South Africa - Day 5

It was a travel day for Class XII. 

We had an early start Sunday morning. We packed the bus and loaded up to head toward the airport for our flight to Nelspruit, which is near Kruger National Park (we'll take our safari on Monday). 

Our flight was a tiny plane, but better than I expected. We were served a light lunch and the passing scenery was a little similar to flying west in the States.

We landed at Kruger, which is in the province Mpamgala (the rising sun) and were met by our next bus driver, Steve. We then headed about "50 meters as the crow flies" to the town of Nelspruit. 

The climate here is subtropical and much warmer than the Cape. They grow many fruit trees here and have a lot of farming in the area. South Africa is the largest producer of macadamia nuts in the world. Weird trivia tidbit, macadamia nuts cause hind limb paralysis in dogs for a couple days. 

We made another stop at a mall in Nelspruit (this is our third mall stop to date). The group was able to buy lunch and snacks for tomorrow at Woolworth's. Then it was back on the road and toward the village of Hazyview where we will be staying for the next two nights. 

On the drive we passed a lot of trees used for light industrial use, paper, and pulp products. This is the only area of South Africa that has these types of forests. 

We learned the banana industry is in trouble due to Panama disease. It attacks roots of the trees and destroys the trees. Typically banana crops cycle every seven months and the trees are replaced every seven years.

The area we drove through was full of agriculture and produce. The fruits are grown year round. This part of the country is called the breadbasket. 

We pulled into our hotel for the next two nights. We're staying at an interesting hotel. When we arrived in the lobby it was a little warm and they handed us free juice upon iur arrival. We headed up to our rooms, and they were warmer yet. The beds were also shoved together. However, we did find an air conditioning unit and things cooled off a bit. 

This evening we'll have dinner here at the hotel. Tomorrow we'll have to be on the bus by 5 a.m. and we'll be driven to the entrance of Kruger to meet our jeeps for our day long safari.