AND TO AN END IT COMES

Oh, OK not quite to an end but my time in South Africa has come to an end...tonight in fact. I only have five hours before my flight takes off and I head to stormy cold England. I am quite tempted to just miss the flight and stay here where it is warm and sunny and I can go play in the pools at the hostel or by the sea. That said, I have had a wonderful time here and will give you a quick rundown of the past couple weeks.

When last I left you, we were heading to Swaziland from Maputo in Mozambique. The original plan was to stay a night in Swaziland and then move into South Africa. Well, Swaziland was nice and we stopped quickly in the Hlane national park in the hopes of seeing another lion. Alas, there were no lions but the rhinos didn't seem very shy. In fact we came around a corner a couple times right into the massive beasts. One was a mother and her baby so we tried to keep bit of a distance. The other group was happily sleeping in the shade under some nice leaf covered trees. It was a nice park overall but a bit disorganized. They had no maps and just left us to wander around the dirty, muddy roads hoping that we didn't get stranded in the muck and left out there until someone happened to drive by, which was not very likely as I think we were just about the only people in the park. Apparently the lions were in an enclosed area and only reachable by 4x4. We did head into the enclosed section, which was a little odd as it was just a large gate with a sign saying "please close the gate". I got the honors of opening and closing the gate, which really didn't make me feel too comfortable as you never know who might be lurking in the bush. Obviously I am still here so nothing terrible happened.

After the park, we headed to what we thought was going to be an nicle little camp/game park. However, when we got there, it was quite deserted and not at all appealing and we think that the lions were basically tame so not very interesting/exciting. We opted to move on and head to Sodwana Bay for another round of diving. Boy was that a long drive day and by the end of it, I think I was up for being put in the middle of the road and run over by the car a few times. It was so hot and tiring and well, I was really hungry and that always makes thinking (functioning really) for me quite impossible. To top it off the hotel we planned to stay at was way back in the park and to get there you had to go through the park gate and pay. We weren't even sure we were going to stay there so a debate between ourselves and the gate guard ensued with us begging to just run in and check the place out and then come back and pay. True to their nature and inability to make decisions, the guards waffled on about it for ages....

OK, sorry to break the flow of things but I just wrote a very long long blog and lost it so now I am back to square on and at this point must leave you so that I can head to the airport. Shocking as it is, I plan to be at the airport three hours before my flight. Yes, family, sit down, I know you are all staring at the computer screen right now, mouths wide, thinking that this is not your dear ole steph writing at the moment. However, it is and so, I am off in my effort to for once, get somewhere early!

I will have to finish with the guards and Sodwana Bay then update to today when I touch down in London.