Day 3: No sign of Sparky.

Still no word from Sparky. Sparky, if you are reading this please come home. We have baboon meat and Mango Tango for you! PLEASE COME HOME!!!

Mike here. Pete's a little broken up about Sparky to really write. The perennial optimist, I think he's holding out hope that the little fella will turn up. I'm not so confident. If the storm that almost tore the village apart was any indication, out spotted friend is somewhere over the rainbow. Or, more likely, torn apart and eaten by the pride of baboons that the locals claim have been terrorizing the area.

Serving two purposes, I convinced Pete to take an extended walk on the beach, in the vain hopes that we might happen upon Sparky. Or at the every least take his mind off the disease infested mongrel. All we found was sand, rocks, more sand, nothing of interest and sand.

SPARKY!!??!

Pathetic.

After 4 miles on the beach, Pete kind of gave up and so we followed what we thought was a trail back to town. Pete, inconsolable, kept referring to it as a "trail of tears" when in fact it was a government protected nature reserve set aside for the nesting of the South African Oyster Catcher. A bird driven to the brink of extinction, apparently, by forlorn tourists aimlessly trampling it's habitat. When we finaly found a trail, marked by a very official sign suggesting we not be there we ended up at a horse ranch, which was very nice.

Real live thoroughbreds. Gorgeous. In weirdly humble situations, just hanging out being awesome. Apparently they race them on the beach every Tuesday. Why the hell not?

Everything was fine until we came across the individuals responsible for keeping an eye on everything; 3 very large, very territorial Rhodesian Ridgebacks. A dog not unfamiliar to New York (mostly because wealthy people think they look cool) but here are primarily employed to stop lions from eating livestock and dismember anyone stupid enough to wander on to your property.

At first they seemed quite receptive to our arrival, eager to chew our vital organs from our bodies. Luckily cooler heads prevailed and instead of an awkward encounter, Pete simply shot the poor beasts, which worked out well.

Still not sure where the pistol came from. Contrary to expectation and further testament to South African hospitality, instead of alerting authorities or having some other animal kill us, the propitiator, Michael, invited us to the horse races as his guests. He did this while mowing his lawn. Anywho...

Huge storm expected tomorrow and the next day. Hope the weather back home sucks. Just thought we'd throw in some amber waves of grain. Made us homesick. Sort of.