Bethlehem

No, not the Holy Land. It's near Lesotho, a small city with a neat little campsite/bunkhouse place we discovered in a book. It's cool, but the owner ran over his puppy just as we got there. She's an adorable Border Collie named Lucy. Still in kind of tough shape, but hopefully pulling through. We're on our way back south, headed for the Drakensberg Mountains. Hopefully, we'll be in Durban for the World Cup final.
The last week has been a wrap up of our time in Pretoria. Our host, John, was truly awesome. He put up with us for a whole week, and then took us out on the town the last night. I drove home (DD), which was interesting. I've never driven on the left side of the road before. It's not too bad, except for shifting gears with my left hand is WIERD. We went to three games, I saw Ghana lose a heart-breaking game to Uruguay due to a cheapshot handball that blocked the final goal. Then Ghana missed the penalty kick by all of 2 inches, it was the saddest ever. Besides that, we hung out, stiched up torn clothing and tents (durn baboons... I wasn't there, but they broke into the tent in the middle of the night and stole food), and did some sight seeing in the Johannesburg area. I went to the Apartheid Museum. It was amazing. It's as well done a museum as I've seen. A good attempt to face up to a difficult and sometimes ugly history withoutg dwelling unhealthily on the bad. It actually left me feeling hopeful. If South Africa can get from there to here, where can they go from here? Truly amazing what a few good leaders and the will of a determined people can accomplish. Also cool to learn was that Nelson Mandela's Nobel Peace Prize was jointly given with the then president of apartheid South Africa, NK something (curse my poor memory for names!). The thing is, the fact that they worked together is what made a mostly peaceful transition possible. All you have to do to see what happens when people don't work together is take a stroll through the history of Zimbabwe, the DRC, or Liberia. The difference is monumental.

Met a really awesome kid named Tshepo on a bus, who took us around the city, into his home, and into his church. People really showing real love to wanderers like us, it's inspiring. And it was a great time, too. Thanks Tshepo!!