Chris Meistre

It’s 15 August 2009 at 5:30 and the alarm has just gone off.  I fall asleep immediately again and forget it went off.  I wake up briefly when Bernadette gets out of the tent to go shower.  I think I fall asleep for another 10 minutes before waking up again and deciding I’ll get up.  We need to leave the camp site at 7:00.  The previous night had been very cold, and I can see the ice on the tents and the vehicles as I go to also shower.  I get into the cubicle and get ready to shower, put on the water and as I get in it is ice cold.  I need to make a decision, will I get out and go and see what is going on, or brave the cold and just get finished.  I decide to brave the cold.  Just before I start going into hypothermia I finish and get my clothes on as quickly as possible.  The upside of having my body at freezing point is that when I walk outside into the cold air, the air actually feels warm on my skin.  We get our final instructions and then we’re off to setup a rescue site.  Bernadette and I are on our own while the other 2 teams head off to another section to setup a crash site there.

Morning

We are given GPS coordinates of where to get onto a farm, as well as a point of where we must setup the crash site.  Easy I think.

Farm entrance

Once we get onto the farm I head off into the direction the GPS point is, and try and see which roads are leading towards it.  In the briefing we were told the farm owner knows about us and if there are not roads to get to the point, we can make our own roads.  This is something we don’t normally do.  It’s fine for 1 or 2 people to make use of a road you create yourself, but if there are more people following you in the future it leads to erosion.  So we are careful to only do this when there is no other choice.  And at this stage, we didn’t have another choice so I carefully started driving up the mountain, avoiding huge rocks.

Where is the road?

At this point we notice a farm bakkie coming towards us, so I thought I’ll just go and greet him.  When I get to him, it’s the farm foreman, and he doesn’t know anything about us being there!  I explain to him what we’re doing and told him I was under the impression it had been organised with the owner of the farm that we would be using their farm.  After putting him at ease that we weren’t there to poach, he actually helped me by explaining the best possible way to get on top of the mountain.  He even drove with us to the gate that leads to a road that actually goes up the mountain.  I am glad he showed up, because the route he took as too made more sense and was a lot more safer.

As he turns around he does warn me that due to the snow they’ve had the last couple of weeks the roads are pretty bad and that they struggled getting the tractor up the roads during the week.  I reassure him that we’ll be safe and only go as far as we feel safe to go.

Time was ticking on and we’d still have to do a bit of driving before even getting close to where we were supposed to be. The first part of the drive is fine, we even spot Springbuck and Zebras.

The Farm

Half way up the first little hill we have to get over the road is badly washed away and there is a huge boulder that had come loose from the cliff next to the route and landed in the middle of the road.  No amount of road building would help.

This is a nice road!

A minor obstacle

Ok, now what?

We decide to try and see if we can get to the top of the hill using another route that we would need to lay out ourselves.  It took me about 20 minutes walking up and down and checking out different routes until I saw a way to get up there.  At least if we didn’t make it up, the worst that would happen is that I would need to reverse, failing which I can use the winch to get myself out of there.  So with Bernadette guiding and taking photos I started going up the hill.  I got stuck in a hole halfway up, and reversed a bit.  I got out to check and the hole was quite big.  After filling it with rocks I tried again and made it up.  Amazingly I didn’t knock anything on the bakkie.  The only part that was left now to get up this little hill was a very rocky uphill.  With a bit of momentum I made it up.  Bernadette walked up the path and got into the bakkie.

New road

Colt doing me proud

Safely up

Long way to go

Here we were on a plateau and drove leisurely admiring the beauty around us.   I kept on forgetting our time was running out and we’re actually here to work.  I turned off from the road and headed up, in a direct route, towards the mountain’s top.  I spotted a nice cliff that I thought would make the perfect crash landing site.  We got there, parked and got out of the vehicle.  We were still 3.5km away from the point they wanted us to setup, but I decided we’ll just go as close we can.  I wasn’t willing to risk our lives or my vehicle’s well being.  The place we had stopped was very steep, and as I looked out into the distance I spotted a road leading up further into the mountain and looked to be closer to our destination.  We got back into the car, and because it was so steep we couldn’t really turn.  I had to reverse down for about 900m while trying to avoid huge rocks and little cliffs all the way down.  When it was safe, I turned the vehicle and headed up the road we saw.  It was looking good, we were now 2.9km away from the intended point.  I figured we had another 30 minutes before we would need to be ready for the first plane to come.

