Our First Month in Marloth Park — But Where Will You Live?

Getting There

Traveling to Marloth Park in June to finally settle into our new home was no small matter! You may have heard about or experienced for yourself the madness that is airline travel this summer. We got the full travel problem treatment en route from southern California to Marloth Park.

We had been booked to travel on Sunday, June 12th on a non-stop flight from Santa Ana airport, just outside LA, all the way to Newark, NJ where we would catch our non-stop flight to Johannesburg. Of course, none of our plans panned out the way we booked them. The Friday before departure, we were notified by United that our non-stop to Newark was canceled and we’d been rebooked with a connection in Houston. On Sunday, the flight to Houston was delayed enough that we missed our connection to Newark!

So we were rebooked to Dulles, outside Washington, DC, where we would spend the night. (At least United was giving us a free hotel room and meal vouchers.) Because there were no seats on the non-stop from Newark to Johannesburg the next day, they booked us to Frankfurt, Germany, then on to Johannesburg. However, when we arrived at the hotel in Dulles, we checked the flights again and noticed some seats had opened up on the Newark flight the next day. So on the phone with United yet again but successfully rebooked (yet again) to fly to Newark early the next morning then an all-day layover before our 8:30pm flight to Johannesburg. It took an extra twenty-four hours of travel time, but we made it!

Buying a Car

I had booked our first rental car for just nine days, but of course that shrank to eight days due to our late arrival. I’d also booked back-to-back monthly reservations for subsequent rentals. We knew we were going to try to buy a car right away to avoid paying inflated rental rates and get something with high clearance for the bumpy roads in town and in Kruger National Park. I wasn’t sure how long that would take, so I figured if we couldn’t do it in the first week, it was probably going to be a very slow process.

Fortunately, our decision of what make and model to buy was made rather simple for us. The nearest car dealers are in Malalane, about forty minutes away, where you can find Toyota and Ford. There are additional dealers in Nelspruit, about ninety minutes away, but we were reluctant to buy something else and be stuck driving (or towing) that far if there were problems or maintenance needed. Alas, floods in South Africa earlier this year forced the Toyota plant to shut down. The Toyota dealer had exactly one Fortuner (similar to a Forerunner in the U.S.) in stock and no more until at least late August. That left us looking at a Ford Everest, which is similar to the Ford Explorer in the U.S. (In fact, the U.S. is the only country Ford doesn’t sell the Everest, because it would compete directly with the Explorer which has better brand recognition there.)

We were lucky enough that they had one in stock that we liked and we were able to take possession of it right away… except for one small hiccup. To get the car properly insured, we needed a tracking device installed in the car. The tracking company needed a South African bank account to draw the monthly fee from. We had not yet opened a South African bank account. In the meantime, since our rental period was up, the dealer loaned us a car until we could get the bank account and tracking system set up.

Opening a Bank Account

We visited two different banks in Malalane: Capitec Bank told us they couldn’t provide us with an account and Absa told us they could but that we had to go to the branch in Komatipoort (the town closest to Marloth Park with a branch). So we drove to Komatipoort where the kind woman who helped us was genuinely puzzled and informed us there was no reason they couldn’t have done it in Malalane. (Most likely, the woman in Malalane just didn’t want to deal with a complicated situation with foreigners.) But she sadly informed us that because it was already 3pm, the account couldn’t be opened that day because the people at the main office who process foreigner accounts don’t work after 3pm. I mean, we’ve all heard of bankers’ hours but that seemed pretty extreme to me!

The next day, I came back and she told me they required a copy of my resident visa. I gave her a copy and crossed my fingers that we might have the account ready later the same day. Oh, how naive I was. The next business day, a Monday, I still didn’t hear anything from her so I stopped by the branch once again and she told me she had no news but would contact me as soon as she did. On Tuesday morning I gave up and went to a branch of the First National Bank of South Africa in Komatipoort. Two hours later I walked out with an account number and we picked up our car on Wednesday. I still have never gotten a call from Absa about the account I tried to open!

Illness

At some point shortly after we arrived, I was bitten by a tick, though I didn’t know it at the time. However, one evening about a week after we arrived, I went into the kitchen to clean up after dinner and was struck by sudden and severe chills. I was shaking so bad that I couldn’t hold anything in my hands for fear of dropping it or banging it against something. It passed but I was definitely feeling “off” the rest of the evening. By the following evening, I was feeling downright sick and assumed I’d picked up covid or some kind of flu. However, I did notice a nasty sore/bite on my ankle and wondered if I could have picked up some sort of insect-borne infection. By the weekend I had full-blown flu-like symptoms and spent all of a Sunday in bed, though my covid rapid test came back negative. Monday morning, I surrendered and went to the doctor in Marloth Park.

