South African Stories #4: Stephen on Location

Our "Senior South African Correspondent", Stephen Craig, is on the ground in South Africa and here's his fourth update. Stephen is a member of American Outlaws: Austin Chapter.

This country is in heat!

I have to start off with the following. This country is completely on fire all of the time. Every time we go out and about and come home there is a grass fire close to the house. Thank god all the grass is finally burned. Even when driving into Joburg or Sandton you can see this haze of grass fire smoke over everything. It is very dry here. I have to put a bottle of water next to the bed just to pull off of as the night goes on. They say about 30% humidity is not out of the ordinary this time of year. They also have a very slow fire brigade. There really is no volunteer fire department so you have to put it out your self or wait for the brigade. That could take an hour at least so by then your house could be toast.


6/19/2010 - Mmmmmm..... Moroccan!

Let’s go back a couple of days. We were pretty tired after the Slovenia game on the 18th so we didn’t get organized for quite a while. Ben and Natalie asked if we wanted to meet at a Northern African style restaurant called Moyo. We looked it up on the GPS and headed into town. When we arrived at Melrose Arch we where a little confused. We quickly called Ben and he said that there were two Moyo restaurants and one was in Melrose Arch. They turned around and we just decided to meet in the square at MA. It was a great place to hang out and the square was fantastic.

We went into Moyo and it was really quite cool. We went down 3 levels to get to our table. It was like being in a cave and a Moroccan style restaurant. It was simply beautiful. Ben had to split by six to set up for his party. We decided to pass up the party (I’m kind of glad because it went on until 5 am according to Ben) because we had to get up kind of early to head to the African market in Rosebank. We then headed out to the suburbs to meet up with Evan and Nikki. This is the young couple that Nigel, Kellie, and Esfan met while I was fighting fires a few days earlier. After much driving and many phone calls we made it to their house and had a nice braai (pronounced bry, it's a South African BBQ) and many glasses of wine. We made it home by midnight so I was glad we could get in bed at a decent hour.

6/20/10 - South African Beers and Steaks

The next day we got up bright and early and loaded into the clown car and followed Alison into town. We arrived at the African market in Rosewood and strolled around and did some shopping. This gave Kellie a little time away from the boys to do her own thing. The market was attached to a really nice mall so Nigel, Esfan and I walked around and then found a pub/restaurant for beers and wine.

The beer here is not the best in my opinion, but Ben introduced us to Hansa Marza Gold. To me it is the best beer so far. I keep trying the Windhoek, but I just don’t like it. Now the wine here is top notch. We are all slowly turning into winos. Kellie met us for lunch and we had some good food. Now here is the difference in steak in SA and in Texas. They eat a rump steak and always put a sauce on it. One of the sauces is even called Monkey Gland. Ah…no thanks.

There's a way we can fit this in the living room, right?

The meat is good but it is not marbled like a rib eye. It's not bad, its just different, and that is what its all about when you travel. After the dinner we headed back to Melrose Arch (just a really cool area) and went to the second square with a big screen. Nigel and Esfan got us seats at a restaurant called Grand Central. The table was on the second floor overlooking the square so we could watch the games and do some great people watching. Our new Mexican friends Mauricio and Diego met us as well as Nick and we all had a good time just hanging out. We all headed back to the lodge and had a pretty fun dinner seeing we were all pretty primed. Alison bought a bottle for Findlandia Vodka for the young Finnish couple and they kindly let us all take a few shots of it. By the end of the last game I was pretty bushed.

6/21/10 - Elephants!

Hanging Tusk

It was another early wake up. A large group of us headed to the Elephant sanctuary. It was pretty cool. We got to get up close and personal with them. They really let you touch and handle the animals under there constant presence. They are truly amazing but it was a little unnerving.

I’ve seen all those FOX “When Animals Attack.” I made sure Nick was going to get slammed to the ground first while I ran the other way. It was an informative tour and hands on. We checked out another market on the way home and the rest of the day we are laying low, drying out and getting a little rest.

I watched the 7-0 drumming Portugal put on North Korea. Memo to North Korea, you suck. I’ll touch base with you all about the big Algeria match. I hope to have some good photos of the Apartheid museum tomorrow soon.

Until then!

What Stephen think of the US-Slovenia ref.

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