About 400m further we reached another plateau, but this had even bigger and more rocks.  Careful, but fast, driving in zigzags took us to about 2.4km away from the point.  I decided that we would stop there and get setup.  We had run out of time.

Is it a plane?

Our brief was to setup our vehicle to look like a plane that had crashed.  We used a couple of banners to create the vision of a plane that was on the ground.  Our quick breakfast was barely over when we heard the first plane come over.  The task of the planes were to fly in a certain pattern until they spot us.  They would then radio in the helicopter and guide them to us by radio only.  For the first exercise the helicopter would land, deploy 3 medics, and “rescue” us.

We had already discussed that Bernadette would be lifted into the helicopter in the stretcher and I would go via the strop.

After spotting the plane, and seeing that it spotted us, we waited to see which side the helicopter would come from.  A few minutes had passed when we suddenly heard this heavy droning sound coming from just the other side of a small valley.  Within seconds the helicopter came over our heads, turned and headed back to us.  It looked like a scene out of a movie.  With expert precision the helicopter touched down, and watching the hand signals between the occupants the medics deployed.  It was really great to see the coordination between the pilot, winch operator and the 3 medics.  The 3 medics came to greet us and explained again what is going to happen.  While they were strapping Bernadette into the stretcher I went to grab the camera to take a few shots.  With the helicopter making a lot of noise in the background, you had to listen carefully to whatever instructions were to follow.  They signaled to the pilot that they were ready and he lifted off again and came to hover over us.  The winch cable was let down, hooked into the stretcher, and Bernadette was hoisted into the air and into the helicopter.  Once she was in, the let down the strop and together with one of the medics I was hoisted into the helicopter.  It wasn’t high up, but even if it was higher, the noise of the helicopter was so loud in your head that even people with a fear of heights will be too confused to worry about the height.  Once in the helicopter I saw Bernadette sitting there a bit nervously     The helicopter then lowered back down again, and once we touched ground the winch operator signaled for us to depart.  We were told in the briefing to depart in such a way that we kept in the sight of the pilot, and keep our heads low.  Once we were clear, we turned around and waved as the helicopter left us again.

Bernadette in the stretcher

Bernadette

There she goes

Almost in

And then there was silence…… a lot of it.  Such a contrast between the excitement we had just experienced.

It would be another hour before another plane was scheduled to come and “spot” us.  This time though the helicopter would just come over us and head back again.  We relaxed around the vehicle and I caught a few z’s while Bernadette read her magazines.  It was awesome, here we were, in the middle of a mountain with more mountains around us, on the edge of a cliff with no one to bother us.  In complete silence we enjoyed it there.

Paradise

A while later we spotted the other plane, and when it circled us, we realised he had spotted us before he went off again.  When the third plane came later we wondered if this guy did spot us or not.  The previous planes would circle us once they had seen us, but this guy just carried on flying his patterns.  A few minutes later we heard the helicopter come over again.  He circled us and then hover about 100m away from us for quite some time before he threw something out the helicopter.  At first we were a bit confused until we saw the yellow smoke whirling away from the thing he had just dropped.  It was obviously a marker he had dropped, because seconds later, the plane we thought had not seen us came towards us and circled.  This would also be the last plane that would spot us for the rest of the day.

Smoke cannister

Not knowing exactly when we must head back to the camp site, Bernadette and I decided that we would leave no later than 16:00.  We still needed to get down the mountain, and didn’t want to do it in the dark.  Just after 16:00 we left.  I had Bernadette drive while I packed the road for us to avoid the rocks.  I didn’t want to damage the vehicle now.  It took us 30 minutes to do 500m.  It was great, we didn’t hit anything and Bernadette drove like an expert while I was carrying rocks around.

