Day 20... Italy v New Zealand...

Sat down and did some web browsing and see what was happening in the world... Nothing really happening there, so I tried to upload some photos to the blog...Note to self airport wireless hotspot connections are not great for uploading photos...

Finally boarded and promptly slept for the whole 45 minute flight... Woke up at the other end at Kruger-Mpumalanga airport... If anyone has been to Koh Samui airport, you can kind of imagine what the place is like... Except there is more of an African motif rather than the South East Asian vibe of Koh Samui...

Came through the doors and there was a man holding my name on a board... Felt all fancy and that... He introduced himself as Rodney and he drove me to where I would be staying that night... The drive was about 25-30 minutes and the man didn't stop for breath that whole time... It was incessant... Giving his opinions about social matters and talking about the recent group of Chilean “Ratbags” as he called them...

Got to the place, met up with the folks as they had flown up the day before, and dropped some crap off and got a lift with Rodney to the Park and Ride... At the same place there were some Italians and New Zealanders going to the same game... The New Zealanders were three young lads who had obviously made it their mission to party pretty hard... They were doing their trip in almost opposite order including going to Simbavati (the same lodge we went to)... I told them that with that party hardy attitude, Cape Town would be a perfect match for them... They only had 3 nights there and I knew that would not be enough... But they'll find that out...

Get out of the van, and there is a line longer than the number of people that the stadium holds to get on the buses... We are waiting about an hour to get on one... And it is little more than organized chaos... And I am using the term organized very loosely...

We get off the bus, walk 20 minutes to locate our gate and walk the half an hour back round the other way to get to our seats... Even though we had left with what we thought was ample time, we arrived at our seats with a couple of minutes to spare...

The game's result and goings on are known, so I won't bother... But we were, of course, less than impressed with the performance of the team... Went back to the hotel, and had a good meal...

Plenty of wine and watched the Brazil v. Ivory Coast game with a mostly knowledgeable football crowd in the common room of the hotel... Once the game was over, more wine was consumed and then bed...