08.51 I am awake but my travel friends keep sleeping. We remain in South Africa and Johannesburg. We will leave the city today to travel on though. It is quiet in the room and in the house. I can hear the wind blowing outside. Oh, I almost forgot, this room is colder than the previous one. It is around +10˚C. It is cool, even so cool that Roberth has kept his jacket on. It is now down on the floor.

The dog family at Ghandi Backpackers.

Preparing breakfast.

11.09 We’ve had a hearty breakfast, partly included, partly bought yesterday and just checked out. We are outside the main door and are waiting for a taxi. Roberth suspects that it probably is warmer here when it´s summer. We are considering whether to take the train or bus to the next city.

12.00 The taxi took us past the future World Cup stadium Ellis Park and to the bus station Park Station. Here we’ve checked about the bus to Pretoria. We are waiting for it to arrive. It is even cold here inside the station. It is supposed to be a very dangerous place especially during evenings and nights. We’ve been told before that we should under no circumstances leave the building. Guards come asking if you’re lost if you should try to get outside.

12.34 We’ve soon finished our coffee and muffins. We’ve had them at Wimpy’s. Here at the station we’ve seen a lady who could easily balance one cabin bag on her head. We’ve also met several who have offered to take our backpacks on their small luggage carts. Our bus leaves soon or to be precise at 13.00. We´ve just got some small stuff to attend before that. Apparently it is forbidden to take pictures inside here. A female guard informed Christer about this just after he had taken a picture.

We´re waiting for a taxi outside of Ghandi Backpackers.

Illegal photograph taken inside Park Station.

13.11 There is no sign of our bus. We remain inside the station. I wonder when the bus will get here. It is supposed to come to gate 5A.

13.38 It didn’t come any bus to gate 5A. We went, on an initiative from Roberth, out of the station, out on the platform outside and found our bus a bit away. We checked in and we have paid. Roberth just lost his driver´s license. He had dropped it on the floor after he had shown it for identification. We are rolling towards Pretoria. We said good bye for this time to Johannesburg! I totally misunderstood Michelle, the bus hostess, as I bought my ticket. She asked for my ”initials” and I answered PJ, P for Peter and J for Johansson. But initials mean the first letter/letters in the name. I kept on in the wrong lane as she asked for the surname and about my phone number. I am glad that I have friends keeping things in order.

A slow journey between Johannesburg and Pretoria.

14.15 It isn't that far between Johannesburg and Pretoria but it takes time! The highway is jammed with cars and the traffic barely moves. It is easy to understand why it takes two hours to go 54 kilometres.

15.43 Christer has navigated us straight to Villa Zieshaan at 323 Minnaar Street here in Pretoria (http://www.villazieshaan.co.za). The only catch was a locked gate. The three of us have paid 810 rand, about US$107 to stay here in room 204 for two nights. We passed the museum of natural history on our way here. A huge whale skeleton was mounted outside of the museum. Could it have been a transwhale? We also passed through Burgers Park. Pretoria which is one of the three capitals of South Africa changed its name to Tshwane in 2005 but the discussions about it goes on and it is so far OK to use Pretoria, at least when you refer to the central parts of the city.

We´re checking in at Villa Zieshaan. You can see Roberth, Peter´s backpack but Christer is
not in the photo at all. He is actually taking this photo.

16.56 We are out on the streets of Pretoria. Roberth and I have been and bought an adapter at Big Daddy Cash & Carry. Our small backpacks weren’t welcome inside the store and we would have been forced to place them on a shelf. We didn’t trust the shelf. Christer took the first backpack guard and now Roberth and I have taken over while Christer shops. I am getting hungry.

17.49 We bought raisin bread at a Caltex petrol station. We are back in our room. We’ve reserved a table at the hotel restaurant at 20.00. We passed some police officers on our way home, some of them checked/stopped cars while others talked to the people in the street.

18.41 We are watching the South African soap Rhythm City while the adapter recharges my cell phone. We are also having raisin bread and coffee which we made on our own here in the room.

