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Folks, its soccer World Cup 2010 and how fortunate
South Africa
is to have the world’s greatest sporting event in its beautiful
country. The group stages had their excitement and we were lucky enough
to attend several of them. I had the pleasure of hosting two wonderful families
during the group matches of the World Cup. The 13 days were planned around the three
USA
games and since my wife is American I was very proud to waive the flag in her
absence. The first game against
England
was played in a small
mining town called Rustenburg, situated
north west
of
Johannesburg , close to the
Botswana
border. Interestingly,
Rustenburg is home to the largest platinum mine in
South Africa
. It hosted a
fantastic football game that finished 1-1. A great
start for the USA but disappointing for the English.
Our next stop was Tunda Tula in the Timbavati game reserve which lies in the north east of South Africa .
Here we had four days of fantastic game viewing which included two great
leopard sightings. We had a sighting of 6 white rhino including a calf that
were feeding and slowly moving through a beautiful setting all very relaxed;
possibly one of the best white rhino sightings I have experienced. There were
herds of elephant that were very interactive with each other and us. Also, we had
large herds of buffalo and a couple sightings of lion including 2 male lions
with magnificent golden manes. And of course we saw plenty of general game like
impala, kudu, zebra, wildebeest, and giraffe to mention a few.
Next, it
was time for our second game, USA against Slovenia . This was a
humdinger as
USA
were down 2-0 at half time, but they came back to tie 2-2. This was a close one
and after it called for some time out. We flew down to Cape Town , the mother city and drove out to Hermanus. We spent the next 3 days at Birkenhead House; a beautiful boutique hotel with
wonderful views overlooking
Walker
Bay
. This was the start
of the whale watching season so we couldn’t have put ourselves in a better
place. We went for walks on the beach, watched the Southern Right whales
breeching, and visited an African penguin colony in Betty’s Bay. Some of the ladies
went horse riding whilst others visited the
Birkenhead
spa and the rest of the time we relaxed in the comfort of the hotel. The food
and wine were delicious and the staff was superb.
After a bit
of a time-out we were again ready for some soccer and the last game we attended
was in
Pretoria
; USA vs. Algeria .
Talk about suspense, the USA needed a goal to qualify for the last 16, but it took the team till the last
minute of the game to finally score. The stadium erupted in cheer. It was a
fitting end to a brilliant 13 days. The excitement in South Africa is heating up as the
final playoffs are already upon us and look to present us with some electrifying
games.
Till next
time…..
Richard
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