From the Melrose House we headed north through downtown Pretoria to the zoo, another place of happy memories for us. Beautifully landscaped, we could wander the paths and look at animals or lie on the grass and relax.
School groups were arriving as we did. They went left so we went right and only met the crowds around the lions at the top. All the ice cream shops were closed, presumably because this is a weekday out of season. We eventually found a restaurant open with one other family. Steve got a burger and I got fish and chips. Neither one of us thought they would put any fast food chains out of business.
The other family in the reatuarant was one we had met before. Steve’s guardian angel had arranged for them to see us leaving the bench where Steve had left his wallet and send the little girl running after us. The boy was wearing a Minnesota T-shirt, but it was just words, no connection to Minnesota.
We didn’t need to be at the camp ground for the conference until supper, so from the zoo we went on to Pretoria National Botanical Gardens. As pensioners, we only paid a dollar to get in. Lovely place to walk with lots of benches to relax, but no animals to see except a few peacocks, Egyptian geese and dassies (a kind of large rodent that likes to sun itself in rocky places.) I took the Dassie Trail out to the end while Steve did crossword puzzles on a bench by the waterfall. (He changed benches when a couple on the other side of the stream didn’t see him and thought they had some privacy. He did not leave his wallet behind.)
This place had no memories from Mozambique days, but I kept imagining my little girls scampering down the paths, eager to explore. Proximity and easy access to the city was nice, but even at the end of the trail, I was never out of hearing range of vehicles, and views from the summit of the ridge were warehouses and expressways. This waterfall was much nicer.
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