Weekend in the Mountains of Nelspruit

A few weekends ago I experienced my first taste of the mountains of Nelspruit, South Africa. Drew and I frequently go to Nelspruit for supplies, averaging about once a month, and end up doing lots of errands, picking up equipment and parts, and groceries, blessed groceries. Well, Drew got wind that the South African family he previously lived with in Mozambique while working for Maranatha were at their homestead just outside of Nelspruit. He had not seen them in years! We checked further and found they truly were in town and were off to Nelspruit to combine a supply run with a nice visit with friends. They live about 15 min outside of Nelspruit in the beautiful mountains! They have a home and cottage as well as several outbuildings, one of which was like a spare bed and bath, a schoolroom, a shop, storage, etc... They work for Maranatha and hadn't been to their home in Nelspruit in about 1.5 years, as they are currently working in Zimbabwe, so they were trying to catch up on everything, and were semi-camping. They were so happy to see us and catch up with Drew and get to know me. We had such a great time with this family, it's like they are our family away from home. We met up with them for the first time just after church. We ate a quick lunch and headed off for some exploring. They know the area well and took us to some of their favorite places. First, we went to the most quaint little town of Kaapsehoop, up the mountain from Nelspruit. This was a small little gold mining community and has turned into what appears to be sort of a hippie community. Here they have wild horses roaming free, rumored to be the remnants of the Anglo - Boer war from about 1900. Apparently these were war horses that got away, or their owners were killed. In any case, there were wild horses just roaming about. Quite exciting! You could see them eating random people's lawns. Haha.

Then we went on this amazing hike through what looked like a rain forest, with mossy trees and small creeks. It was a beautifully rugged hike. We were rewarded at the end with a stunning waterfall with very refreshing water. Such fun, and what a fun group!

From the waterfall we drove back to the little village (not far) and a few of us rode on the back of the truck. Just hanging on. No big deal. Quite fun!

We went poking around some old buildings, back from war days. The old jail from this very old quaint gold mining town, we hiked back amongst the rocks. It looked like the perfect place for an ambush! I imagine many people used to be ambushed there, which is kind of creepy. We traversed through the rocks and pretty soon all of these rocks started looking the same. One could easily get lost here without someone who knows where they are going. All of a sudden the group in front of me disappeared into the area under a rock. As I approached, I saw their heads poking out, and you had to go down about a 4 foot rock to this new small little trail into the crevice of a pile of rocks. Here was a pleasant little treat of a small cave with a waterfall. How amazing! Then we hiked out to the edge of the cliff. SOOOOO BEAUTIFUL!!! I almost felt like I was flying and my feet hadn't left the ground

Broiling

I looked at the temperature in Lincoln, NE today and it was 21. That temperature seems it would be so refreshing after today. It was so, so hot. To boot, we have been having trouble with our electricity. It's always fickle, and always on the hottest day it seems. Our pizza oven of a house only takes about 3.5 minutes without AC to become hot enough to sweat in, and we were without AC for an hour or two this afternoon. We don't yet have an oven, and I've been itching for some chocolate chip cookies. I thought about trying to see if I could bake cookies on the roof, and was planning on it, when I realized that it gets much hotter in the car. Drew was working from home for the afternoon meaning the truck was available. So I mixed up chocolate chip cookies, put them on pans, and put them in the dash. I found an oven thermometer and put that in a little later. To my surprise it went immediately up to 160 degrees! My cookies were coming along nicely on one of the hottest days yet, when an afternoon breeze blew in some clouds. This was (and probably will ever be) the only time I was sad to see the sun go behind the clouds. My cookies are half baked, but still delicious

Falling in love with Moz

This last weekend we ventured up to the most beautiful beach! I am totally in love with Mozambican beaches! The whole country is filled with them! (at least the east side of it) We started on our trek after church and a quick lunch. We took off down a road that technically is not even open yet as it is still under construction, but there are people driving on it already. Many people. Including us. It's interesting here, how they construct their roads... this is a major road, running up the coast line from Maputo and north, but they construct it in segments. We drove on a nice paved road (without police I might add! It's not technically an open road.) for a short segment, then on a dirt path, then through a small little village, then through loads of standing water, then back on the large open highway again. Very interesting. Also, as they road is not technically open (though there is traffic on it) no one really cares where you drive. Lanes were sometimes closed, and we were occasionally driving on the left hand side of the road, other times on the right. Some people would go to the right around a round-about, others to the left. Interesting... The road would go from open, and wonderful (the best road I have been on in Moz) To this: We finally got to the ferry which takes us and our car over to the other peninsula with a certain, more beautiful beach. This sketchy ferry can take 6 cars at a time. There were at least 20 cars in front of us. Drew got out to scope out the situation. When he came back he had a small pamphlet promoting a service that would come and pick us up on the other side and take us to the beach. This sounded appealing as we would just park our car and walk right on to the ferry, but it's hard to know who you can trust. We called the guy and he sounded legit, so we left our car and went across on this rickety ferry (which had been broken down just the week before). We were met by a nice South African named Fritz who took us down a winding path, and through deep sand to a small little gem. Here there was a small compound which had a restaurant, bar, observation deck, and a pool, as well as housing. There were only a few of us there and we felt very safe. We then went through the coolest mangrove tunnel as a walkway to the beach with small little stairs and a great atmosphere. It was like a movie! Then we burst out to the most beautiful beach! It was almost deserted as well! White sands and blue water with waves crashing onto the shore. The hot day then turn I love the ocean. I could truly just watch it for hours. It was pristine. Nothing like the beach in Maputo, strewn with glass and trash and packed with people, most of them drinking "2M" the famous Mozambican beer. Its party central there, and not my cup of tea. This beach was the complete opposite. Everyone we came across was polite and very friendly, as well as the pristine beach without a piece of trash anywhere! We watched the crabs run back and forth in the surf, and played in the ocean. It has a little steeper grade on the shore, which makes for a bit more powerful waves. They wear you out quick! It was very enjoyable. This next photo is driving into Maputo from the north side. You can see how many cranes are just in this one photo! There is a lot of construction here, for sure! Drew and I counted 6 that we could see just at one time. We guess there is about 15 to 20 cranes in use currently in the city of Maputo

HOT HOT HOT

So HOT! I was taking care of the nursery plants this morning and it was already boiling hot outside before 8 am. Just from minimal exertion I was very sweaty. I checked the temperature and it's only 81 degrees. That's it! It just seems soooo HOT. The humidity is about 65%. Yesterday it was about 82% humidity and just felt terribly sticky. Last night Drew and I looked at the average temperatures for the hottest months here in Mozambique of January through March, and was quite surprised to find that they are high 80's to low 90's generally! That's not so bad, one would think! But its the humidity that just kills you here. The other day the weather said "86, feels like 101". I believe it. It's a hot that I've never experienced before. I am SOOOO thankful that Drew acquired AC. I'm not sure I would survive without it. The seasons here are opposite north america. I checked the weather this morning in Lincoln, NE and found there temps to be only at 9 degrees and snowing, and in Lake Elsinore it's 41 with a high of a pleasant 70 today. That must be nice, Phillip! But on the positive side to this heat, the beaches are perfect. Drew and I are headed to the beach next weekend (after all the vacationers are off the beach from the holidays), and I believe we will have a fabulous time swimming in perfect temperature blue water.