Day 12 - The Border Crossing

Right now I am in paradise. I may never leave this hotel. I can currently hear hippos honking from my seat with a fire pit keeping me toasty warm and a glass of wine in my hand. Boy did I deserve it after the day we've had.

Let's go back to this morning. It was blowing a gale when we woke up and was chilly enough for a cardigan. Philemon picked us up at 9.30 and asked us where we were going. Warning bells went off in our heads! We went to see the manager Marianne who refused to come out and see us. We were there for an hour while poor Philemon and supposedly Marianne tried to fix the problem. Apparently Marianne's husband was meant to be driving us to South Africa, as arranged by us several months ago. However, several months ago, he left his wife. Don't go feeling sorry for the b***h yet though. She finally came out an hour later in tears saying that Philemon (who has no passport by the way) would drive us to the border and her friend Pinky would pick us up from there and take us on to the Kruger hotel. Fine.

Here follows a 4 hour drive with Philemon to the border. This is where it gets interesting. (Big slug of wine). To get to the border stop we were stopped and questioned by a border pptrol man, wgo held onto our passports for an uncomfortably long period of time. He had our passports rested on the butt of his AK47. Bribe number 1to get us into the border crossing. As soon as we pulled into the Mozambique border stop the car was surrounded by people. The first man started telling us that we would be queueing with the locals for 2 hours, but that foreigners could go a quicker way. Being rather stressed already by this point we followed him. He kept saying that o didn't need to come too. When I asked him how I could get into another country without border patrol seeing my face he said he had a friend. By this point we were around the back of the border post and he was trying to get Matt to give him both our passports and to wait for him there. Hell no! I wasn't born yesterday.

Instead we got taken around to the front of the queue where our 'helper' pushed in to get us our stamps. Bribe number 2.

We were now in no mans land. Neither in Mozambique or SA. Philemon drove a little wat along to the SA border post, where we got our stamps with no problems, or bribes.

We then met a very angry and rude woman, Pinky, who was the manager from our beach hotel's friend. She works at the border crossing. It turns out that Pinky and Marianne's plan was to bribe the border officials into letting Philemon drive into SA without a passport. Bribe number 3. Philemon didn't realise this until we were in SA and then we all decided that we didn't want him to go to jail, so we went back to border control. It hadn't even been difficult to get him into another country. Our car just followed Pinky's!

Pinky then spent the next hour and a half asking random people if they would drive us to Kruger. Just random people also crossing the border. Philemon was trying too, but Marianne was now refusing to take his calls. Eventually, Pinky agreed to drive us for £60, which Philemon paid, saying he would get it back from Marianne. I hope he does. What an awful woman.

It took an hour to get to Kambaku River Lodge in SA. Pinky even had a go at the delightful staff because they wouldn't open the gate quick enough. All the swear words in the world can't sum up these two women today. A letter to the hotel owners and a scathing trip advisor review are on their way. Poor Philemon, none of it was his fault. We gave him a huge tip!

Anyway, our welcomer at the lodge, Anzelle was so nice it made me want to cry after the day we've had. The lodge is stunning. The room is just beautiful and it opens out onto a grass slope with our dining table, fire pit (which we are sat around now, waiting for dinner), private pool and viewing platform. There is an electric fence at the end of the garden and then crocodile river, which was lit by a blazing orange sunset. A family of elephants was wandering by as we arrived, and a hippo was hauling itself about in the river. We also saw a crocodile and some birds. The hippos honking is still going and we are finally relaxing. We're off on a sunrise safari tomorrow. Can't wait!