Continued...

Staying in the police station that I previously blogged about, quite an eye-opener.

Phalaborwa: A great town, very clean, friendly people, and met a wonderful Dutch couple in the backpackers who were very interesting to chat to! I love talking about our country with foreigners and learning about their countries. One of my few memories of Amsterdam is walking into a shop when we were exploring on a stop over day on our way to England when I was about 7 years old. As we walked in my brother and I were quickly yanked out my my mom who realised the walls of the shops were lined with photos of genital piercings! Don't go to Amsterdam if you're reserved... And if you're 7 years old, avoid shopping...

Matumi Game Lodge: Very cool! Especially with the resident warthog, squirrel and nyala!

Bushbuckridge: Lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of people... It has a Spar which I thought was quite impressive for a giant informal settlement. Spar usually stock vegetarian burgers and sausages which I quite enjoy as a treat every now and then, but in the place where I would usually find them, there were whole ox heads on sale instead... Clearly not a large vegetarian population in Bushbuckridge!

Elephant Whispers in Hazyview: Wow!!!! Such an amazing experience! Got to ride the biggest bull there! Such a wonderful approach to conservation and education! Really worth a visit, they also run a volunteer program. They are already doing so much for elephants and the environment in general, but I learned that they could be doing so much more were it not for the lack of political support, not a very good state of affairs at all. To compound the situation, international pressure is often misguided and does up doing more harm than good. Hopefully they'll listen to what the guys at Elephant Whispers have to say!

Nelspruit: Movies!!!!!!!!!!!! I watched District 9 and Up. Was more impressed by the original short film that inspired D9, Alive in Joburg. You'll probably find it on Youtube, it's worth a look! That being said I still thought is was very good! Up was great! Met lots of fun people in the backpackers, every night is a party there with people from all around the world!

Waterval Boven!: A big thanks to Gustav and Alex for putting me up at the Roc and Rope while I climbed, chilled with friends and partied at the Rock Rally!! Boven has got some world class climbing so if you haven't been there yet, I highly recommend it! If you want to be shown around, Jan is a great guy and a very knowledgable guide!

It was really good to be around friends, which made the next week particularly tough. This was compounded by icy-cold mist reducing the the visibility to around 15m for the first day and a half out of boven, and getting caught in a serious thunderstorm which left me drenched under my hastily erected poncho-shelter. But I tried my best to keep on smiling and I think I did a pretty good job considering.

My tenacity paid off and I met some really friendly people in Amsterdam (no genital piercing photographs in this Amsterdam) and Piet Retief, which is where I stayed last night.

Up to date!