Back in Pietermaritzburg

That was a fun road trip! I am back in rainy/thundering/freezing/storming Pietermaritzburg and grateful that I had nearly two weeks of amazing weather while traveling down the coast!

I have lots of pictures and loads of updates... and I will do those when I have the time to do them... maybe next Monday. But I wanted to let you all know I am safe and sound.

I was also incredibly happy to have an awesome package waiting for me [actually, being held hostage by angry postal workers who didn't want to give it to me] when I got back. THANK YOU MOMMMY. My mother can predict the future; here's why I say this:
I have taken a fancy to the "book exchange" shelf at hostels over the course of my travels. I always sit there and stare at all the books, looking to see if there is one worth giving up my current book for. Unfortunately, there usually isn't as 80% are usually in Dutch, and then 10% of the books are in some other language, and then that only leaves 10% of the books in English... and they are usually travel guides/lame books. But I have found this weird attraction to cookbooks... I guess I am just desperate to learn how to cook more than hotdogs, potatoes, and pasta. I found this book from 1981 called One Pot Cooking. "One pot cooking?!" I thought, "this is perfect... because all I have in my kitchen is a pot!" I flipped through the pages and I was in heaven-- tons of recipes that I could cook in a single pot. A bit later I look through the book again and realize that the illustrations of the pots have knobs and cords coming out the bottom. "Please tell me this is not a book about crockpots... I don't have one of those!" But alas-- it was. I don't have a slow cooker! So I didn't ditch the book at the next hostel but instead kept it just in case I could find a way to modify those recipes for actual pots on a stove.
Today I got a package from my mother packed full of Halloween decorations [we will use them as Fall decorations], packets of hot chocolate [which is great because it is really cold right now], my track spikes [!!!], some other goodies, and a miniature crock pot full of seasoning spices. Can my mom predict the future? I think she can. How did she know that I would pick up that book when she sent the box a month ago? I don't know. Perhaps she is just a genius.