After four days we decided to stay for another nine days. Therefore it went to the office.
“We’ve been here four days, and we’d like to stay longer,” I said.
“Another night?” asked the young man.
“Nine more nights!” I said. Eyebrows shot up. Had he heard right?
“Nine nights?”
“Nine nights.”
Probably it didn’t happen very often. Then I had to pay the park fees. How much is 9 x 20? 180. 9 x 20 = 180 was also calculated by the calculator of the young lady. She probably did not fully trust her device and calculated: 20 + 20 + 20 + 20 + 20 + 20 + 20 + 20 + 20 + 20 (at each “+” one finger of the hand was put down until it was 9) = 180. 180 dollars, please. Thank you. She wrote a receipt. We were allowed to stay for another nine days. People from Gauteng set up camp. The woman’s voice was piercingly shrill.
“Daisy Duck!” said Anita. “That’s Daisy Duck’s voice-over!”
I said, “She speaks English.”
“Daisy Duck herself? Daisy Duck here?!”
The family stayed three days. There were two Daisys. The mother had passed on her voice to her daughter. That calmed us down because two times laryngeal cancer at the same time in the same family is rather unlikely. On the 5th day, I asked the caretaker if the lawn around our tent should not be watered. Fearing to get our tent wet, he had stopped irrigating there. The grass quickly became withered and dry. Since we would stay for two weeks, the lawn would be destroyed if it wasn’t raining or if it wasn’t watered. He immediately brought the hose and assigned me the task. That was quite all right with me. In this way, I was able to ensure that none of our equipment broke and tested our tent for rain-worthiness. It was sprinkler-proof. Anita studied the 4×4 Cookbook. The book didn’t give recipes on how to cook an all-wheel-drive car (as the title might suggest), but recipes for people on offroad tours. We weren’t on such a trip, but we were still interested (in the recipes as well as in a trip). The recipes for the desserts usually started with ” Take one packet Marie Biscuits”. Although our traditional recipes were still delicious – the pork cutlet marinated in chutney and then grilled is finger licking good, and there is no better hot dog than a boere dog – but if you camp longer, you might want to try other recipes. And the 4×4 Cookbook gave a lot of food for thought. The shopping list became longer and longer.
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