. For a moment, he looks right at me, before he turns his head and looks away. He yawns slowly and I can see his big teeth. His long mane waves when he shakes his beautiful head.
I am eye to eye with a full-grown white male lion. Not a ‘normal’ lion, but a white lion. A different species and very rare. I smile and almost forget where I really am.

Near Pretoria is Lion Park. It is very commercial and we don’t really get the aim of the park. Are they breeding animals for release? It does not look like it. On the website they have a list of movies their lions appeared in. We forget the conservationists in us for a while and just walk around. In a small fenced enclosure we see wild dogs, cheetahs, brown hyena cubs (too cute), striped hyena, giraffe and, yes, lions cubs. The cubs are surrounded by a lot of people and every 5 minutes 10 people are allowed in the cage to touch the cubs.
On one side I’d love to pet a lion cub, on the other hand I feel sorry for the babies. But I do it anyway, because, well, when do you ever have a chance like this? One is very interested in Tinus’ flip-flop (slipper) and starts chewing on it. We are on the ground playing with the cubs when the ‘trainer’ warns us not to get too close, they are wild animals…Tinus takes his hand out of the mouth of the baby lion and we look around. Hmm, the ‘wild’ is far away from here, but we leave the cubs and move on.
We make friends with the giraffes. One is very interested in Tinus. I’m not sure if it is a boy or girl, you never know with giraffes, since they have a lot of gay-stuff going on there. If you like some more information on this, read an earlier weblog ;)

The Lion Park has also 4 lion camps and we drive around. Besides the beautiful male white lion, we see a lot of lions, male, female, cubs – both white and yellow - and we make a lot of pictures. And I have to admit I absolutely love to see them this close. I would almost just walk out of the car to sit next to them and just observe them. But looking at the size of their paws I reconsider…

Big Bertha Back in Business
We let the Lion Park to be for what it is and head for Nelspruit. We have been there before in 2005 and took the same route then, but by bus. We don’t recognize anything, but the road is fine and Bertha has no problem going up hill anymore. What a relief! We drive the 450 km that day without any problem!
She is doing better than ever before and driving like a smooth mean machine!

Massive thanks to Saurus who has spent a couple of days working and swearing on the mean machine to solve the original problem and fixed some other stuff as well. When we got Bertha back, we hardly recognized her. After doing the best we could to make her dirty in the desert of Namibia, she is clean and shiny again and ready to go!
Besides that, he and Cecily showed us a great time in Pretoria (not such a bad town after all). Sorry we lost your snake in the sofa and you had to rip it open for the rescue ;)
Thanks for everything!!! Hope to see you guys at Rock Werchter next year :D

Swaziland
Now we had the spirit back and continued to Swaziland. Why not? It’s not a big detour on the way to Mozambique and it’s supposed to be a scenic route... And scenic it was.
The road meanders through the mountains and some parts were quite steep. Not for a ‘normal’ car, but Bertha was climbing like a fully loaded truck. Very slow. Going up the first steep hill, Tinus had the common sense to remember Bertha has Low Gear as well. We hadn’t really needed this before, but what a difference in the mountains! Nothing can beat us now! And the trip was beautiful.
We stopped at a petrol station to get some cold drinks, when a guy warned us that the next toll-station was for pre-paid cards only. We could get one at the ATM-machine. At first, this seemed plausible. But when the guy was becoming a little bit too helpful and three others appeared around us, we told them to go ‘help’ somebody else. He would probably have tried to switch the cards, since he was already holding one and told Tinus to look up all the time (which he did not). Very strange. But luckily no harm done.

We drove to Mlilwane Game Reserve. Swaziland is a Kingdom and this used to be the royal hunting grounds. A very blessed King as well, since he has the obligation to choose a woman from every tribe to keep harmony in his kingdom ;)
The nature, green, forest like and hilly, is beautiful, but the few impala and blesbok we see, don’t convince us to stay another day. The setting is very nice though. At dinner (we hardly ever cook ourselves, yep, we have a hard life) we were surrounded by Germans, Dutch and Belgian tourists. It is amazing that wherever you are, you will always find them…

The next day we thought we would take it easy, stay another day in Swaziland before continuing to Mozambique. But when we drive past our chosen location of the day at about 1pm, it looks like a waste of time not to continue. Bertha is doing fine, we are doing fine, so we continue.

