A quick day trip and the zoo. / April 26-27

We headed out this morning on a weekend trip to a place called Waterval Bovan to a nice little B&B called the Shamrock Arms Guesthouse.  It's about a 3 hour drive east from Pretoria.  We stopped along the way for lunch at a service station / restaurant place along the side of the road.  Of course whats a rest stop along the road in SA without overlooking a waterhole with a few Rhinos, Water Buffalo, Zebras, and some Malibu antelope? Even the urinals and the toilets in the restrooms overlook the animals. 

So we get to the quaint little town and immediately I realize there are not fences around the houses.  There are no electric gates. There are not electric or barbed wires across the top of the non existing fences.  Hmmm.  As we pull into the driveway of the (lets just stick with the term "quaint")  little B&B the owner comes out to greet us with I'm terribly sorry but....we have no electricity or water so you can not stay here.  I have made you a reservation another 10 kilometers down the road.  ( I have to admit I was just a little relieved.)  Now Dawn & Paul had planned to bike ride in the mountains there the next morning so Paul went into the small bike store across the street to get some info.  As the rest of us sat in the car with our windows down we watched some trucks with young men in the back of them racing up & down the very narrow main street.  Then a couple of young men came by the car saying something we did not understand but by his tone you could tell it wasn't anything pleasant.  One of them also had the most blood shot eyes I have ever seen.  When Paul returned to the car he informed us that the electricity had been cut and the water shut down out of protest.  We were not sure if it had to do with the upcoming election or something else but Dawn made the decision to turn the car around & go home.   Needless to say I was thrilled with her decision!  So home we went!   So, we had a nice 7 1/2 hour day trip looking at the countryside.  

Nothing else to do on Sunday so we took Piper to the zoo!  More animals!  This time in cages.  OK.... I think I've seen enough animals for awhile.  But I did like the flamingo exhibit.

Then a couple of Dawn & Paul's friends came for dinner.  We had a BBQ, which they call braai (bry) here, and a poker game!  I know you will all want to know that Donald was the winner & Paul was second.