Tuesday 9th August

CHARLIE -

We squeeze in a minibus that takes us back to Jo-burg.  Anthony and Andrew welcome us back to Moafrika with amused gusto.  While Jamie is for some reason taking a dip in the unnecessarily cold outdoor pool, I go on the internet and find that London is totally fucked.  I won't go into details because that would be writing a travel blog about what's happening back home, which would just be stupid, but suffice to say Jamie and I are both extremely shocked and upset to hear this.  I see a woman who runs a bar I used to drink at in Ealing when I was at drama school talking about how she had to hide in a cupboard while a mob smashed everything up.  This is deeply disturbing.  London is not supposed to behave like this.

JAMIE -

Today was one of those inevitable non-days one always gets when travelling: the return journey from Kruger to Johannesburg was really the sole event of the day, save for a final breakfast and goodbyes at Marc's Treehouse Lodge and a lunch break half way along. The minibus was fully packed and rather uncomfortable so we were very grateful to arrive back at Moafrika and to the welcoming face of Andrew and company.

The warmth of our reception was quickly counteracted by the coldness of the swimming pool that, in a fit of high-spirited madness, I had decided was just the thing to freshen me up. And in some ways it did freshen me up, though in much the same way perhaps as a red hot poker applied firmly to the sphincter would inevitably awaken the senses and help one appreciate what it truly means to be alive. And, much as I suppose a tube of germaline or some such substance would quickly quadruple in value to one recently endowed with a poker-seared sphincter, so the intoxicating charms of a nice, warm shower proved all the more alluring, coming as they did immediately following my icy flirtation with the thawing glacier they had shovelled into the concrete hole outside and dared to christen a pool. Add to this the fact that I hadn't showered - nay: stood free in all my naked glory - for three days and you have the ingredients for a pretty spunkingly good shower.

It was still only about 6pm after I had gotten every enjoyment I possibly could from the bathroom and Charlie and I had agreed to spend the evening entering the first few entries of our blog.

I cannot deny that our mood was significantly dampened by news of the London riots. Initial feelings of surprise and confusion have slowly turned into dismay and horror and as we watched the BBC news coverage of preparations for the 'Fourth Night' of the riots alongside all the other hostel guests and staff (all of different nationalities) the full enormity of what was happening began to dawn, and as the evening came to a close I felt not only fear for friends, family and home but also a sense of national shame that I have not felt before and that is all the more keenly felt abroad, when one's ambassadorial role as a representative of one's country tends to heighten the sense of national identity.

I shall have to write more on this when I have had time to reflect, but I was certainly grateful for the chance to go to bed and start afresh tomorrow.