The next hectic part would be the part we had to figure out our own road earlier in the morning.  When we got there I switched off the vehicle and we walked down.  I decided that going on there was not an option, too many drop offs that would hurt the vehicle.  Also, at the angle, the weight from the whole vehicle would be on the nose which makes it closer to the ground.  I spent another few minutes walking up and down trying to see how we would get down.  Further down the road there was another option.   It was a lot more steep and I needed to get over the side bank before even getting onto it.  I decided that was my only option.  I moved a few rocks and told Bernadette to take her place to guide me down.  As I got over the bank I felt the vehicle slipping as I wanted to move forward.  I knew there were big rocks in the path it was trying to take me so I stopped and got out of the vehicle.  It would be too dangerous to try and fight the slide, so I decided to just go with it.  I got the rocks out of the way so that I don’t end up knocking the vehicle on the way down.  With Bernadette at a safe distance I got the vehicle into gear, turned the steering wheel into the slide and just drove it.  It ended up sliding a bit more, but with a bit more steering it came straight and I drove it all the way down.  Bernadette came down and we were now on a sturdy ground.  Slowly we drove through the rest of the farm as we spotted a number of Kudus and a variety of other buck.   It had taken us an hour to drive about 2km down the mountain.

Around 18:30 we pulled into the camp and found the other 4×4 teams there.  It didn’t sound like they had as much action as we did, but everyone was glad to have everyone bad safely.  We had the debriefing at 19:30, but Bernadette and I decided to rather get our own little fire going because we were very hungry and tired.  After dinner we settled into our tent for another night of cold sleep.

One of the members of our club, Algoa Toyota 4×4 Club, asked us to join him for a unique experience.  Members of the Mountain Rescue Club, SA Airforce, HAMs, as well as a few others were setting up an exercise over the weekend to test their spotting and rescuing abilities.  This is aimed at rescuing planes that have crashed and that are missing.  Of course I didn’t have to think twice before saying we’ll be there.  We were given a brief description of what is expected of us at the 4×4 support teams, which made it sound even more like an adventure.  The 4x4s would go out into the mountains and setup crash sites and then get rescued.  Easier said than done

So on Friday, 14 August 2009, Bernadette and I left towards the Graaff Reinet area where the weekend would take place.  Barto was going to join us, but unfortunately he had to bail on account of work.  We would meet the 2 other teams at the camp site the evening.  I could finally go away in the Colt again, after a few occasions where the vehicle would be in the workshop on the weekend we would be away.  The first thing I did when we left home was head through Motherwell and onto a 14km piece of dirt road that links up to the road we would take to get to Graaff Reinet.  There are normally not a lot of vehicles on this dirt road, and you can clearly see vehicles approaching because of all the dust.  This was the perfect place to drive the Colt on a dirt road at speed to see how it handles after not driving it for so long.  We immediately noticed how much smoother the ride feels.  This is compared to driving in the Pajero for quite some time now which is a short wheel base.  In the SWB you feel the bumps a lot more than in a longer vehicle.  At speed I started getting used to the vehicle again and soon we were taking the corners like pros.  In my eyes anyways

We got back onto the tar road and headed towards Kirkwood area.  About 40km outside Uitenhage I remembered about the Cheetah breeding farm we would be passing.  I mentioned it to Bernadette and we decided to check up on them, as we hadn’t been there in years.  Once there Bernadette had her camera ready as we met the lady that would take us on the tour.  It had been such a long time since we’d been there, that I forgot that you actually have a guide that takes you on the little tour.  The first pen we stopped as was Frederik, the meercat.  He has been brought there from someone that had him as a house pet and couldn’t handle him anymore.  He looked so cute and so alone, while making these funny little noises.  When he was close enough to the side of the pen, the guide told me I could reach over and pick him up.  I picked him up, and was amazed at how soft his fur felt.  He just had one thing in his mind though, to get back to digging holes!  As soon as I put him down he zoomed in on a hole he was digging and carried on.

Frederik

From here we were led through a gate, and the next thing I saw we were in the same camp as a cheetah.  She was laying in the distance and as we approached her I tried to rack my brain to remember if we were given the opportunity to do this the previous time we were there.  I am sure I would remember   Initially as we got right to the cheetah, I was quite sure if we’re allowed to touch her or how we should approach her.  The guide then said I can sit next to her and play with her.  So here I as sitting and playing with a huge cheetah, and she started purring like a little kitten.  This is one of the most amazing and special experiences I’ve ever had.  We sat there for quite some time just playing with her while the guide told us more about the breeding farm.

Cheetah

Bernadette with Cheetah

Cheetah

Reluctantly we left the cheetah and carried onto the next pen that held a young Serval cat.  As we got into the pen I noticed all the toys lying around, he even had a little tiger doll!  He was hiding in the long grass, but soon came out to play.  I played with him a bit with the toys as if he was just a normal cat or dog.  It looked so funny when you gave him the tiger teddy bear and he looks like he hugs it.

