February 21 through 24, 2023
After a week in Namibia (during which time I just missed Jill Biden's visit here 😅), I returned to South Africa (city of Durban) and met back up with Art for a final few days. I had heard Durban was gorgeous and figured it would be good to see some of the eastern part of the country this time. Glad to report it was worth it and we probably could have spent more time there, especially since the suburban guest house we stayed in was beautiful and modern 😊.
I booked two tours while in Durban, one to the Sani Pass area and Lesotho, and the other to a safari park (Imfolozi) and boat tour. Both were full day tours, which were often longer than 10 hours (I really should know better, they were quite tiring), and involved a lot of driving. The bonus of the first tour was getting to see Lesotho which is a small landlocked country within South Africa. Sani Pass is a steep windy cliff road that connects South Africa to Lesotho, and has amazingly gorgeous scenery. My guide noted that the Sani Pass is not owned by either South Africa or Lesotho, so if we needed to be helped out of there in an emergency, only the UN could do it 😦 Luckily he was a great driver and we had no issues. We stopped many times for (way too) many photos 📸.
In Lesotho we visited the highest pub in Africa (that's right, highest in the whole continent!) and had a drink. I'm a sucker for a landmark like that. It was 2874 meters high, and clearly some enterprising guy saw its potential. They even had a cool board with currency from all over the world (inspo for me?). Next we stopped in at a local village where a Basotho tribe lives and we got to see how they manage their daily life and bake bread (it was delicious); to be honest it looked like a hard life. Getting major supplies (beyond the staples) required a long trek down the mountain to the nearby town. If they sent their kids to school, it required their kids to go live in a town near the school. I found it all fascinating (and not the life for me).
I finally reconnected with Art that evening (he flew in after a week of shows in Cape Town), and then we did a full day tour the next day. The safari was awesome, if a bit of a long drive from us, and the boat tour was relaxing. We saw hippos on the water and numerous animals in the game reserve. Our guide was eager to get us to see the Big Five (lion, buffalo, rhino, leopard, and elephant) since apparently that's what every tourist wants. As it happened, we didn't see all 5 but over the courses of our various trips to Africa, we have seen all 5 so I was satisfied 👍. A highlight for me was seeing the rhinos up close (way closer than the one I saw in Namibia), the zebras, the giraffes, and the warthogs. I'm only mildly regretting sending my big camera back home, but the space issue was really becoming a problem.
We left the reserve around dusk and unfortunately ran into some major traffic at a standstill. As it happens, Durban is near some mining towns so hundreds of trucks transport coal in and out daily (in what seems to be a rather inefficient truck-to-port system). One of the petrol trucks stalled (or had an accident??) and we wound up sitting for 2.5 hours in traffic. Luckily all 3 of us were super-zen about it, had some snacks with us, and eventually we got back to our guesthouse around 10pm (after a quick stop at McD's 😳).
While our guest house was great, other parts of Durban city center felt just a bit unsafe - we did venture out to the Florida Road area for lunch, and checked out the beach facing the Indian Ocean 🌊 Load-shedding (electricity rationing) was as much an issue in Durban as it was in Cape Town, and believe me, the locals are not happy about it. So I got a bit behind in blogging and posting 😐 Actually expecting this to be less of an issue at our next stop ... India 👍
What we've had to get used to: riding in a car on the left side of the road, warm milk, stale cereal, flaky wifi. What I'm missing most these days: my girls (of course), cold milk, real orange juice, smoothies, my cereal, my hair gel, reliable hot water, good car A/C, and great pizza 😊
Deena and Art
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