April 14, 2025
This morning I tried to wake up early to start to look at all the visa paperwork we need to do for the Asia portion of our trip. I was quickly frustrated by every part of the process for getting a Chinese tourist visa. The only silver lining was I was able to get the Australia visas done for all four of us at a cost of 50 USD. I am left with China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Indonesia to complete.
Kayleen could sense my frustration and took the boys for a walk to Clicks, SA version of CVS, to pick up some things and do a real world math lesson. The boys each got 40 Rand, ~$2, to buy things. Of course they choose candy.
When they got home there was more candy related math; guessing how many pieces in a package, figuring out how much each piece cost, & how many are left once they both snaked a few pieces.
Lenny then showed Kayleen his iPad reading and math daily activities and I worked with Ollie on his daily letter. We both got a taste of the frustrations that come with the other student. Ollie was excited to write to his friend Tess and tell her how he had bought gum and chewed one piece for 40 minutes. This may seem like a silly brag but we have been listen to Roald Dahl audio books on our longer drives and Violet Beauregarde from Charlie & the Chocolate Factory seems to have inspired him.
After home school we headed out to Guano Caves Resort which was recommend by Brydon. The main attraction are caves that you can do a short hike to and see all the bats. The boys were not thrilled with the idea of another hike after yesterday but were excited for the bats. Sadly the cave guide was not available today so we couldn’t go to the caves.
The resort was sleepy, it was a Monday and not a holiday so that should have been expected. Shortly after arriving Lenny locked himself in the bathroom and could not unlock the door, second time he has done this in a week. Unlike the first time, which we were able to rescue him on our own, I had to ask an employee to find the key, that likely has never been used, to free him. Shockingly on about the tenth key tried, he was free.
We explored the pool area and much to the boys delight there were more slides but the biggest was not open since it wasn’t very busy. The pools were mostly quite cold except for one that was heated. There was also an indoor “roman bath” that was warm but felt extremely out of place. We did go in there to get warm and introduced the boys to Marco Polo since we could be loud since no one else was in there.
The boys did the slides repeatedly while we waited for lunch. We discovered a ~10 foot platform to jump from into a deep section of the pool. After about 5 minutes of waffling and pumping himself up Ollie made the leap. He did it a few more times and enjoyed watching the few other kids there have to work up the bravery to do it after he did it. I did it with Lenny which was not very fun for either of us, and not repeated, but he wanted to say he did it.
When we changed out of swimwear to go explore the animals on the property we realized we only brought on set of kids clothes. Lenny was happy to go naked, besides socks and shoes, in my sweatshirt.
There were tons of different kinds of birds, goats, llamas, ostrich, emu, and mini horses. Ollie had fun “talking” to the parrots as they would sing back to him. Eventually his confidence of being a parrot whisper got too high and one nipped his finger pretty good. Lenny and I IDed the accused parrot so we could document him and Ollie declared “I will only talk to nice parrots from now on!”
I was going to buy some food to let the kids feed the animals but we decided not to. Ollie then discovered the goats were happy to eat fresh grass so we spent a while picking grass and feeding them. The boys loved this and there was one tiny baby goat that was the favorite.
I lost track of what day of the week it was, happens way quicker then you think when not working, and thought a restaurant was open that we knew was closed on Mondays. We ended up getting take away from the same place I got last night but this time for the whole crew. Ollie took down chicken schnitzel, thrilled to declare that it wasn’t even chicken because of how thin it was pounded. Lenny was less enthused but choked it down so he could get popcorn later.
Lenny learned where popcorn came from tonight. He asked, “how do they make that?” pointing at the popcorn. Kayleen explained to him that it came from dried corn on the cob. We could see his brain being blown. “WUTTT!!” Then later, while eating popped corn, “I can’t believe I’m eating corn!”
After dinner it was off to bed to finish a movie and go to sleep. They watched an old one from when we were kids, Homeward Bound. Over 30 years old but it still captured their attention.
