Shopping and Other Adventures

We awoke last Saturday, to discover that the gates of the college, where we are staying, were firmly locked. There are 2 gates. One for pedestrians which is sometimes open and sometimes padlocked, and one for vehicles, which is remote controlled via mobile phone. It looked like we might be permanently imprisoned. Fortuneately, someone called Albert was going to White River, our nearest town, and we cadged a lift.

We explored the street stalls, down town shops and local off licence, got ourselves a South African sim card for the phone and had a South African breakfast (almost completely indistinguishable from an English breakfast - some things never change!) at a local cafe.


Andy sampled the local beer with his breakfast - some things never change! (Castle Beer isn't bad. No bitter here though)

We wandered around the town closely watched by townsfolk as we found out later when we were debating where the taxi rank was. A stall holder interrupted our heated debate and told us "you got out of the car here you went down there around and back to the crossroads". Ever get the feeling you're being watched???!

This proves that we totally inconspicuous and blend readily into the south african scene.

We were the only white people at the "taxi" rank. The little minibuses they call taxis remind me very much of the gwa-gwas in the Dominican Republic. Cheap, crowded and badly driven. Never missing the signature cracked windscreen. We got dropped off at the end of the road and were immediately offered a lift by a ciagrette smoking Africaans man in a pick up and a turquoise shell suit.