Mozambique
After all horror stories on Mozambique and the border crossing, we are extra careful. And as always when you expect the worst, it’s not that bad after all. We crossed the border without any problems and now we are in Mozambique! The only country on our route where English is not the main language. But Portuguese. And that’s not the same as Spanish ;)
Mozambique gives us the feeling we´re getting closer to Malawi. The women along the road are dressed in a similar way, the food stalls with plenty of tomatoes and fruit and the road is getting worse. And it’s hot in Mozambique, hot and humid!
Mozambique is also the first place we see a 109! And another one, and another one! This is 109 heaven. And a lot of 110´s as well, this is Landrover heaven. Bertha is happy to see so many new friends and shakes her big African bottom like a proud big Mama!

The route is beautiful. Palm trees on every inch. Blue skies. But where is the Indian Ocean? We drive through Maputo. A crazy chaotic town and we are happy we decided not to stay here. We continue another 50 km and stay at a campsite called ‘Casa Lisa’. Nothing special, but okay for a night.
We go to bed early and wake up, feeling refreshed, awake and ready to go. It’s not light yet, but the nearly full moon gives a bright light. We check the time…and it is 0.05 am, midnight!?! Since it would be foolish to continue and drive in the middle of the night, although we would have made it to Tofo for breakfast, we fall asleep again.

The next day, surprise, we wake up early. Today we are going to reach the Indian Ocean. Goal number 4 of our journey!!! What the other ones are?
1 – Getting out of Malawi (check)
2 – Reaching the Atlantic Ocean in Namibia (check)
3 – Reaching the Sossus Vlei in Namibia (check)
4 – Reaching the Indian Ocean in Mozambique
5 – Making it back to Majete

Happy Days. Sun, Palm Trees, Good Road (good enough), Bertha started in two tries. All is well! We only had another 460 km ahead of us before we would reach Tofo paradise.
Lalala, on the road again. Mp3-player with the splitter connects our two head phones. Good music. No problemo!

We reach Tofo in the afternoon. We settle in at the Turtle Cove. Which takes about 1 second with Bertha. That’s absolute bliss. You just park her and done. You don’t have to put up a tent or anything. You’re just done! So within no time we find ourselves running of the dunes towards the beach of…the Indian Ocean! We made it, she made it! We’re standing barefoot in the waves, feeling very proud. Tinus runs into the rough ocean, I run with him, but abruptly stop and run the other way when I see hundreds of creepy crawlers (crab fish) walking around the beach. No dear, you go, I’ll make pictures ;) Yep, that’s me, the hero. No problem with anything that lives only on the land, but I have an instinctive fear of the ocean and everything that lives in it. There’s just, well, so much water ;) and I’m not a good swimmer.

We have a beautiful dinner of fresh grilled Barracuda and the biggest prawns I have ever seen, before going to sleep with the sounds of the ocean on the background.
We wake up in the middle of the night. It is unbelievable hot in the car (from driving all day) and there’s no breeze to cool it down. On top of that, there are one or more mosquitoes in the car that drive me absolutely crazy at that hour of the night. I try to wake up Tinus to share in my misery, but he turns around mumbling something about Dolly Parton (?). I try to wake him up again, stating: If you don’t wake up now, you must be low on sugar! This does the trick and Tinus shoots up like a meerkat ;) Yep, I’m terrible. I get out of the car to think of different scenarios which can make sense to solve my enormous problems in the middle of the night. One: pitch the tent to have cooler place to sleep – status: declined by Tinus. Two: go mosquito hunting – status: declined as well. Three: get the mosquito net and sleep with the doors open – status: approved. And after fixing a huge net in a small car I finally go back to sleep.

Moving on…The next morning we decide to find another accommodation. Turtle Cove is too far from the ocean to our liking and the hot water is broken, so we move on. We enquire here and there at some cottages on the beach. For € 50 per night it’s ours. Okay, where can we find the ATM? 25 km of potholes back, in Inhambane… *sigh*. We continue to Fatima’s backpackers. Right on the beach and camping for € 3 per night. Ah, that sounds better! We pitch the tent and run to the ocean, again.

This time I overcame my fear (only after I decided that it would be okay to wear my red sneakers in the water and the promise of Tinus to rescue me when necessary). The water was tempting blue, as well as the sky. The sun was hot and the beach was totally ours. Funny thing, even for one of the most touristic places of Mozambique, there’s hardly anybody here!

So here I am, writing my blog overlooking the Indian Ocean. Now and then I see a sort of fountain in the distance. The proof of humpback whales playing in the water. There should be dolphins here as well, and the beautiful whale shark.
We made a reservation for the snorkeling boat trip today, but since this morning the weather was grey and the wind quite strong (although it’s still hot), we rescheduled for tomorrow.

