January 2nd
After spending the last day in the Kruger Park, we stayed in the Protea Hotel that was about 50 meters just outside one of the entrances to the park. As soon as we walked in, they offered us apple juice in a champagne flute, and dollied the small amount of luggage we actually had to our rooms. If I had to describe it, I would call it safari-luxury. The rooms were luxury. The outdoor pool was luxury. The little individual open huts propped high up looking over the park in the distance were luxury. You sat up there with your group and the servers would come up and take your drink orders.
The buffet dinner was something else! They had giant slabs of almost animal-shaped meat turning on a spit, a giant selection of varied entrées, main courses, and a dessert spread designed to make you salivate. I was stuffed. It was delicious.
We ended the night with a glass of Amarula—a South African drink made from fermented marula fruit. One of the funniest mental images I have ever had was when I was told about the animals eating the rotting and fermenting marulas from the ground and actually getting a little tipsy. I would never have believed that the dinner buffet could be beat, but the breakfast buffet sure put up some good competition! I was still full from dinner the night before, but somehow managed to eat quite a lot for breakfast, too.We left after breakfast and started the drive home—with a couple of stops on the way. We went to MacMac falls and saw some people zip-lining and bungee jumping in front of the falls.
It was pretty neat to see, but had been turned into a bit of a tourist location. The stalls they had set up with people selling all sorts of neat African art, jewelry, instruments, carvings were great to look at, and bargaining was easy, but it was still a little more expensive than the market stalls in Durban. (Though, who am I kidding, I’ve seen most of the same things in “African stores” here in France, and their prices are marked up about 400 – 700%.)Our next stop was at a place called “God’s Window”. This was the first place in South Africa where I saw a bus load of Asian tourists, if that says anything. According to Greg and Sandra, since they had last been there, the roads were now paved, and they had signs and advertisements directing you there. There was a bit of a hike up, but the view was amazing!
You could hike up even further through a rainforest-type park, and the view was pretty much the same, but from higher up. It was pretty spectacular.
We thought this sign would be pretty humourous for anyone who didn’t know that the name of this place was God’s Window.
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