19.54 We’ve went down to Banana Restaurant. We’ve ordered beer and a local beef dish with rice. The restaurant is filled with black men (no women) and a loud noise. The only thing we lack here is some heat.

Roberth is freezing. We´re watching bad TV shows to forget the temperature.

20.55 Nothing much occurred during the dinner which consisted of beef stew and rice. A lot more took place as we returned to the room. Christer slipped on the carpet below Roberth’s bed. The carpet moved towards Roberth’s bed side table. The water bottle on the table tipped and knocked down a cup of coffee. The coffee poured out over the table and down into Roberth’s small backpack.

21.32 We are busy like bees here. We are planning tomorrow while watching the movie Hackers with a young Angelina Jolie. This entertainment is brought to us through the TV in the room. The chill arrives as the sun sets. We are lucky to have thick blankets.

Saturday 25th of July

08.44 The shower is on. No one is in it. It is actually colder in the shower than in the room. Hot water can only be found in the bathroom sink. We’ve slept great and will soon find out if that goes for the breakfast as well.

10.03 We eventually got hot water in the shower. Christer found out the secret. All he had to do was to turn on the cold water knob and wait. The breakfast consisted of egg, bacon, toast, salad, tomato and cucumber. We had coffee to drink. The dish was called the business woman’s breakfast. Pretoria here we come!

Christer and Peter are looking through the breakfast menu.

Breakfast being served at Banana Restaurant.

Peter is leaving Villa Zieshaan.

10.30 We are sitting down and are trying to find out in which direction we should head. We are on our way to Church Square. The museum of natural history, aka Transvaal Museum is behind us. Transvaal is a no longer an existing province here in South Africa. It got divided into Gauteng, North West Province, Limpopo and Mpumalanga in 1994. Transvaal was an independent Boer republic for a short while in the late 19th century. We've seen a few vendors along the streets on the way here. Some of them offer international calls from a landline phone for a small sum.

Roberth is looking confused. Photo from Burgers Park, Pretoria.

Pretoria City Hall

Daily life in Pretoria.

11.19 After having spent some time at an internet café where there is also a hairdresser, we are now on Church Square. Here we will try to find a post office. A statue of the old Boer leader Paul Kruger is standing in the middle of the square. He has also given name to the famous Kruger National Park which is situated along the border to Mozambique. It is one of the country’s top tourist destinations.

12.28 We have bought stamps at the post office. They also had postcards but was unable to sell them due to some problems with the price scanner. We continued to a mall and found some postcards of wild animals. We are now at Café Riche (http://www.caferiche.co.za) by Church Square. They have been running this place since 1905. Here we will have lunch.

Peter and Roberth looking at Church Square.

This trip´s first postcards have started their long journey north.

Parklife at Church Square, Pretoria.

Paul Kruger looking out over his Pretoria.

13.45 We’ve wandered around in Pretoria and visited various shops, malls and other places. The city feels kind of European with some pedestrian streets. Women with pictures of various hairstyles can be seen here and there. It is most likely some kind of advertising for hairdressers. We have the wrong gender and skin colour so they payed little or no attention to us. We were asked to sign a namelist by the Church Square. It was something about the government and housing.

14.20 Roberth just said that elephants really are large animals. We are at the museum of natural history. Here they have a stuffed elephant. We walked along Church Street on our way here. It is supposed to be the world’s longest straight street. I guess it might be true but we didn’t consider it worth taking a picture of.

15.26 We’ve left the museum. There was a lot to see, the development of life, geology, fantastic stuffed animals and birds and much more. However, there was no open restaurant or café. It will be the next place to look for. A group of children were visiting and a girl tripped and fell on a map which was a part of the stone floor. She just kept on crying.

15.55 Outside of the museum there is a globe made of stone. The water covered globe spins thanks to some ingenious mechanism. Roberth just had to try and stop it. It went even better than expected and he had problems making it spin again. Because of that and other causes we´re out in the streets again. We´ve got some things to take care of before darkness falls.

