Poor Tourists

The public servants strike im my opinion really got out of hand. It was an interesting experience, I must admit though. I've never been in a country where the entire public service section just shuts down compltely, but the fact that it lasted 4 weeks was insane. Checking out of the village and heading in to Pretoria was probably the best decision I've made- especially since I got a little bit of down time before picking up my sister at the airport to begin a whilrwind vacation of South Africa.

Unlike my parents, Allison has vacationed before in developming countries, but she has never been to Africa. It excited me to show her around, especially things that I never got to show my parents. While I loved the vacation with my parents back in December- they were really determined to spoil me, and I was content to let them- it seemed to me a shame that they only really saw the "tourist South Africa." They never got to use public transportation, or eat street food, or even really see what the rural areas and townships were like. With Allison the vacation was different in that we were both poor. There was no way we could afford to rent a car for the entire two weeks she was here, and no way I was shelling out big bucks for more than a backpackers. So, we did things the poor Peace Corps way. While I do enjoy having a bit of luxury in my life-especially after doing without for such a long time- I have found that I actually prefer to travel light and cheap. There is so much character of a country a person can miss if they go the touristy route. While it can get extremely annoying at times, I do enjoy using public transport and sleeping in backpackers and going to cheap route for food, because I get to see more and meet more people than regular tourists do.