Questions 3 and 4-Things to see and Americans

My Uncle Nathan asked some questions about South Africa that I thought everyone would be interested in so I wanted to post the answers here on the blog. Here’s the third and fourth questions. I’ll post different questions as I have time to answer them.

What things are there to see within driving distance?

There are actually many things that we can see and do within driving distance. We’ve been to the Lion Park in Jo-Burg which we talk about in the blog. We’ve also been to Pilanesburg, which is a game park about 45 minutes from here. We got to see Giraffe, Rhino, Wilderbeest, Wart Hogs, Zebras, Baboons, and Hippos there. Sun City is a casino/ waterpark/ vacation resort about 45 minutes from us. We haven’t been there but I’m told it is similar to Vegas. Johannesburg has a ton of stuff to do. There are a lot of big malls there. It has everything you would expect to find in a world class city. We could drive to the coast. (I’m not positive, but I think that Durban is about 4-5 hours away.) The people here are really into safari type 4 wheel drive expeditions. Some day I’d like to go on an overnight camping type safari. There is a place nearby called Magaliesburg. The do these canopy tours where you climb up in the trees and cross rope bridges and zip lines and things like that to go from tree to tree. I’d really like to try that some time. One of these days we hope to make it to Victoria Falls, but that would take several days I think. The options for fun things to see and do are pretty much endless if we had endless finances. We have been trying to get out to see some of the country whenever we can. We’ve been pretty busy, but we hope to do more.

How many Americans are there close to you?
We live on the shelter property. Including us, there are 4 American families here. (Actually Derek is South African, but Rebecca is American.) There are also several other missionary families working in Rustenburg and in the surrounding areas. We see them every once in awhile. Other than that I have only come across two other Americans since living here. One was a Mormon missionary that talked to us in the mall one day. The other was a lady I ran into in Jo-Burg. I was wearing my Boulder-Bolder T-Shirt and she asked if I was from Boulder. Apparently she used to live there and is now a teacher in Jo-Burg. We came across a store in Jo-Burg last weekend called the American Trading Post. They sold all of the junk you would expect to find in a cheap south western souvenir shop. It was all western stuff like cowboy hats and boots and pistols. They also sold some American products like beer, salsa and refried beans. They did sell Dr. Pepper which you can’t buy here. Michele and Gordon bought it for about $1.50/can. Sometimes a taste of home is priceless.