Serval

We then went onto another pen that had 2 cheetahs in.  This is a brother and sister and they were lying in the shade of a tree relaxing.  The guide said we wouldn’t go in there, because she wants to go show us another surprise.  So off we went following her into another pen.  She told us to sit down while we disappeared into a little hut.  She came out holding 2 little lion cubs.  A male that looks beautiful and a beautiful white female.  They were just woken up so they looked a bit dazed.

They were handed to us and we sat there playing and petting them.  Soon they were fully awake and wanting to play.  Bernadette got some excellent photos here, and we were almost sad when we realized we actually needed to get a move on so that we don’t end up getting to our camp site too late.

Lion Cub

Lion Cubs

Lion Cubs

Sucking my thumb

We thanked the guide for an awesome experience and headed off towards Graaff Reinet.  For a while after leaving the cheetah farm, we both just sat there wondering if what we’ve just experienced really happened.

In Graaff Reinet we filled up on diesel, and then stopped off at the Great Big Church in the city centre.  Once again Bernadette was out with her camera getting photographs from various angles.  And I just watched as she was across the road one moment, and the next she was somewhere else.  We left PE earlier than we normally would’ve because we wanted to stop off at the Valley of Desolation to take a couple of photos there.  The previous year we were there with the 4×4 club, and it really is a beautiful place.  It was around 16:30 and the sun would begin to set, so we needed to rush to get to the view points to get some nice photos.  When we got out at the first viewpoint we felt how cold it had gotten.  I was still in a short sleeve shirt, and the icy wind blew right through it.

Valley of Desolation

After stopping at the toposcope on our way down, we started heading towards the camp site.  It would be about 80km of travel on dirt road, and we would cross the provincial boundaries between Eastern and Northern Cape.

Once pass the Ouberg Pass we turn right onto the dirt road.  It’s a very well kept dirt road and at times I couldn’t believe we were traveling 140km/h and still have it feel like a tar road.  Traveling at that speed at dusk meant that every now and then we’d have to slam on brakes for dips in the road.  In the whole hour and a bit that we drove, we only came across 1 other car.  I just love dirt roads

We finally got to the camp site at around 19:10 and we had to be at their briefing at 19:30.  I was just going to have a drink and then go up to the conference room before setting up the tent.  When we got there though, the scouts had already setup camp and they said we were more than welcome to use one of their tents.  I didn’t need to be asked twice before saying yes.  It was cold and dark and I really didn’t feel like setting up our tent.  The scouts are from the Walmer and Cleary Park chapters in Port Elizabeth, and these kids are some of the most well mannered and respectable people I’ve ever come across.  I’d normally cringe at having to spend time in a camp site with so many kids, but they were really well behaved.  I know I sound like an grumpy old person, but when we go away, I want to be left in peace and quiet.

After the briefing we headed back to our tent, and got our fire going.  Soon after eating we were in bed and didn’t have any problems just falling asleep, we were pretty tired.  We were in for a very cold night, and had to be up and leave the camp site around 7:00.

Camp Site

Bernadette decided to organise a weekend away for us and a few friends. We decided to go to Bergplaas, which is in the Baviaanskloof. Bernadette and I have stayed over in this mountain hut before, but knew we wanted to go there again, and for longer. I left the booking and organising to her, as she always does it so well, and we were set to go on the weekend of 8-10 August.  It was also to be referred to as “Weekend at Bernie’s”.

We just need half an excuse to travel into the Baviaanskloof because we love the area so much.

So on Saturday morning at around 8:30 Bernadette and I left in the Pajero, and Barto joined us in his Triton. We were actually amazed at how much stuff can fit into a short wheel base Pajero It always seem like we take along too much stuff, but while packing you always think you need all the stuff you take with.

I wanted to take the longer route to get to Patensie, so we headed towards Longmore forest. If you take the road running past Culturama towards Longmore forest and you carry on driving you eventually get to Hankey. This is a drive worth doing, and currently it’s very green around that area. Makes for beautiful scenery.

Before we got there though, we stopped off to buy wood. Normally we would buy a feed bags and be happy with that, but Barto decided this time we’ll take a bakkie load of wood with. And…. we did

On the way there we met a couple of guys driving through on their Mountain Bikes, but besides that, for about 2 hours we didn’t have any other people or vehicles on the road. That’s the way we like to drive.

