Road to Paradise

Today, we had a MAF outing to a beautiful swimming pool at a hotel on the other side of Juba. It was so much fun to go out as a group for a swim and lunch at "Jebel Mountain Lodge". We have another short-term MAF family staying in Juba right now, so it was great for our children to have some new friends to play with at the pool.
It was a lovely break from the everyday routine and a chance to relax in pretty surroundings:

To reach this little "Paradise", we had a 20 minute drive across Juba. Here are some of the sights along our road to paradise... Some of these images might go a little way in showing you what Juba is like and portraying some of the challenging driving conditions we faced...

A different type of grazing ground for the goats:

I snapped the shot below as an iconic Urban Africa scene: with the ever-present stray dog, the smoke rising from the stove at a local road-side cafe, customers seated on wooden benches and plastic chairs, the informal buildings which house local shops, messy power lines draped loosely over roof-tops or between buildings- and the road-side litter:

And 2 classic pictures to illustrate how much one can load onto a trike (and how rare a motorbike helmet is!):

Unfortunately, there is a petrol shortage in Juba at the moment. The petrol stations we passed were crowded with vehicles patiently waiting to purchase fuel for their cars and motorbikes:

 The queues of cars and motorbikes snaked a long way down the roads outside the petrol stations, at a complete standstill whilst pedestrians passed by:

So here are some snapshots of Juba from the back seat of a MAF vehicle! Of course, I am very new here and have much more to see and learn, but this is what I saw today and these are my impressions so far, as we ventured from the bumpy, mud-strewn roads to the incongruous setting of a beautiful hotel in this city of contrasts.