QWERTY!!!

A QWERTY keyboard now lies beneath my fingers, much better than blogging from a cellphone!!! I'm sitting at an Internet cafe in Mafikeng, there are malls, restaurants, franchises and chain stores! All quite a change from what I've been walking through, but more of that later.

From Andriesvale where the Germans had found me and Johnny Depp dropped me off, I headed a short way to Askham. That's where the whole lightweight revolution happened which I've already mentioned. It's also where I met TJ who made the change possible by letting me leave Olive in his garage till I finish. It was great to meet TJ not only for that reason but also because he was a welcome change from the largely unfriendly, conservative population on the stretch between Noeniput and Askham. I was starting to wonder if there was any truth to the rumour that Kalahari people were friendly (aside from before Noeniput were people were incredibly friendly!), luckily TJ confirmed it. He seemed to get the ball rolling because after that I met the owners of Loch Broom Paradys who gave me a free night's stay and tried their best to load me with as much food as they could give me! I met Jaco and his family who ran a hunting lodge, they also had the coolest pet meerkat that they had rescued from someone dragging it around by a piece of wire. I thought I'd see more meerkats along the way because I was walking past the area where they filmed Meerkat Manor, an Animal Planet documentary series, but there were far more mongooses than meerkats along the way.

Entering Van Zylsrus there is a sign that says, "Relax, this is Van Zylsrus". The laid-back and quirky nature of the welcoming sign was echoed by the Van Zylsrus Hotel. A highly recommended stopover if you're in the Kalahari, the decor is really something and facilities are excellent! I am doubly glad that Erns (the journalist from Weg! Magazine) recommended I try the hotel because before Van Zylsrus I would see pretty girls here and there and wonder if they were really pretty or if they just seemed so because I had been in the bush for the past two months, far from the window of Drifters in Sandton where the other guys and I would goggle at the models walking past (a cry of "Muesli" or some other code word would alert all the staff that something worth looking at was walking past, I think the customers must have thought we were insane when the fashion shows were on because shouts of "Muesli!" were frequent enough to make anyone think we all had a health-food variety of tourettes), but a girl in Van Zylsrus set a new standard! Sjoe... Hopefully more to write about her one day...

Well, that's as far as I got on the QWERTY keyboard before the café closed. I left the hunt for an internet café till Saturday because I thought Mafikeng would be a big enough town for shops to stay open late on Saturdays... I was wrong. So back to the cell phone! Will carry on blogging to get back up to date but I'm not making any promises on a date, things tend not to go according to plan anyway.

For now though, this is my first day leaving Mafikeng after I rested there for a week. The idea was to let my feet recover and get them good and strong but they feel worse now than when I walked into Mafikeng!! This makes the week feel like a waste but at least I ate and slept well...

More to follow in the not too distant future...