South Africa Part Five

On our way to Bloemfontein, we made two stops. First, we visited Hanrich's relatives at their farm stand with delicious grilled sandwiches and homemade jams and jellies. We stayed the night in a tiny town called Nieu-Bethesda which is beautiful and charming. The people and the food were outstanding. It's popular among backpackers and tourists, particularly the Owl House which was home to a reclusive artist named Helen Martins. This article from New Yorker does a great job of describing the town and the museum. It was enchanting and haunting, she was truly talented but it was clear she was struggling. It was incredible to see the house/walls/ceilings and floors covered in crushed glass. Our Airbnb was cozy, made cozier by the fire we built in the little wood burning stove. It was less cozy when only half of us had warm showers the next morning, but such is life in a remote tiny town in the Karoo. As we headed out of town down a VERY bumpy "dirt" road I noticed just how remote our location was. And then one of our tires blew. It was truly a team effort to get the spare onto the van. Mercifully we had a spare--which Pablo wriggled under the van to retrieve, and the tools to change the tire--which Kent unearthed in the glovebox and the spare was full. We had no cell phone service and literally saw no one as Trent led us in the exercise of changing the tire. We survived and had some good laughs once we were in the clear. We made it to a tire shop and got a new tire for the van, and it got us safely back to Johannesburg in the end. 

We made it safely to Bloemfontein, Hanrich's hometown. We went and visited Naval Hill, a local park popular with runners and home to zebra, ostrich, wildebeest and giraffes! We didn't have luck the first night when we drove through looking for the camille perd (giraffe in Afrikaans), but we went back the next day and found him. We also went to Cheetah Experience, a beautiful home to big cats that can't survive in the wild. We signed up for the unrestricted tour and got pretty close to some gorgeous cheetahs. 

Trent and I had an extra day in Johannesburg after the boys left, so we went to the Johannesburg Botanical Gardens before flying back to the US. We loved every minute of South Africa, and can't wait to go back.