Pretoria

We have had a four night stay in Pretoria. Our arrival in South Africa was marred by the fact that one of our bags didn't survive the journey. Initially we thought that KLM had 'lost' it, when actually they did a very good job in getting all the contents to us intact. We had the bright idea of packing our camping gear wrapped around clothes etc for protection in a couple of the bags sold cheaply as 'laundry bags', a plasticky woven material, made in China. We had seen them coming off luggage carousels lot of times. It would mean that with limited space in the car we wouldn't have proper luggage taking up room, we could dispose of them and replace for the return journey. However one did not survive the rough handling and broke open. KLM wrapped it in plastic and delivered it to the Guest House the following day.
The next calamity was that while we were picking up our hire car John's travel man-bag was stolen. Our only excuse is that we had had a long journey, then more time at the KLM desk sorting out how we would get our lost bag, and we were lax with our security. It is all in retrospect because we didn't realise it had been stolen until we reached the Guest House in Pretoria and John needed his passport. I had a phone call from Airport Security to say that they had his bag and we needed to collect it, they had my number through contacting the KLM desk as our flight details were in John's bag and I had left my mobile number for contact concerning my lost bag. On examination most things were still in the bag, the only thing missing was a wallet containing $400 and £50 in cash and several debit cards. John was able to stop the cards immediately and we reported the theft to the police in order to obtain a case number for insurance purposes. We think that we both left the trolley with our bags unattended while we went through the process of checking the hire car for scratches etc., before signing the documents. We don't know exactly how the theft took place, but a suspicious incident is that as we were drawing away in the hire car another person in the carpark waved and pointed out that we had left one of our carry-on bags on the ground near the car. We were amazed that we had done that, we were sure we had loaded all our bags in the car. John's man-bag would have been in the top of his carry-on bag, so somehow someone had taken that from the back of the car and and removed  his bag.
We are pleased that we arranged a four night stop-over in Pretoria, giving us three days here. Originally our plan had been a day to see Pretoria, a day to go into Johannesburg and a day to do our shopping. We had neglected to process that one of those days, our first day here, was a Sunday and the shops close at lunchtime, and that was of course the day we chose for the shopping. We have managed to see something of Pretoria, quite a lot of the area around where we are staying as we have travelled both by car and foot backwards and forwards several times. We have been to the Botanical Gardens, which are vast. I had expected something like Kirstenbosch in Cape Town, but this was very different, all the indigenous plants had been introduced and then it seems, left to their own devices. So there were no avenues of beautiful flowers, irrigated, instead we found sprawling stretches of trees and shrubs, some smaller areas of wetland, medicinal plants and, which I loved, cactus and succulents. It was wonderful to see some of the cactus and succulents which I have grown from the seeds we brought back from our last trip growing in the wild. Mine in a pot at home is 50 cm high, in The Botanical Gardens here it was 4 metres.
From The Gardens we went on to the Cullinan Diamond Mines, where 3 of the largest diamonds in the world have been found, including the centrepiece of the Crown Jewels. Evidently it was given as a present to Edward VI and it travelled to the U.K. in a cardboard box, with no security. At Cullinan they would like it back! The Mine and all the information about the diamonds, the processes was interesting, but what I will remember most is that it is now owned by a Greek company called Petra. A couple of years ago a unique blue diamond was reclaimed from an old slag heap and when polished it sold for 80 million Rand. I think that very roughly that is about £8 million I wonder where they pay their taxes? I wonder who the shareholders are? I wonder  how far it might help to pay off the Greek National Debt?
So how has our time here been spent? Queueing, waiting. The biggest and most time-consuming problem has been replacing the US currency which was stolen. This is essential as we will not be able to enter Zimbabwe without $ cash. We have to buy visas at the border, and all sorts of little add-ons, and they will only accept U.S. $ in payment. We could have waited and tried to find a bank closer to the border to see if we could buy them there, but it would be a bit risky, we really don't want want to hang about at the border, which the UK FO gives all sorts of dire warnings about. We tracked down a bank in Pretoria which would sell us dollars, then we had to provide unbelievable amounts of information, our hire care registration documents, the rental agreement. I expected them to ask for John's inside leg measurement. Getting a SA SIM to work in my phone so that I could use it for data transfer was also quite a long process.
Still, here we are, on Tuesday afternoon, we didn't get to Johannesburg, next time, but we have packed the car neatly and methodically. The tent is on top, we have opened it up and checked it over. We are going out soon to walk into the nearest Mall and get some food, and also buy the only thing we don't have, some 10 inch nails. Evidently the ground is so hard (before the rains) that tent pegs are no use. Who knows about after the rains, any day now!
Then, an early departure in the morning to Kruger. There is much more to say about S.A. so far, but that must wait until later, maybe when we are just hanging out in Kruger. The adventure starts tomorrow.