A buffalo and other dead animals at Transvaal Museum.

Dinosaur skeletons on display outside the museum of natural history in Pretoria.

16.17 Once again we´re surrounded by our room. We bought some bread and yoghurt in a small store before we went home. We’ve also bought muffins in the nearby Burgers Park. We will soon find out where we will be having our afternoon coffee.

17.10 We had our coffee in the Banana Restaurant. It was noisy there. Some locals were watching TV. They were watching the friendly game between Manchester City and Kaizer Chiefs from Johannesburg. Kaizer Chiefs won 1-0. We spoke with some the men watching the game. Somewhere outside some fans are blowing in their vuvuzelas. One of the local guys had offered Roberth a guided tour around Pretoria earlier today and he reappeared at the restaurant. He kept on talking about his previous job at Johannesburg’s airport, about soccer and kept asking us if he bothered us.

Christer with one of the regulars at Banana Restaurant.

18.37 We’ve come to an important decision. We will take out first Malarone pills this evening. Malarone is effective against malaria. There is no risk for malaria here, especially during winter, but we are heading east to lower areas soon with a higher risk.

20.29 We’ve taken our first pills. We had them together with a t-bone steak. Music keeps coming from the restaurant. We are preparing to go to bed. It will be an early morning tomorrow.

21.02 No, enough of time awake. I am not that sleepy. It is just the fact that it will not be some sleep in tomorrow.

Sunday 26th of July

04.01 I just heard Roberth sing. He had recorded a wake up song on his cellphone. It is dark and cold outside and we are about to get up. Soon we will take to the streets. The time has come to leave Pretoria to travel on here in South Africa.

04.52 Well, here we are by the buses next to the railway station. The walk here went fine but was cold, so cold. There are several buses here but none that we will travel with. Fires are burning in some nearby barrels. We are not the only ones who are freezing. It is around zero degrees.

05.20 I’ve validated our pre-bought tickets inside the office of the bus company. I had to show the booking confirmation, my passport and the credit card I had used to buy the tickets. We are going with the company Intercape (http://www.intercape.co.za).

05.39 The bus arrived just before departure time. Just as we were about to place our backpacks in the little wagon behind the bus we were told that this wasn't our bus. This one is going to Upington. People bordered the bus. Two of them were dressed in shorts. We keep on waiting and are wondering about the temperature right now.

06.02 Mobile Multi Media can be read on the TV-screen. Roberth just informed us, before leaning backwards, that he wishes not to be awake again before Nelspruit. The bus towards our next destination has just started. It is still dark outside.

The sun is rising and we are already on the move.

06.37 The sun rises in the east. We are gaining speed again. We just passed ever so slow by a traffic accident where we thought we saw a dead person under a blanket. The day sure could have had a merrier start. We just turned into a petrol station. Is it for passengers or petrol?

07.17 The stop in Midrand was for passengers. Same goes with this stop. We are back at Park Station in Johannesburg. We will depart from here at 08.00. I am thinking about getting off and get me a cup of coffee.

08.06 We made it outside and got us some coffee. We, that is Roberth and myself. Christer remained seated and wasn't keen to get in close encounter of the chill here. The bus remains where it was parked 50 minutes ago. Several more passengers have boarded the bus.

09.01 A paddle steamer was just on my right. We are leaving Johannesburg. The homeless Roger stepped inside the bus for a quick visit just before the bus left Johannesburg. He asked politely for money in both English and Portuguese. He spoke Portuguese since the final destination for this bus is Maputo in Mozambique. Just as we had started we passed some buildings where we could see signs like Volvo, SKF and Atlas Copco. They are all Swedish companies, was it some kind of Swedish colony? A short prayer about a blessed trip followed by information was just transmitted on the TV. The bus was really filled up in Johannesburg and I guess many are going all the way to Maputo. Portuguese is spoken here and there.

Winter is dry season in South Africa.

More and more hills the further east we travel.

