Day 4: Parys - Viljoenskroon

Total Distance Covered: 241 km
Distance Remaining: 1,769 km

After refreshing the deodorant and washing up as best we could in the Shell Station’s bathroom, Kim and Jaap met us and took us to lunch with the Viljoenskroon Rotary Club. We gave a presentation to the club and had a great time meeting everyone.

Again we were quite pleasantly surprised when the Viljoenskroon Rotary Club donated to the hike and took a special collection from the club’s members to add to their gift. Words can’t express how meaningful these actions are to us. We’ll never know the great impact these donations will make or how many lives they’ll ultimately influence, but we do know that by providing these children who’ve lost their parents to AIDS with regular meals, an education, and counseling and support, we can give them a chance at life – something they genuinely deserve. Thank you all so much for your kind gift!

While Ryan, Kelly and Ikumi hiked after lunch, Keegan, Jacob and Ruan went to see a breeding farm for white lions outside of town. The cats were absolutely gorgeous, although one lioness (the regular lion below with darker fur) seemed to be particularly ready to rip Keegan to pieces…she wouldn’t take her eyes off him and followed him along the fence wherever he went with the look of death in her eyes. It was a bit unsettling… fortunately, there was a nice mesh fence and electric wiring between us.

We found out later that night that three days before one of the lions had taken the finger off a grown man and just yesterday another cat had jumped into the electric fencing to get her paw through the mesh and had ripped up the farm owner’s young son pretty badly. Fortunately, we made it out safely and no fingers or faces were lost to the big cats!

We may have no lion-related injuries, but the same can’t be said for those related to the road! Ryan’s heals have blistered quite badly…the blister on his left heal is about the size of a golf ball and looks quite painful. Kelly’s developed a couple small blisters that seem to be hurting her, as well. For now, the plan is to keep hiking and hope they dry up and go away. Let’s hope!

Ruan gave an interview this afternoon on Radio Sonder Grense (Radio Without Borders), the biggest Afrikaans radio station in South Africa. It was a great interview, lasted almost 10 minutes and allowed us to get our message out to a very large population nationally. Many people leave RSG on all day at work and at home…so we couldn’t be happier to get the interview. Even better…they want to do a follow-up interview when we reach Cape Town!

We all split up tonight and had dinner and stayed with different hosts from the Viljoenskroon Rotary Club. To everyone in the club, thanks for the kind hospitality! We had a great time.