Back in Joburg

We've made it back to Joburg and spent the day taking it easy. I have hundreds of pictures to sort through, but I won't get to it today so no photos for this post.

We drove all day Saturday to get to Colesberg. We checked in at Toverberg and were shown to a huge self-catering cottage. Two bedrooms, kitchen, bathroom, and a large dining room/sitting room. It was furnished with antiques and very lovely, but also very cold. I think the 12 foot ceilings and relatively few windows had something to do with that. We had a nice dinner in a nearby restaurant which was housed in a historic old church building with a thatched roof. The place was so busy they had to call in extra help. Pretty much everyone spoke Afrikaans, and almost every menu item featured lamb, which makes sense because we had driven past miles and miles of grazing sheep. (Also seen from the road: a few cows, some ostrich, some monkeys, and a few baboon colonies. Those baboons seemed anxious to dart out into the road!)

After dinner we returned to the cottage, bundled up, started a fire, opened the Amarula, and settled in to watch the U.S. lose to Ghana. Disappointing, for sure, but at least the U.S. won their group and advanced. Better than the last World Cup, I guess.

Yesterday (Sunday) we drove about two hours to Bloemfontein, where we went to the Cheetah Experience. This is a large cat breeding operation, and we got to tour the site and see and pet cheetah, bengal tigers, baby lions, and another type of cat I can't remember right now. We also a white lion cub. I'll post pictures at some point.

After a quick lunch, we headed to the stadium for the England v. Germany match. Wow, what a game. The crowd was wild and Germany cleaned up on England. We were in a perfect location to see the disallowed England goal... but that wouldn't have mattered in the end. After the game we drove back to Johannesburg. The traffic was a nightmare, and we arrived about 12:45 am. Today, we slept in, had a nice brunch at Fresh Earth, ran some errands, met a friend of Marty's, enjoyed Peter's birthday cake, and had dinner. We're leaving now for the Brazil v. Chile match at Ellis Park.