Here we BOTH are in Mpumalanga !!!

So, this is the last time I write alone as Elke arrived yesterday!!! Finally! We managed to get connected from our wonderful lodge and this time I will say little and I leave the keyboard to Elke. Let me only say that before she arrived I had a bush walk and a really really nice dinner at The Craddle Restaurant. I will post later the photos and comments on the meal ... as the most important thing was Elke arriving yesterday. So, ladies and gentlemen ... here she is (writing) !!

So, I was really happy to arrived at the Johannesburg airport. The flight went pretty smoothly. No problems at the passport control but then.... waiting for the bags. It took them 2 hours to deliver the bag from the plane. No need to tell I thought they might have lost it. But then all the stress was gone and we could finally start our honeymoon. We were taken on a few hours drive from Johannesburg to the Cybele lodge where we are now stayhing 3 nights. It has been a beautiful drive where I was impressed by the beautiful colors of the landscape and also by the contrast between a modern life in South Africa and the villages we crossed. We had a very nice dinner and could relax a bit in this beautiful lodge where silence is impressive.

This morning we started our first excursion. It has been a long day. We really got to know the Drakensberg region and the amazing thing of it that it has a landscape that changes every minute: it went from areas full of advocado and banana trees, to very green pine trees to extremely dry and red looking rock formations. Really impressive. What I personally liked a lot today were the stories referring to the names of the places. As you know Afrikaans is very similar to Dutch and it was a real joy to hear the stories about the Graskop (a green head full of grass on top of the mountain) and the Blyde and the Treur rivers (Blyde because there the workers came back after spendin time at the Treur where a lot of them died).

And Francesco loved the Echo caves (I am back writing) since I loved crawling in the caves (see the photo) on my knees. Gosh that was really something and people used to live there!!!!! As for Elke, I like the funny weird dutch names like "Pos Kantoor" ..... well, here we go. Dinnner is soon served. Tomorrow first Safari for Elke .... I guess she is exited ... are you??