South Africa - Round The World Tour 2003 Day 17

Unhlanga Rocks

Saturday 29th March

Durban isn’t anywhere near the violent, criminal, threatening environment that so many people we have met have made it out to be. In contrast, it is a pleasant, vibrant, seaside resort with a warm and gentle atmosphere. The couple of hours that we spent there this morning reminded me of the good times we would have as children when visiting Southend, Canvey Island or Camber Sands. In addition to just visiting the promenade and beachfront to soak up the atmosphere, we went somewhat with the goal of scouting some of the curio stalls for some souvenirs to send home. There were some nice things but, ultimately, we still have the logistical problem of what to do with the things that we buy as we journey through the country. Undoubtedly, we will end up spending very much more on postage costs compared to cost of the articles themselves. We still haven’t come across a Fed-Ex or other such international courier company and so we still have no idea of what the costs are involved in sending things back home. Once we have a better idea of that, then I might be tempted to actually purchase some of the wonderful carvings and artwork that we’ve seen so much of at various locations we’ve passed through.

After spending some time in Durban, we stopped off at an Internet café and caught up on some e-mail traffic that had accumulated over the past couple of weeks. We also visited the local shopping centre and I bought some DVDs and CDs to replenish my stock after having burned some disks with all the photos we’ve taken so far. When we find a post office, I will send the burned disks back to Jacqueline in England for safekeeping. I’m less concerned about loosing the laptop than I am about loosing the photos. I also took the opportunity to get a hair cut and my beard trimmed at the mall. I now feel a little bit better about leaving the bear trimmer and rather heavy power supply behind.

After a dip in the pool (28oC/80oF) and an hour or so on Glenis & Dave’s computer, we all went out for dinner at a nice, local steakhouse. Our hosts have been so very accommodating and there is so very little that we are able to do in return. It was nice to be able to at least take them out for dinner once.

Tomorrow morning, Dave will participate in a microlight exercise along with dozens of other trike pilots with a flight down the coastline. It should be quite spectacular with all those light aircraft lined up in the air, one after the other. Hopefully, we will be there with the camera to record the event.

We’ve been looking closer at the Drakensberg section of the guidebook again today and have been trying to map out where we will go and where we will stay. I still have little idea of what awaits us there, other than some spectacular, mountainous scenery. But then again, I’ve been able to say that about everywhere we’ve been so far and we’ve still had a great time.