09.38 A dry and flat landscape with some trees is spreading out around us. It is quiet in the bus and all is calm and peaceful.

10.14 It is just 224 kilometres left to Nelspruit. That means that we’ve been traveling for 116 kilometres. I wonder how much longer it will take.

11.33 There are more and more hills around us. It is still dry but now it is just 100 kilometres left. It is winter here and it means a clear blue sky and minimum amount of rain.

12.04 The landscape remains hilly. It is getting greener. We are going downwards towards lower altitudes and it is just 60 kilometres to go.

We just arrived in Nelspruit and the bus is continuing without us. On the photo you can
see the small luggage wagon which most South African long distance coaches have.

12.53 We’ve reached Nelspruit. Between the last note and now we´ve seen springboks (antelopes) by the side of the road and a sign warning about hippos. We’ve also seen one of the stadiums for next years World Cup in soccer which will be held in the country. Some of the games will be played here in Nelspruit. We assume it is a chance to promote the country. Nelspruit isn't a world metropolis but a good starting place for a visit to the national park Kruger to the north. It feels great to stretch our legs. We hope that our stretching will take us to our prebooked accomodation here.

Peter is looking at the street map in our guidebook. Roberth is looking for his
summer clothes. It´s much warmer in Nelspruit.

Roberth and Christer having pizza at Pappa´s Kitchen.

A sign of things to come in 2010.

13.14 We began with walking in the wrong direction, maybe due to the fact that the main street had changed its name. We turned and went in the other direction and that went better. We ignored walking to our upcoming home. It can wait till later. We’ve made a pit stop at Pappa’s Kitchen. We are about to have pizza. Roberth has just begun to switch to shorts.

14.38 Our new home is called Sun Lodge. It is at 7 De Villiers Street. Our room number is 00. Does our room have a license to kill? We have two bedrooms, one bathroom and a hall. We’ve paid 500 rand for it. The man in the reception seemed surprised to see us although we had e-mailed the place several times. I hope it will get warmer here compared to the other places. We’ve also entered the narrow malaria infected area here in South Africa. We haven’t seen any mosquitos yet though.

Christer in front of Sonpark Centre in Nelspruit.

Two white men in white clothes.

15.41 The shorts are on and half an hour has been spent at Nexus Internet Café. It is just a bit further down on our home street. I guess we are about to have some java. It is much warmer here. We are on a lower altitude and closer to the ocean. It has actually been as warm as +19°C here today.

16.18 It is a stone table between Christer and Roberth and myself. We are at Steers for some afternoon coffee. This Steers is situated at the Crossings Shopping Mall. We walked here. Roberth is looking at today's movie clips in his cellphone. It is sunny and the birds are singing. Everything is wonderful and the coffee just arrived.

Where is Roberth going?

Peter and Roberth having an afternoon coffee and Coca Cola at Steers.

17.42 We’ve been at Spar in the Sonpark Centre just next to our home for some shopping. We are back home planning the evening as the sun is setting. The bottom of Roberth’s bed is cracked. Will it make it through the night? If not what will happen to Christer in the bed underneath?

19.10 We are making up plans for tomorrows journey into a new country. We are about to enter Mozambique. I am actually looking forward to a new country and capital.

19.46 We’ve taken to the streets to get us some dinner. We are in this neighbourhood´s Chinese Restaurant, Shuang Xi. It can be found at Sonpark Centre. All of us have ordered the speciality of the place. We will have soup, spring rolls, main dish and dessert. I am drinking beer, Christer cider and Roberth wine. This is one the few Chinese Restaurants I have been to that lacks Asian serving staff.

20.50 It was really delicious. Now we will do our best to pack all the things we need to bring with us. From now on I will travel in my shorts. Well, that’s dressed in them. I will still be travelling in motorised vehicles.

21.37 Christer and I just had an evening beer each. Today we had the Tanzanian beer Serengeti. It is a tasteful and delicious beer. We are currently watching a TV program from Timbuktu in Mali. It is about the city’s cultural importance.