Greetings from sunny South Africa!! We made it here alive!!

The weather is glorious (though we did have a thunder storm last night!!) not sure of the temperature but its a darn sight hotter than anything you get in the UK! The plane journey here was long but comfortable as we had an amazing Virgin plane with lots of film, TV, games etc choice! Dave particuarly enjoyed Knocked up, Evan Almighty and Die Hard 4!! Though with watching all that he didn't sleep at all for the 11 hours and so felt very tired when we arrived!! We were met at the airport by Mike (who was the spitting image of Dave Shelly!) who then took us to Pretoria Backpackers Hostel. The hostel was amazing, we got a room to ourselves which was nice! We met a huge number of people from a variety of countries, including Norway, Iceland, America, Canada, Switzerland and UK. We had the whole day to rest which Dave made full use of (see picture of Dave collapsed on the bed!!) and explore the local area. The backpackers was next to one of the new stadiums for the 2010 football world cup so as you can imagine Dave was over excited!!! (Debs rollers her eyes in annoyance that even though they are far away from home football still manages to crop up!!). Due to a lack of interest from the security guards we just wandered on in and had a self guided tour which included the press box and commentors box as well as the executive boxes. We have picture to prove it!!. We didn't however venture on to the pitch as we didn't want to push our luck!! We had orientation at the hostel though it seemed more like initiation when a bottle of local booze was brought out and we were given shots of a drink which was very similar to Baileys though just a little stronger!! We were provided with an evening meal of traditional South African 's***' (this is what Dave tells me anyways!!) which is maze mashed up!! After an early night (Dave was in bed by 8!!) we were dropped at Pretoria bus station where we caught a bus to Tzaneen (pronouced Zaneen). We were told by Mike this was to be a luxury coach though when he said this he made air quotes so we didn't know what to expect!! However it was actually luxury (better than most UK buses!) and even had a DVD player! DVDs are only just arriving here in South Africa and so we were treated to Speed 2! However there was no air con, and so after a 5 hour journey we were very hot and sweaty!! We were glad to finally arrive at our destination where we were picked up by Freddy our driver who took us to the Monkey Sanctuary. Two other volunteers were also with us Josh (from Boston) and Arnaud (from Switzerland) who are both very nice. Josh almost got left behind at the service station when the coach left without him (one of the those random comedy moments when your running after a bus!!). We were shown around our accommodation, very aptly name 'tent village'!! We have bush showers and eco toilets (both very 'interesting') and we have to collect water daily for both drinking and showering. There is a main house with electriciy which has a bar, TV room and Kitchen which reminds us of student halls.......! Our food is cooked for us though it is veggie, much to Daves dislike!! Today is our first full day here, we had orientation this morning and this afternoon start our first jobs, Dave is on construction and I'm washing monkey blankets!! Theres loads of other volunteers here (about 20-30) who are all very nice though we're having trouble remembering all their names!! There are also over 700 monkeys here, many of which roam free around the site! We also have trouble remembering their names too!! The Sancutary is in the middle of nowhere although the local town still has house hold names such as Woolworths, Spar, Nandos and KFC!! Photo will follow in the next day or so as it took me nearly an hour to get this far ('fast' internet is not that fast here!!).