Pura Vida

So, South Africa did let me back into the country. That was nice and with only a small complaint because I never officially 'departed' South Africa; I just walked across the Bridge into Maseru and did not get my passport stamped, but nobody told me I had to. And it was just a threat of a fine, but no prob.

After getting back into S.A. I went to hire a taxi to ride the couple hours back to Bloemfontein, the nearest city where I had a friend and hopefully a ride waiting for me. The thing is that Taxi's over here are not quite the same as back home. First there is the benefit that they are cheap, but that is b/c they are for the poorer black population and very few (no) white people ride them so its always an experience. The other factors are that they are fairly small vans and they do not drive unless they are full, meaning anywhere from 17 to 20 people, so everyone jams in with no extra room (I had to carry all of my luggage on my lap), and soon the music starts which is loud and just like everyone else in the car non-English. Almost every Afrikaaner I have met is scared of Taxis due to their hectic driving, and not one has ever driven in one let alone halfway across the Free State. But like my other taxi rides it was cramped, loud, hot but fairly uneventful.

Once I arrived back in Bloemfontein the Taxi drops everyone off in the black (worst) part of town. So there I was one of two white folks in several blocks with no knowledge of what lay ahead of me. I was luckily able to contact my friend from Bloem ,Sebastian, and invited myself over as my payphone was using up all my money, and very happily he and his sister soon came to to find me and pick me up. While waiting for them I was luckily able to contact another friend, Johannes whom I travel much with in the past months, and was able to ensure that I had a seat with his parents as they drove down to spend the summer holidays at their beach house. All-in-all Sebastian's family was very glad to house me and do my laundry and everything, even without knowing when my ride to the beach would be arriving (sometime in the next 48 hrs is what I knew) and when my ride did arrive at 1 in the morning they were very nice to drive me back across the city to drop me with Johannes' family, who were also very happy to be driving me halfway across the country and then to house me for a good bit of time. These people are very friendly and love to host psuedo-strangers, it makes my life easy.

So at the moment I am still with Johannes and his family in Stillbaai (about 250 miles east of Cape Town on the Indian Ocean). They have a house 20 feet from the beach and the water and waves are very nice here. Life is very good without the stress of figuring out my whatev traveling everyday and just sitting and enjoying the holiday season in a very unordinary locale. I have been filling my last week with sleeping in, eating good food -especially meat over the fire-, swimming, smoking and drinking. Life is good and easy; I expect to continue this for about another week thru New Years, when I think I shall head up towards the Namibian Desert and out to Victoria Falls in Zambia.

Oh and just a fun fact the only Christmas present I recieved this year was a bottle of soap from the folks I'm staying with. I plan to use it one of these days.