Day 14 – Sabi Sabi to Johannesburg

I had chosen to have Thompsons to drive us back to Johannesburg so we could see the countryside along the way. It was a five hour drive with a short fast food lunch break at Wimpy’s Burgers. The kids all slept for the most part, as did Susan, so I kept our driver entertained and awake during the journey.

When we arrived into Johannesburg everything had changed drastically since our departure 28 years ago. I felt a bit like Rip van Winkle awaking after a 28 year sleep to a whole new world. However, once we got to the northern suburbs I knew where we were. Dusk was closing in on us, and since we had a flight early the next morning, I wanted to go by our old house the sun set completely. I found it without much problem and went to the gate and rang the bell. A young South African man met us in the driveway and asked what we wanted, so I explained how we used to live here and just wanted to see the place and take a few pictures. He was most gracious and let us come in and wander around all over the house. It was just like we had left it for the most part, and the family consisted of a young man of 38, his 36 year old wife and three small boys of 10 and twins of 8. The eldest was named Rhys (pronounced “Reese”), and the father was a former Microsoft employee who had been to Redmond many times. I don’t believe in coincidences, so this connection was definitely a God thing. Very cool!

We checked into our room at the Balalaika Hotel where we had lived for over a month awaiting the preparation of our home in Rivonia that we had just visited. The hotel had changed significantly, but the pool and gardens were basically the same. It was now a Protea Hotel as was the President we stayed at in Cape Town. Neither was particularly remarkable and I would not recommend this chain to anyone as they are disorganized and give poor service. So, it was lights out and a wake up call at 05:00 to head out to Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe in the morning!