He took one look at the bite and my symptoms and diagnosed me with African tick bite fever. Oh, how I wish I had acted sooner… Within twenty-four hours of starting the antibiotics I was at least fifty percent better. By day two I was nearly back to normal. However, my bite/sore is still healing at the time of writing (about a month after the initial bite) and will likely take a few more weeks to finish. But it’s not painful or uncomfortable—just gross.

Jim's African tick bite fever bite — Jim’s tick bite and the source of his tick bite fever

Alas, shortly after I recovered I began having major sinus congestion with a constantly running nose and sneezing. Normally these symptoms are indicative of seasonal allergies for me—I had no decrease in energy and didn’t feel sick anywhere but in my sinuses. I went to a clinic in Komatipoort that came highly recommended and got some more powerful allergy medicine than the Zyrtec I’d been taking. Before it had a chance to take hold, Carrie started having the same symptoms but was also run down and feeling achy. Clearly this was a cold (neither of us had a fever). I was getting better every day as Carrie got worse. Fortunately it seemed to resolve itself for the most part after about five days for both of us.

I’m happy to report that at this point we are both healthy and taking full advantage of walking the river and have even been out on a bike ride.

Solar Panels and Battery Backup

When we first considered setting up in Marloth Park more permanently, we briefly considered renting. We ruled it out because we realized that very few rental properties had any kind of backup electricity. As we’ve mentioned before, South Africa frequently experiences rolling blackouts they refer to as “load shedding”. We weren’t keen on going through weeks or months without electricity for two to eight hours a day and we knew it was unlikely that a property owner would invest in a backup system just for us. Buying a home gave us the flexibility to address the problem as we see fit.

So when we arrived we immediately started getting bids for solar panels with battery backup. We both expected the system to be expensive and to take months to install. We were pleasantly surprised to learn that it would cost about half what we’d anticipated and that it could be installed almost immediately after a deposit was made. Less than three weeks after we arrived we had the whole system up and running. Since it was so cheap (by U.S. standards, do note that few South Africans would consider them “cheap”), we’ve decided to add more solar panels to try to get us close to operating entirely off-grid as we can. Certainly, when there are no guests we’ll never need to pull power from the local utility, but even when we have a full house of guests running air conditioners we may even have enough then!

We were also very lucky because shortly after we arrived the load shedding ramped up to the highest levels they’ve seen in years—some days had eight or more hours of outages. When our installation was complete the installer told us that we’d gotten the last power inverter (the controller for the solar panels) and batteries in stock and he had no idea when he would be able to get more!

Wildlife

The wildlife has been even greater than we expected. We’ve looked out our office window several times to see elephants across the river in Kruger National Park. We see (and hear) hippos regularly on our river walks. Twice we’ve come home in the late afternoon to find a giraffe in our yard and one evening had a journey of giraffe crossing our backyard. (Little known fact… a group of giraffe has two different names: it’s a “tower” if they’re not moving and a “journey” if they are.) Of course, we get plenty of impala, bushbuck, warthogs, kudu, and tons of birds virtually every day in our backyard. And of course, the bush babies visit us every evening thanks to the bananas and yogurt we leave out for them. Lions have been reported near us and one evening we heard them roar. We’ve seen a lone elephant down at the river several times and are told he “patrols” our section of the river regularly. There’s also crocodile and waterbuck virtually every visit to the river we make. An African fish eagle has a nest about 300 meters from our house (and we regularly see him or hear his call) and there’s a martial eagle known to spend time in the area.

We’ve seen lots of small lizards and even a plated lizard on a walk one morning, but no snakes (yet). There are a few enormous fruit bats who visit in the evenings, competing with the bush babies for the bananas. Yes, we’ve had the occasional spider and a pest removal specialist came by this morning to give us options for getting rid of some bats that seem to be living in our attic.

Alas, we’ve been far too busy to make a trip into Kruger yet, but we see plenty of wildlife around the house so we don’t mind.

Settling In

When we’re not walking along the river or catching up with the friends we’ve made here, we’re gradually making the home our own. We’ve bought some furniture, gotten rid of some of the furniture here that didn’t suit us or that we didn’t need, and generally reorganized a bit. We got bikes and a few small appliances and other miscellaneous everyday living sorts of things that full-time nomads don’t carry in their suitcases. Carrie even bought a few new pieces of clothes that aren’t grey or black!

All-in-all, we’re already quite comfortable here and making it our own more and more every day. Between the wildlife visits in our yard, evening fires, walks along the river, taking in the views of Kruger from our office window, and cooking in a kitchen with all the right tools. we’re loving our new home.

Carrie included a picture each day of our adventures below with a short description. She posts many of our videos and pictures on our Instagram account @butwherewillyoulive. Follow us there if you want more animal pictures than you know what to do with!