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| The final ride |
BEN - Today is our last day at Khotso. I expected a day of packing and relaxed
goodbyes. Of course, this was not to be
so. When I emerged from our room this
morning, I found a frazzled Steve. There
were numerous rides going out (all with Zulu guides) and he had a truck coming
to collect about 35 sheep. He asked me
if I could help with this. I said sure,
having no idea what to expect. I put on
my duck boots and headed out to the field.
I arrived to hear Steve being scolded by the sheep guy because he did
not have a proper sheep loading ramp.
This meant we would have to catch the sheep, pick them up by shoulder
height (these were sheep that had been plumped up the entire year for the
Christmas season), and plop them onto the truck. Let me tell you, I have never had such an
intense workout in my life. 45 minutes
later, covered in sweat, blood, sheep spit, and wool the sheep were all loaded. Steve and I stood there in shock as the truck
drove off, I think both suffering from PTSD and breathing hard. I had flashbacks of 80 pound, strong, kicking
legs at my face, Steve gutterly screaming.
I walked back to the backpackers after some bonding with Steve, and
everyone fell silent and looked with wide horrified eyes at me. My white shirt was now brown and I had all
kinds of stuff smeared all over my face.
What a hangover cure. After a
shower and
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| What will he do without us? |
some food, I was able to pack up my stuff from our bedroom. Candice and Steve came down to give us
Christmas/thank you presents. Steve offered
for each of us to take an authentic Steve Black gnome hat (we took green and
yellow) and gave us a beautiful oil canvas depicting Zulu people dancing and
making music. It was an unbelievably
kind gesture. We said our goodbyes to
all who were present, which was unfortunately none of the Zulu staff, and
loaded up the car. Gabby had spent the
majority of the morning packing Steve’s presents to the staff, and was also
able to write a heartfelt goodbye and thank you letter to each of them. Saying goodbye to Steve was the toughest
part. He is a great guy and we will both
miss him a lot. We offered him stay in
the US if he and Lulu ever want it. We
got in the car and left Khotso in the rearview.
It has been an excellent month and a half, and we couldn’t have asked
for a better experience. Gareth drove
us the hour and a half to Kokstad. The
drive was quite beautiful (even saw a few rainbows). We reached the bus stop which was at a gas
station/travel center. We had booked a
night in the hotel next doo, but we found it close due to Boxing Day. The security guard had to check us in and
show us our room. We opened the door and
were so relieved. We had a nice rondaval
with bathroom and comfy bed. Be plopped
down happily and watched a movie. For
dinner we went over to Wimpy Burger (a fast food place) and had a pretty decent
meal. Afterwards Gabby and I took turns
taking bathes, my first in a long time.
It was a very strange feeling not to be worrying about guests and their
happiness, and simply relaxing.
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