This day started off a bit earlier than most with me picking up Marcel at about 9:30 from his hotel. From here we started the 100 mile drive from Johannesburg to Sun City, which is the little resort place I had visited earlier with Aghas and Mallory. From there it is an easy 20 minute drive to Rustenburg, the location of Australia-Ghana.
Halfway though the trip, we saw a sign for a place called "Bushbabies Monkey Sanctuary." This place sounded too good to pass up, so we decided to have a look.
The place ended up being a whole lot of fun. There were about 70 monkeys of a few different species living inside this enclosure. Two of them spent a lot of time following our tour group. One was a little Monkey that I named Chester and the other was a Spider Monkey named Sara. This little guy having a bite to eat is Chester and the one climbing across the rock face is Sara.
The monkeys were quite friendly and curious about us. At one point in the beginning, one monkey quickly jumped on Marcel's shoulder and Chester quite a few times was trying to grab the ottom of my pants while I was walking.
From here we went to Sand City to grab a bit of lunch before the game. While we were waiting for the tram from the parking lot to the main area, we met some Australians that we helped take a picture for. We had a nice talk with them and then said good luck as we went our separate ways when the tram stopped. Marcel and I both had a tasty lamb schwarma for lunch.
Since we didn't have too much time, I gave Marcel a quick tour of Sun City. When we popped over to a section called Lost City, we ran into our Australian buddies again. We helped them take pictures, so i snapped one with my camera as well! It was definitely a money themed day so far as this large fountain showed us:
We did a last bit of scouting for a place to have dinner after the game, and then we departed for Rustenburg and the day's match.
This was my 2nd time using a park and ride for this stadium. The first one was at USA-England and it was a total disaster. We used a different lot this time and hoped for different results. Going to the game was easy enough. We got parking fairly quickly and got the bus to the stadium. We ran into some Ghana fans who let us in on a little bit of inside information that we didn't know:
While we were in the stadium, we did get another little bit of a surprise. While I was watching something the video board, something caught my eye. A few rows in front of us a over a bit, there was someone waving up to Marcel and I. It was our Australian buddy that we ran into before the tram, in Sun City, and now at the Stadium. We actually ran into him again walking around the stadium at halftime.
There was definitely a large Aussie traveling contingent, you can see just this one part of the stadium during the national anthem is quite full of Socceroos fans!
The match was a very good one which finished 1-1. Oz had Harry Kewell sent off about 25 minutes in for a handball on the line (where was this ref in 2002?) which meant his whole World Cup is going to be about 25 minutes long unless Oz make it out of the group, which is a possibility because the group is so tight after two games.
Marcel and I actually made our way back to the car easily enough. It seems that the organization was about a thousand times better than it was the week before. This was a relief, as I really didn't know what was going to happen for the trip back to the car.
Sun City was easy to get back to and we sat down to have dinner. Sadly, this was not a highpoint of the day. We were seated right away, but it took a LONG time for anyone to take our order. I ordered ribs and Marcel got chicken - we also ordered Calamari as a starter. After about 25 minutes, the manager came by to ask how everything was, and i told him we had been waiting 25 minutes for our starter. He went to go check on it, and just a second after he left, our waiter arrived with our entrees. I told him to go ahead and cancel our starter. This was the first time this has happened without Liz - for some reason her and I often have the main course come before the starter. The food was really good, but it was hard to really enjoy because the service was so garbage.
We went to the "Super Bowl" to watch Cameroon-Denmark. The game finished well, with Denmark winning 2-1. Hopefully Denmark will be able to get the result they need against Japan so they can go on to the knockout stage.
The 2 1/2 hour drive back had a bit of fun as well. Just after we left Sun City, the police blocked off the road at an intersection. The England team bus was going past, so I rolled down my window and held up my USA badge on my jersey to the bus. Several of the England players saw it, and this made me happy.
Dropped Marcel off at his hotel, but I'll be seeing him again soon. Him and I are heading about 200 miles away to Nelspruit to see Italy take on footballing superpower New Zealand.
Sleep time, for soon I drive!
Monkeys! = What fun. Your report made me smile the entire time reading it.
ReplyDeleteMonkeypox = bad