Never Trust A Chameleon

After checking out of De Wildt Cheetah Farm and having a lovely, leisurely breakfast, our first stop was shopping at the Chameleon Craft Market in Hartebeespoortdam. This is the place to load up on souvenirs. Nothing is priced, which makes it very disorienting. You really don’t know what anything is worth. On the plus side, that means you can negotiate. On the minus side, if you don’t know what you’re doing, you can really get taken, as your incredibly naïve editor did. Especially if you are foggy on currency exchange or under a brief spell and lose your decimal placement until it’s far too late.

But you can’t blame these highly skilled sales people. For them, it’s a matter of survival and they need to get the most out of every tour bus that stops in. Half the country subsists below the poverty line. Unemployment is 26 percent. My consolation is that I helped people who really need it, even if I paid five times more than I wanted to pay. And I got a lot of Christmas and birthday shopping done and bought unique gifts that I probably couldn’t buy at home. Watch, I’ll see everything at World Market when I get home.