Christmas in South Africa

My Christmas in South Africa was wonderful! My dear friends Marc and Rebecca live there with their new little baby, Abigail, and Molly, my roommate for many years in Oregon, is volunteering at a medical clinic there this year. Since everyone was in Africa at the same time, we decided a holiday together was in order.


They showed me a wonderful time, introduced me to new friends, and created fun memories. Some of these moments were...

Christmas with Marc's welcoming family.

The Le Roux family fed us a wonderful meal and provided many laughs. It felt like being home with family, and we were very blessed by their hospitality!

We watched Abigail open Christmas presents, slobber, laugh, cry...

Pretty much everything she did was cute!

Since it is summer in the Southern hemisphere, we enjoyed swimming during the day and watching the sunset at night.

We also went on holiday to the beach, shopped, saw lions, and more. Read the next few blog posts to learn more about my vacation in South Africa.

Dirty Dancing Resort

Marc, Rebecca, Abigail, Molly, Gwen (a new South African friend), and I spent a week at a beach resort. In so many ways it reminded us of the family resort on the movie Dirty Dancing. There were a variety of activities led by Uncle Neville, the activities director, whom we met at a pool-side get-together. At one point they even played the Dirty Dancing sound track while we laid by the pool. The only things missing were Patrick Swayze and dirty dancing moves. However, we enjoyed many of the resort activities, including...

Riding from place to place by golf cart.

Reading (I finished 5 books in three weeks).New Years Celebration.
Hiking.
Mini Golf.

Exploring caves on the beach.

Fighting off the wildlife.

And of course, SLEEPING!

SOUTH AFRICAN BEACH

The Eastern Cape of South Africa looks like the Oregon coast in some places and very different in other places. It was beautiful and warm, windy at times, but the Indian Ocean was too chilly to swim in (a little warmer than Oregon, but not much).

At the beach we enjoyed many activities...

Beach sculpting...

Hiking against the wind...

And Kung Fu fighting...

Lion Park

Although I still have not seen any of the cats of Africa on safari YET, we did go to a lion park where I saw all the big cats. Cheetahs, leopards, and lots of lions were there for our viewing enjoyment. We saw daddy lions, mama lions, and cute little baby lions. The first lion pictured here came walking right up to the car window like it was going to jump us. Molly, being the closest one to that window, ducked and closed her eyes, but the rest of us enjoyed the close encounter.

We got to go into the baby lion pen to play. Most of them were playful, biting our pants and clawing at our feet. Some of them were more docile and lazy in the afternoon heat.

Even baby Abigail got to play with the lions.

Aren't they so cute!

Spa Day!

I must admit that my best day in South Africa was spa day! For my birthday and Christmas gift Molly gave me a day at the spa (of course she joined in the fun as well, along with two other friends). Being that we could never in our lives afford to do this in the States, or any other country for that matter, we indulged in the "African spa of the year" (Don't ask me how to spell the name of the place). It was a day of every girl's dreams...

Treatment 1 - full body scrub
Treatment 2 - jacuzzi
Treatment 3 - hand massage
Treatment 4 - full body hot stone massage
Treatment 5 - foot massage
Treatment 6 - head and neck massage
Treatment 7 - facial

Each treatment was 45 minutes long! That's a lot of hours of oil and rubbing! We also enjoyed a gourmet breakfast and lunch, astounding desserts, amazing cheese and cracker spread for snack, open bar, and amaretto and chocolate to conclude the day. The whole day we all just kept saying to ourselves... THIS IS UNBELIEVABLE!Molly, thanks for the gift. It is definitely one of the best presents I've received!