As we get closer to Loerie and Hankey, there is a turn off we’ve taken before.  This leads you to a dead end, or at least it was supposed to take you to Loerie, but the road has been grown over.  I took this road anyways to show Barto, as it has got beautiful views as you driving along the edge of a cliff.

From here we headed off towards Hankey.  From Hankey to Patensie we took another gravel back road before stopping off in Patensie to fill up and get our last supplies before heading into the Baviaanskloof.

A quick stop at Kondomo to sort out our permits and all the other stuff that’s associated with it, we headed into the kloof.

Baviaanskloof

I immediately noticed how much worse (in terms of potholes) the road has become.  This suites me, because the fewer people are able to get into the Baviaanskloof, the lesser the chance is of someone doing something there that will make the area inaccessible to the rest of us.  I’m referring to the beach ban and other bans.  It might sound selfish, but it’s always a few people that spoil it for every one else.

We stopped off at a few places to take some photos.

Barto

Just before we got to Combrink’s pass, which is the first pass you get, we saw a VW Polo in front of us.  We asked about it when we got to the reserve’s manned gate, and they said they warned the person that they won’t be able to go through the passes with such a low car, but the guy didn’t want to listen.  Later on we met up again with them after we had over taken them and then stopped off alongside the road to see if this Polo was really going to go through with it.  At a deepish water crossing we stood and spoke to the guy while he was contemplating whether to not he was going to attempt it.  We warned against it before we left.  Nothing was heard from them again, so hopefully they turned back.

When we got to our destination, Bergplaas, we quickly offloaded before we started with the fire for Barto’s potjie he was going to make us.

Bergplaas

Gordon, Jessica and Stephen joined us about an hour after we arrived.    While waiting for the potjie to be ready, we enjoyed the afternoon and evening relaxing around the fire.

After a nice evening we all headed for our beds.  During the night the wind came up and we could hear it howling outside.  As we were on top of a mountain, it was probably a lot worse than we thought it would be.

The next morning we all woke up lazily, and had this as a view when we went outside:

Mountains

I can get used to waking up between all the mountains.  It’s excellent to look around you and not seeing any evidence of life around you!

After breakfast Gordon, Jessica and Stephen headed back to PE.

The rest of us decided to go for a walk around the farm.  Barto went to show us the old farm house ruines.  You could even see where the flower beds used to be.  We checked out some foot prints near the dam and then headed back for a lazy day around the hut.  Barto and I went to drive around a bit while Bernadette caught up on some reading.  I headed back a short while later to catch a snooze.

When Barto got back we had lunch, and then again I went for snooze

When I woke up Bernadette asked me to take some photos of her, so we headed towards a couple of the ruines.  With her doing all the settings and me just pressing the button to take the photo, it came out quite nicely.

Bernadette

Bernadette

After the photo shoot it was time to head back to the hut for another fire.

Fire

The evening was again spent relaxing around the fire, with Bernadette and Barto trying out different techniques of photographing the moon and stars.

When we woke up the next morning, we reluctantly packed up and headed back home.  Damn, wish I could live like that every day!

Wednesday 17 June 2009

This morning we woke up and decided to drive through to St Lucia to see what the little town has to offer.  So after breakfast we head off towards St Lucia.  Driving there is an adventure on it’s own with this 4×2 that we’re driving.  The roads are quite sandy with a million and one different routes we can take to get there.  I obviously take the one with the most NON-tar roads   With no load on the back of the bakkie, it’s backside is quite loose on the gravel, so it really makes for an interesting drive.

On the way there we saw this HUGE dog on the back of a bakkie.  So we just had to take a photo.

Big Dog

The first place we stop is at the St Lucia Crocodile Centre. We do the touristy thing and go in there.  It turns out to be a lot bigger than I expected, and we see a lot more crocodiles and alligators than I could’ve imagined.  We got to see a lot of hatchlings, teenagers and big adults.

Crocodiles

There is also a little cycad garden with some very nice lookings cycads in there.

Cycad Garden

After the crocodile centre, we drive through the little town of St Lucia to see what there is to see.  We stop off at two of the beaches they have there, just to see what it’s like.  It’s quite different just for the fact that you’ve got these huge trees that look like they’re growing out of the sand dunes.