I almost feel guilty towards you guys, sitting here and enjoying life as it comes ;p. But just think that the ocean is always bluer on the other side (true for the Indian – Atlantic comparison). We’re slowly regenerating from our hard work the last couple of years and are actually looking forward to coming back to Holland for a while. We´re making a lot of plans. We will continue Gift4Gift of course, but also set up a lot of other stuff. And of course we are really looking forward to see all of you again!!!

We will chill here in Mozambique for another two weeks or so before we go back to Majete. There we will also stay some weeks to check on the G4G projects, before we will be back in Holland in November.

Lots of Love,
Amy, Tinus and Bertha

PS For all of you who are wondering if we drowned our camera…nope…it’s a nifty plastic bag specially designed for a small camera to play with in and under water ;)
PPS Distance covered so far: 9100 km!!! – Distance to cover back to Majete: app. 1400 km
PPPS Just now in the bank in Imhabane a guard (one of many on the streets and in buildings) taps me on the shoulder and mumbles something I don’t understand. Impatiently he repeats it a little bit louder 3 times until I get the message. Take of your cap. Ah! Maybe it was not a very good idea indeed to walk into a bank with an army skirt and an army cap…lesson learned!

Nice Dino

Pretoria is starting to grow on me. Our guides Saurus (who is fixing our car) and Cecily (his girlfriend) take care of our evening programs.
During the day Cecily works in an art gallery in a beautiful hidden spot in Pretoria. Fairytail-like Anton Pieck-like buildings and little shops with a mediterranean vibe, you can chill and enjoy some wine and tapas. (he, we have nothing else to do, so why not!).

So after two nights of barhopping it was now time for something cultural to balance it out ;) Yesterday evening they invited us for an art exhibition where some of Cecily's work is exhibited as well. Another beautiful hidden away spot in the centre of town. Scenic garden, relaxed atmosphere, wine and discussing art.
We were amazed by a guy who showed his 'trick'. Within 3 minutes he painted something on a black background with white and blue paint. You could not really see what it was, maybe a tree or something. After 3 minutes he turns it around and it is a perfect picture of John Lennnon! Amazing!

After our art-experience we went to their house. We first greeted their enthusiastic dog and then saw their other two pets. A big Boa Constrictor and another 2 meter long snake which name I forgot...but beautiful!

So Saurus took the Boa (called Dino) out and handed it to Martin ;) Martin played with Dino for a while and sat down on the couch. Dino had enough and looked for a nice place to sleep. So he took his chance and started disappearing through a hole in the couch. Saurus tried to grab him by his tail, but the Boa was much stronger and won.
So now we were sitting on a couch with a boa constrictor hiding inside it...something else.

But now we have another problem on our hands...I want a snake ;)

Bertha is almost almost done and today we hopefully continue our journey.

Lots of love,
Amy, Martin, Bertha and Dino

Still in Pretoria...

Our stay in Pretoria the last few days has been great. Mainly because Jacques (aka Saurus) has taken us along to some nice bars in town.
Tuesday we went to a place with a band (Van Cote Quartel) who played Afrikaanse rock-'n-roll. They're on a tour promoting their new cd or something. The show was real funny, good music with lyrics that resembled a Dutch dialect, but was hard to understand. They stay at our accommodation as well.
The next night we went to another bar just 1 km away from where we stayed, but of course we went by car. Lots of drinks and laughs, great! So yeah, we had a nice time in Pretoria, considering all the potential dangers and annoyances, it wasn't that bad.

Until this morning. I woke up at seven because one of the bandmembers started shouting and cursing. His car window was smashed and a very expensive amplifier, their (own) cd's and some other stuff werew gone. Their car was parked inside the fence of the accommodation. 3 meters away from our tent (behind a wall). They went to bed at about 3.30 am and they discovered it at 7 am.
So in the meantime somebody (or more) have snapped the lock of the gate, smashed the window and took the stuff. And we didn't hear anything! Luckily our jerrycans and spare tire were still there. They were only interested in the stuff from the band and must have been waiting outside for everybody to go to bed...

I'm sure there are a lot of nice places to live in South-Africa, it's not that bad in the smaller places and it is a beautiful country. But I'm happy if we will be back on the road again!

Tomorrow Bertha will probably be fixed and ready to go again! We can't wait to continue our journey. First we go to the Lion Park because I want to cuddle some cute baby lions. And then we will make our way to Swaziland and up to Mozambique!
I'm very much looking forward to it!

Lots of love,
Amy and Tinus and Bertha