Amputee Holiday in Africa Part 1

OCTOBER 2005 BREAK (Part 2)

This part of the trip took us to Mozambique. A devastated country in every sense of the word. 30 years of war and 11 years of peace have left a scarred and delapidated country where it's hard to believe that people can actually scratch out an existence in most places. It broke my heart. I never took photographs of the city. It was too sad.

We also saw beautiful places in South Africa's Mpumalanga, or the old Eastern Transvaal. Lush and green, another world from the Kruger, and yet so close by. Lovely. I think I should marry a farmer....

This is Pilgrim's Rest in SA. The quaintest town you ever did see. However, anyone in a wheelchair should give it a wide berth. In fact, skip it completely. Well, in all fairness I suppose, I managed to find a rest room that I could get into without walking up or down mounds of stone stairs. When we met up with some of the locals later, they didn't believe that their town was wheelchair unfriendly. I had to explain it to them. Then the penny dropped. Aha. Problem!

And of course, there's one of these in EVERY town (why is that??) A Royal Hotel no less. We met the management team at a pub in Sabie and managed to get quite ratfaced with them. Very progressive - they were all women! Gotta love the folk who don't come with big-city baggage.

This is at the same pub in Sabie - The Pine and Pint. If you're ever there, you have to stop by and say hello. We had a great time. This is me with the bar lady - Tanya. At some time during the evening my intrepid companion landed up in the pool, but not me. Only because I was scared my expensive leg would rust of course... ;)

In Hazy View we stopped by at God's Window. The view is breath taking and my picture doesn't really do it justice. It's wheelchair friendly, so feel free to visit.

This is one of the typical street markets that are scattered far and wide in the Eastern Transvaal. We had to do the tourist thing and buy some stuff. Come on, how could we not??

This is a picture of a lady spinning raw African silk. It is taken from cacoons that are hand picked from the Maroela tree which grows in Namaqualand. Nobody has managed to 'grow' these silk worms in captivity, so the raw silk is quite rare and pricey. People often think that the Mopani worm is responsible for the silk, but nope, it's just a wild silk worm!

This was quite an important find in Mozambique, and I think worth a photo. One of the local bottle stores.

Talk about service with a smile....only problem is, once you take hold of a bottle, the sellers drop their hands, refuse to take it back, and you may as well consider it sold!