Beaufort West

As you might have guessed, I've been having trouble getting a good internet connection for the past week or so.  It seems like since we left the Cape Town area, most people we've stayed with have only had a dial-up internet connection. 

So to catch up a bit, we arrived here in Beaufort West on May 5th.  Beaufort West is located in the Karoo Desert area of the Western Cape and looks quite a bit like our area of Arizona.  It is much more arid and the landscape is rough and rugged like at home.  We arrived here after driving through the Swartberg Pass, a twisty and winding UNPAVED road that took us over and through the mountains.  It was a little scary for those of us with a fear of heights!

Since we arrived on Cinco de Mayo, we decided to share a little bit of this celebration with the Beaufort West Rotary Club.  I mixed up a little "homemade" salsa using the salsa seasoning mix I brought with me to give as gifts and we bought Doritos since we couldn't find regular tortilla chips.  However, the biggest hit of all was the bottle of tequila and limes we bought and used to teach the Rotarians a little Mexican toast as we all did tequila shots together!  They loved it!

Early the next morning (we were picked up at our hosts at 6:00 am) we went to the Karoo National Park to do a game drive.  It was a bit brisk as we loaded into our open jeep before sunrise to drive through the desert to spot a variety of wildlife including wild zebra, mountain zebra, springbok, oryx (also known as gemsbok), baboons, ostrich, kudo and a few other animals I can't remember right now.  It was a great experience and the scenery was beautiful.

In the afternoon, the whole team moved out to a sheep farm to spend the night.  Our hosts Andre and Pam were very gracious and accomodating.  In the evening they took us to a local sporting field to observe and participate in a popular recreational past-time, the sport of "bowls."  This game is a bit like bocce ball, where a player rolls a small ball or marker (called a jack) and then everyone else rolls their balls to see who can get closest.  We had a lot of laughs and our instructors were very patient with us as we tried to get the hang of the subtleties of the game.  I took some funny video.

We went back to the farm house to sleep and in the morning we were off to explore the sheep farm.  We loaded up in the back of a pick-up and spent about four hours driving through the veldt spotting cattle, sheep, springbok and a few other antelope type animals.  This farm is also a game lodge where hunters come to shoot the springboks.  We drove around to pick up all the dead animals and they were loaded into the trailer we towed behind the truck.  It was a great morning.  The weather was spectacular, the landscape really beautiful, and of course we had lots of good laughs along the way.

This evening we'll be back together with the Rotarians for another dinner party.  This is a very young Rotary Club with several members about our age, so it has been especially fun for us. 

In the morning we'll be leaving here early (6:00 AM pick-up again!) to drive to Oudtshoorn for the Rotary District Conference.  We'll spend about 2 1/2 days there, where I think we are scheduled to visit an ostrich farm (where we might even get to ride them!) and the famous Cango Caves.  We'll also be giving a presentation to the Rotarians about our visit and our impressions of South Africa.

I can't believe our trip has nearly come to an end.  It has been a truly unbelievable, onece-in-a-lifetime opportunity that has met and exceeded every expectation I had for this trip.  I'm not sure when I'll get to post again, but I will definitely try when I get the chance.  In the meantime, if you haven't been checking out BJ's photos on the Photobucket site, I think he has been updating it regularly.  The link is somewhere on his blog.