Durban

That Friday (27th) we were invited over to Eman’s (the (Ghanaian) deputy principle’s for tea in the evening. I think it is fair to say that we all had an entertaining time, eating the traditional Ghanaian dishes of jolloff rice and waicehee amongst other things that he had cooked for us! Tony also came round which ensured that we were in for an evening of animated debating with both Eman and Tony trying to persuade us round to their different viewpoints on all sorts of topics. Of particular interest from this evening was whether South Africa should re-install the death penalty on a short term basis to try to bring the murder rate down and also whether Zuma is likely to be re-elected whatever the outcome of these strikes. Whilst talking to Eman and Tony it became clear that there was no way that school would be re-starting until the Wednesday of the following week at the earliest and with very little to do in a dead Kaiskamahawk this left us with the perfect opportunity for a trip to Durban.

So Saturday saw a mission up to Durban…. When I say this was a long trip I mean it – leaving home about 9am and finally arriving at our hostel in Durban about 8.30pm. Granted we had to switch cars on route in King William’s Town since Avis had decided the one we had needed a service. Still it was a long journey… when they say N2 motorway and you leave East London on a duel carriageway with a central reservation you still think it will take a long time, but it is perfectly doable. Then when you reach about 45 minutes outside East London you suddenly hit a slow, windy, steep single carriage road, filled with lorries and trucks moving about 25km/h and after an hour you think about turning back! Still we trundled on in faith (there are no signs to Durban at all until you get to 150km outside the city). Around 6pm as it was getting dark we had to make the decision as to whether to carry on as it was getting dark. The biggest problem was the amount of traffic without any form of lighting! Still about this time we hit another bit of what we would all call motorway… albeit for about 10 minutes….. Still from here on in at least the single carriageway road had a central reservation so we carried on eventually reaching Durban eleven and a half hours later but pleased to have made it!

We had a bit of a lie in on Sunday before getting up and heading into town to get a feel for the city. It was a very interesting place, with a huge contrast between rich and poor. In particular there was one road of wealthy houses, each with at least 2 or 3 squatter houses in / right on the edge of their front garden within less than 20m of the house. How people can live like this I don’t know – the squatter houses had no water or electricity yet the wealthy houses would not have looked out of place in most of Britain! After getting a grip of the city we made a quick visit to the Apartheid museum. This was an interesting little museum, although it was a bit odd as more thank half of it covered segregation in the USA! Following this short trip we went to get some lunch and some food for the braai we were planning for the evening. Next it was a trip to the uShaka aquarium, the biggest in the Southern Hemisphere. Certainly a worthwhile trip, with the Dolphin show being the highlight. Sadly on our way back to the hostel we had a puncture… a real pain meaning I had to fit the spare wheel (still it would prove to be a good thing in time…)

Monday morning saw us actually make it out whale watching (after about 3 previously failed attempts). On arrival at the slipway we all had a bit of a laugh at the 3cm fish we could see below – wait until what we were going to see. So out of the harbour we sped into a rough Indian Ocean to see the biggest mammals on the planet. They are so big and it is whale watching season, surely we could not miss them? After about 20 minutes we had a near miss – we went over the trail of either a whale or a whale shark – sadly this was as close as we got to seeing anything, except for the bird that followed our boat. Still with a depth of 25m even only a few miles out from the shore you realise the vastness of the open ocean and how lucky you would be to see anything. Not downbeat after our whale watching trip we grabbed a bite to eat before heading to the beach. The beach was really good fun – the only disappointing thing was we were not allowed to swim in the sea because of the number of sharks about! They had a quad bike going along the beach to keep everyone out. I asked the guy riding it why they did not have shark nets out at the moment – the reason being is that the sardine runs are currently happening and if the nets were out the sharks would swim into them killing the sharks! It seems a bit odd to me not to bother putting the nets out in ‘shark season’ but I guess that in fairness this is their winter.

Before departing from Durban it was necessary to get the tyre on the car sorted – after a phone call to Avis it became apparent we would have to change the car over… again. This required a trip to Durban airport – so off Rachel and I headed. We eventually arrived at Durban international airport to find it oddly dilapidated and looking very closed up. Maybe this explained the sketchy signing to the place. A policeman explained to us that “the airport has been closed for ages, since the 30th May!” – next time we will be bringing an up to date guide book! So we turned round and headed 60km to the other side of the city to the shiny new King Shaka airport. So you may be wondering why I am talking you through this dull sounding event – well to cut a long story short I managed to barter us a huge upgrade in car, something that “not even a manager could authorize….” Well supposedly. An hour later, Rachel and I drove out of King Shaka airport in our category B, shiny new Nissan X-Trail – definitely a worthwhile trip! Arriving back at the hostel we parked up and persuaded the others we needed to drive to get some food. There were some amusing moments as they looked for the car –especially Hadrian’s reaction when I said I might have left the keys in the ignition by accident. He full on believed the car had been nicked for about 5 minutes, much to everyone’s amusement!

Tuesday saw the mission back home... a very eventful trip involving incidents such as following a 6 vehicle long (plus helicopter) in an armoured convoy, getting stopped and bribed by a corrupt police woman and having to make use of our new toy (the X-Trail) when driving off road around a closed bit of road due to a crash. Still we arrived home 9.5 hours after leaving safe and sound. On the way home we heard that school would be closed for the rest of the week – cue painting beginning on the girls hostels….