Visit to Nelspruitt, South Africa - (5th of 5 Five for Oct. posted in Nov)

Visit to Nelspruit, South Africa. A couple of weekends ago I took a trip to South Africa. I was going with a friend who had to renew her visa. If you don’t have something referred to as a DIRE and you are from certain countries (UK for example), and you are working for more than 30 or 60 days, you will often need to get your passport/visa stamped every thirty days at a border. The closest border is Swaziland, but we have both wanted to go to South Africa and so we did. We were going to take a bus early Saturday morning but I was asked to make a presentation at a conference. There is not a late bus so we ended up renting a car. We had a very zippy tiny red Kia. It looks like one of those toy cars you pull back to wind the wheels and then let go and it shoots out of your hands. In Africa, the driver sits on the right side of the car, drives on the left, and if you have a stick shift, you are shifting with your left hand. This was an entirely new experience for me. I have never driven “left.” The long distance driving was easy even though the highway is two lanes and there is a lot of passing going on, winding road, hilly terrain, and varying speed limits through towns. The driving in Maputo – as I have related before – is like nothing I have ever experienced, but I actually enjoyed the challenge, and I liked being the one in the car for a change instead of the person trying to cross the street.

Back to South Africa. We stayed in Nelspruit. This is a city by Kroger National Park. We didn’t go there – it is expensive and I am saving it for when I have more time. Our nature experience was to visit waterfalls and other natural wonders along the Blyde River Canyon.
I was surprised by the landscape as we drove into and through SA on the way to Nelspruit. There is mile after mile of pine forest and the trees are immaculately manicured. The mature trees haven’t got any branches until well over 20 feet up. The trees are planted in perfect rows. They cover valleys and hills, every ridge in site. It turns out that this area has the largest man made timber forest plantations in the world. I could see every phase of logging along the road from fledging trees, to mature forest to stripped land with occasional stumps to logging mills with massive mountains of timber. Planting a forest isn’t dropping seed along a furrow of earth – young trees are put in the ground one at a time. The labor involved is mind boggling. It was hard to capture in the photos but when you see rolling hills looking any shade of green, they are covered in pine.
I haven’t been to natural a waterfall of any magnitude before. The ones we visited were beautiful, and each one very unique. The most amazing place I visited, though, wasn’t exactly a waterfall; it is a place called Bourke’s Luck Potholes. There are amazing rock formations at the bottom of a twisting gorge and bridges and walkways have been constructed to allow you to walk over the gorge and look directly down. You will recognize it in the pictures.
The settlements along the highway looked more prosperous than any I see in Mozambique along highways. My guess is that the housing is typically subsidized by the logging companies. People were walking along the highway in many places. We would come upon them walking where there isn’t any house or building in site for miles.
I was looking at photos with my friend, Mohammed, from Kenya. There is a photo of a town built right up against a graveyard. I took the photo as we drove past because the scene stuck out for me but I didn’t know why and didn’t give it much thought. Mohammed immediately exclaimed “Why are the houses so close to the graveyard?!” He has no doubt that the people next door hear the ghosts talking at night. I relayed to him that, if it was anything like the graveyard in Georgetown in Washington DC where I grew up, the talking was kids behind gravestones drinking alcohol where they were sure they wouldn’t be disturbed. We haven’t sorted that one out yet.
We didn’t see wildlife – didn’t really expect to. Just monkeys at a sort of café at the trailhead to Bourke’s Luck Potholes. They were hissing and screaming for snacks. Oh – and also a beautiful tri-colored lizard I photographed leaping about some boulders.
All in all, the trip was relaxing and a welcome change from Maputo. The bed and breakfast was in a quiet neighborhood that made me realize how constant the noise is in my flat from the music and cars and car crashes and the people talking and so on and so on… The quiet was wonderful to hear.
I would like to have had at least another day on the trip. Just to relax at the bed and breakfast for a few hours would have been nice. I loved the driving. That was a treat in itself. I do miss my car!
My final observation is that there were a number of places that looked so much like Arizona mountains, it was uncanny. And comforting somehow. Two worlds in one place.
Select the photo below to see the photo album.

Trip to South Africa.Oct 23 - 25