Flying over the Sahara was really interesting. It looked like an ocean of sand. We arrived quite late into Johannesburg (it is about an 11 hour trip) and thus spent the first night in an airport hotel after retrieving our car and directions.
Tuesday: We head out thru the state of Mpumalanga towards the town of Graskop. As we left Johannesburg, (and around all the bigger cities) we saw lots of townships/shantytowns. They hardly look like homes, but to our eyes, look more like a junkyard until you begin to recognize the patterns of dwellings. We see lots of native African people walking along the major roads all the way while driving today. We stayed the next two nights at the Mogodi Lodge. This was a motor lodge set on the canyon's edge. Lots of laughing and joking at dinner. At one point, Peter gave us the factoid that no boys names end in "a" and no girls names end in "er". So of course, we spent the rest of the meal trying to figure some out. At the end of dinner, while Peter was across the restaurant paying, Kate, forgetting she was in a restaurant, yells out "Nicola is a boys name ending in 'a'!" :-)
Wednesday: Breakfast is delightful and huge -- no European style breakfasts in South Africa. We dub the owner of this restaurant the "Yum Yum Man" as whenever he set a plate down he would say "yummy yummy yummy". We drive out today along Blyde's RIver Canyon, God's Window, and the Potholes.
Some friends of ours compared this to the Grand Canyon. I have yet to visit the Grand Canyon, but Blyde's River is beautiful. All along the road are craft stalls set up with native people selling handcrafts. We do lots of shopping along the way. Later we realize we should have done more here as Mpumalanga is the best set up to bring the crafts to tourists and the prices were incredibly good. Everyone we meet or speak to at the markets are very friendly. The girls and I marvel at mothers carrying babies tied to there backs and big loads of stuff on their heads. At one point, we see a man carrying a big table upside down on his head!