From there we headed towards a river, and Bernadette almost jumped out of the window with excitement when we saw hippos in the river from afar.  I think that it’s probably some sort of nature reserve that we’ll need to pay to get into, and we start driving towards the river.  We get there and it’s a public park with people sitting and walking along the banks of the river and some are even fishing.  I just look and Bernadette and we both decide this seems to unreal.  Further down the river we see crocodiles playing around in the water.

Carefully we go down to the river’s bank, take a photo, and get away from there.  I know hippo’s look like slow creatures, but I’ve read somewhere that they are actually very fast movers on land.

Infront of the Hippos

We sat around and watched this for a while, just to make sure we are really seeing it.  The whole time we’ve been in the area I’ve seen Beware of Hippo signs, but I never really thought you’ll actually see them.

After checking out the rest of the town we started heading back to Nibela Lodge.  On the way there we saw a board with a sign on for a Bird Park.  We decided to go and drop in.  It’s privately owned, but they have the most amazing birds there.  You can see it’s been built by someone that loves birds.

Parrots

It’s also the first time that I’ve seen birds dig holes in the ground, especially parrots and ringnecks.

Birds digging

On the way back to our lodge, we had a nice little lunch at one of the quick stops.

My beautiful Bernadette

All the way back we were just in awe of all the trees that surround the main roads.  It’s a pity they’re just being grown to be cut down for paper.

Trees

Tuesday 16 June 2009

Today is a public holiday in South Africa, Youth Day.  I’m glad that up to now I haven’t had a lot of business voicemails to attend to.  It’s always the schlep about going away, worrying if there is going to be an emergency at the office or with one of the clients.  Gladly we’ve now got a reliable technician that is doing an excellent job of running things when we’re not here.

After basically doing nothing the previous afternoon, we were both feeling very relaxed and ready for something exciting to do.  We went to have a leisurely breakfast, almost not being on time.  It was nice having such variety of things to choose from that you don’t have to make yourself!

On the way back to our room we went to enquire about the quad bike trails we saw they’re offering.  We decided to take on a 3 hour drive in the late afternoon.  I was wondering if Bernadette was nervous about driving the quad bike, if she was, I didn’t notice!

Waiting for the afternoon, we decided to lay around and catch up on some reading.  Bernadette had bought me this great book by Clive Cussler.  But for me to start with that I first had to finish my other book.  So I finished that off by the time our guide came to fetch us for the quad rides.

At the entertainment area he briefed us, and showed us how the quad bikes work.

Bernadette on Quad Bike

Bernadette on Quad Bike

She looked so cute on the quad

For the first few while we were driving, I was getting used to the gearing.  It’s the first time I’ve been on a quad that makes use of gears and it was always something I wondered about.  I’ve also never driven a motor cycle before, so it was quite new to me.  I got the hang of it easily though, a lot easier than I thought I would!

Our first stop would be the bat caves.  As we went into the small cave, it smelled terrible.  I didn’t know there were bats though, and when we finally saw them I understood why it smelled so bad.  At first when I saw them, I thought they were little mice.  Looking more carefully I saw they had wings!

Batman's Cave

Bernadette in Batman's Cave

From here we drove onto the Boma, which is a section in the reserve that looks out over the Lake where they normally have functions.  The guide told us they normally organise Zulu dancers and entertainment for the people.  Looking around at the place, you can easily see how that can just bring a whole night’s fun!

The Boma

Eat

Drink

From here we were taken to fossil corner.  This is a section next to the Lake where there are thousands, if not millions, of fossils embedded along the ridge of the Late.  It’s amazing to think of how long the earth has been here.

Fossil Corner

Fossil Corner

Heading away from Fossil Corner we went on the final game drive before heading back.  We saw some Zebras in the bush, and being on a quad bike they look so much bigger than you normally think watching them in a car.

Bernadette on Quad Bike

Chris and Bernadette

The first thing we do, after thanking our guide for the afternoon, is head to the bar for a well deserved drink.  The first beer goes down so nicely that we just have to have another one before we head off the cabin to go clean up.

Once clean we headed back to the bar to sit and wait for dinner to get ready.  The only thing about the cabins that we don’t like, but would later be a blessing in disguise, is that they don’t have TVs in the room.  This means we need to go to the bar in the evenings to catch a movie.

In the Bar