Today we went to the Blouberg area, a rural spot in the Limpopo where villages have wonderful  names like ‘My Darling’, ‘Lovely’, ‘Slaaphoek’ and ‘Nonono’.  A hot day & a lovely one – saw amazing San artwork and a lot of interesting animals.

Picture on top is a chameleon. He (or she) ran up my young friend Anokha’s leg (our theory: mistook her for a small tree),  then down her arm. Lovely,  no?

My observations for today:

– Our South African friends didn’t get very exited when we saw monkeys in the wild – we saw them across a deep canyon we visited. They were more interested in animals called ‘dassies’, which are largish rodents. For us the monkeys were more exiting! Monkeys look like puzzle pieces in the distance – they were too far away to photograph.

– a triple handshake that Paul and his guide-friend did: first shake hands as usual, then twine the fists, then  shake hands as usual again. Clumsy explanation, I’ll try and photograph it.  It is done between friends or close acquintances. Had seen it before on the induction video we were made to watch when visiting the smelter where Paul works, and wondered.

– litter just about everywhere. Glass, plastic, bags, you name it, it’s rolling around in the veld and sitting along fences and curbs.

– no amount of muscle power needed to scrape butter from the dish – me being used to butter being quite quite solid, I made the stuff fly. Fortunately no harm done.

Haven’t started on my drawing project yet – days are just too intense and lovely long talks with our friends get priority.  We’re leaving the day after tomorrow to go and stay in the mountains a bit north from Polokwane – promised myself that I’d draw to my hearts content then.