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Published: September 9th 2016
"Look, I found Africa!" shouted Jake excitedly as he pointed to a picture of animals in the tourist information center in Nelspruit. Poor kids. I think after all the build up to Africa in the past several months, they were expecting to get off the plane and instantly see herds of wildebeest running majestically across the plains, and baby elephants playing in every lake! We are in the city for four days, so I had to keep telling them that the animals prefer to stay in the countryside rather than the city. Not sure they quite believe me!
The plain ride went off generally ok but with a few hitches this time. Soon after take off, Jake had a screaming meltdown when I wouldn't allow him to continually kick the seat in front of him. Thank you to the Melissa and Dough Water Wow books for saving the day by distraction! Next up was Kyla's turn in the spotlight. Soon after the cabin lights went out for sleepy time, she asked me to take her to the bathroom. Unfortunately, she accidentally peed on her skirt and underwear as it was so cramped in there. When she discovered this, she threw
a fit and continued to kick and scream until I could get her back in her seat and changed into new clothes. Oh the joys of travel with young children! Note to self: when next on a night flight, don't dress kid in shoes that sparkle brightly with every step if you don't want to draw even more attention to yourself!
Once at Johannesburg we had to wait in a long immigration line for the first time. Prior to this, we'd always been expedited through because of the kiddies. After we had made it through and collected our bags, we went to get our shuttle bus to Nelspruit. We'd ordered two car seats when we made the booking but we weren't surprised to find out that they'd been forgotten. We ended up having to just use the regular seat belts for the kids. Not ideal, but hey, welcome to Africa!
The kids slept for the first part of the 4 hour journey but then woke up at the break. During the trip we pointed out a few random animals to the kids, namely ostriches, zebras, and buffalo. They were so small and in the distance though that Kyla
didn't believe us, saying, "You're just kidding!" To be fair, for several weeks at home now we have been pretending to see lions, elephants, giraffes and all sorts of wild animals out of the window of the car. It's no wonder she still thinks we are pulling her leg!
By mid afternoon our bus pulled into Nelspruit. Our guesthouse had prearranged a taxi for us and it was so nice to be whisked off to our final destination, just 5 minutes away. Our guesthouse turned out to be really nice, with a big comfy room (which we quickly rearranged to make beds on the floor for the kids) right overlooking a small pool surrounded by lush vegetation. You could almost imagine you were in Bali until you noticed the electric and barbed wire fences adorning the perimeter walls. Yep, definitely South Africa!
We wasted no time in getting into swimsuits. The pool looked just too tempting. But looks can be deceiving. We stepped in on the first step and soon realized that it wasn't heated. Despite the heat outside, it felt very icy, making it tough to get in and swim For wimps like myself. It was still
great to have the pool though as it was refreshing to dip into quickly in the heat of the afternoon and it kept the kids busy for hours, using their plastic cups to rescue bugs, water the plants, fill up the bottomless filter by the pool (I know, I'm evil!).
We spent much of our time in Nelspruit running errands. Picking up our rental car alone took three straight hours! We'd inspected the car, paid for it on our credit card, and completed all the paperwork within an hour (everything takes longer with kids and when in Africa!) and we were almost ready to go. We just needed to install the car seats. I fitted Jake's in no problem but when it came to Kyla's, we discovered that the car seat belt didn't work! Of course, the one guy working in the car rental company had gone out on an errand so we were left high and dry. We had no choice but to wait for him to return. The rental office was located in a nice hotel so we decided to camp out on the couches in reception. Then, Kyla announced that she had to go pee. For
most four year olds, this would not have been a problem as there were an abundance of nice bathrooms in the hotel. Our little girl, as some of our friends in Santa Barbara know, has had a toilet phobia for months now after a bad experience with the automatic flushing toilets in a fancy department store In Santa Barbara. She has only used a potty since. She'd used the bathrooms on the plane after I convinced her that they were kid-sized ones so I figured I could force her to get over her phobia by claiming no alternative (which there really wasn't other than watering the bushes out front!) What ensued was a 90 minute stand off, literally, with Kyla crying and screaming and bent over double but still refusing to use the toilet. In the end, after the whole family had hung out in the bathroom together, she used it with me just holding her on top of it! We bought a potty that afternoon!
To finish the rental car company story, when the guy came back (in the middle of Kyla's ordeal) he verified that the seat belt didn't in fact work and said to just drive
it home and he'd have a new one delivered to our guesthouse. He didn't seem to understand the concept that we had our two kids with us and we couldn't just drive it back home without car seats! Eventually, we said he'd have someone bring another one to the office. About an hour later, an identical car showed up. We completed new paperwork, retrieved Kyla's underwear that was drying on the old car's windshield, and we were finally on our way, nervously negotiating the busy streets back to our guesthouse with only the shoddy map in our guidebook to help us! What a morning! At least Jake fell asleep on the way home!
Our other errands were much less stressful and mostly involved buying cooking supplies for our time in the Kruger national park and making ATM runs (OK, this is VERY stressful in South Africa due to the high rates of crime!) but all went well. We even had some time to seek out a few playgrounds for the kids. They were all indoors in shopping malls for safety. I seriously couldn't live my life like this, having to be continuously in places with security guards.
In
the evenings we would walk over to the mall across the street and found all number of great restaurants. It proved to be difficult to eat out so much with a rambunctious two year old though, so we often ended up eating in shifts while the other one walked around outside with Jake. By 6pm the sun was starting to set so we'd hurry home to the safety of our guesthouse before it got dark. It was nice to sit around the pool while the kids played on the edge until bedtime.
Tomorrow we are heading into Kruger park for the next two months. Here's hoping the kids enjoy safari as they'll be doing a LOT of it!!
*** please scroll right down for more photos ***
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Ericka
non-member comment
Great Start
Miss you guys! We are very happy for you all to see you get there and start this amazing adventure with the kids! Great pictures! Keep us posted and we will cheer you up from Home! Take care, Ericka from Santa Barbara