Flat, Blowout, What?

January 2, 2008
We were supposed to get on a bus this morning back to Maputo. There weren’t enough seats. We waited 2 hours for another one to come. At 6 am we got moving. About an hour into it the bus got a flat tire. They put on a spare. An hour after that the bus had a blowout. There wasn’t another spare. Other buses stopped but only to take passengers not to help us. They’re trying to switch tires around- great, I’m sure that’s really safe. (This bus was arranged for us at an incredibly inflated price by Fatima’s.) Jesus please send us a ride. Ten minutes later Sarah sticks out her thumb and we got a ride…with South Africans…with GP plates! A dad (he’d been in the army, spent time in Namibia, and is now taking out landmines in Sudan) and his 3 daughters who were on their way back to Pretoria let us pile in with them. We were going to get dropped off in Maputo so we could take a bus the next morning back to Durban and fly out the morning after that. We changed planes in Jo’berg, which is about 50k away from Pretoria. We decided to go all the way.
Once we crossed the SA border, Steph had to drop some things off to friends. They came to meet us at the gas station and invited us all back to the house to stay the night since it was getting late. Sorry, not a house, almost a palace. There were so many bedrooms and rooms and bathrooms. When I asked for a place to hang my wet clothes she asked if I wanted to put them in the dryer…wow, a dryer. I haven’t seen one of those in a year and a half! The outside patio overlooked an amazing garden with glorious trees and birds. It was ridiculous.
For dinner we had grilled peri peri chicken (spicy), chips (that means fries), and an amazing salad (it didn’t involve mayonnaise at all…unlike Nam “salads”). The hosts were just so welcoming. They even made us real coffee in the morning before we drove those last few hours to Pretoria.

January 4, 2009
We spent yesterday in Pretoria. I ate a falafel sandwich! It was good. I saw ‘Pride and Glory’- well acted, disturbingly real. For breakfast this morning I had an egg Mcmuffin and a hashed brown with orange juice! I’m so easy to please.
After that we took a taxi to Jo’Berg airport and made our way back to Nam. We flew British Airways and the vegetable risotto was delicious.
Back in Nam, I’m going back to Gobabis and Sarah and Amanda are going up north. It’s difficult to get a lift to Gobabis. White people usually don’t stop and unlike Mozam there isn’t much traffic. After about 30 minutes road side, a guy from Windhoek stopped and picked me up! I hugged my travel buds goodbye and arrived in my shopping town in about an hour. The guy was going to visit a friend about a block away from our house wouldn’t you know. A fantastic end to my adventure.