03 May: Keetmanshoop to Mata-Mata

Our early-to-bed-early-to-rise habit this trip meant we were up early (in fact, just before the sun!) and we headed off before breakfast to Giant's Playground for a walk. Very nice in the early morning light ... but it does get a bit same-old same-old after a while. I think we were there about half an hour?



We packed up quickly and took leftovers from the braai to eat en-route for breakfast. Honestly we shouldn't have been in any rush. I naively thought perhaps we could pop into the Kgalagadi for an afternoon drive or drive around Torga's Safari Lodge to see some game, but more on that later.

En route we saved a little tortoise that was in the middle of the road :) A highlight of my day ... wish I could've brought him home with me. We stopped at a little farmstall, on a farm just next door to the farm we were staying, for an early lunch and then arrived at Torga's around 11:30am. There was no one there. We walked around calling, eventually we found someone. We were very early. And apparently the only people staying there that night. They showed us to our room. We dumped our stuff and decided to explore a little. This meant heading to the Mata-Mata border post and finding out about if we could do a day-trip to the Kgalagadi. Nope. The gate closes at 4:30pm and they won't let anyone thru after midday.

So we headed back to Torga's. There really is *nothing* to do there. We signed up for a sunset game drive (since they don't let you drive around on your own), had a swim in their pool and then headed back to our room to relax for the afternoon ... there was much napping and reading :)

We went for the sunset game drive, but unfortunately didn't see much game, but we did see the border-fence between Namibia and South Africa which runs along the edge of this farm. Literally on the border - haha. We chatted to the couple who run the place and stopped on top of one of the red dunes to watch the sun set. Lovely.

When we got back, 4 more people had arrived. They didn't make it thru the border before it closed (I gather it happens a lot!). We sat around the fire chatting. We had booked an awesome special thru Safari Now (where I booked all our accommodation, highly recommend it) that included dinner, bed and breakfast. But we were in for even more than that! When we got called for dinner, we were surprised to be served a plate of Kalahari Truffles each, which we'd been discussing and been shown by the couple who run the place. OMG and here they had prepared them for us! They were amazing. We both felt very spoilt. And then came a delish start soup followed by an amazing main meal (they served these sweet potato things which were so divine!!). I didn't even have space to think about dessert tho.