Durban, South Africa
Monday, March 7
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| South Africa's Big Five | |
Picture credit: Hilary E.; Geocaching HQ
First a little bit about Africa in general. I must admit that I, like most westerners perhaps, am fairly ignorant about this continent. It is the second largest after Asia and is home to 1.5 billion people and 20% of the earth’s land area. It has approximately 3,000 different languages spoken, the most popular being Arabic, Swahili, French, and English. South Africa is one of 54 independent countries on the continent.
It has five regions: Northern Africa, Eastern and Western Africa, Central Africa and Southern Africa. Mauritius, which was our previous stop, is one of many islands off the east coast and is part of Eastern Africa. Durban is a city in the country of South Africa and is part of Southern Africa.
We were warned ahead of time that immigration officials here demand a face-to-face passport check of everyone on board, even if no plans were made to go ashore. This could potentially result is some delays with excursion plans.
We were scheduled to dock at the Nelson Mandela Cruise Terminal around 6AM so we set our alarm for 5:30 and was at breakfast by a little after six, still dark outside. We were to meet in the Queen’s Room at 7:15 to wait in the queue on board where we could at least sit while waiting.
It turned out that we were one of four buses going to the Phezulu Village and Reptile Park, a four-hour excursion scheduled to leave at 8AM. We finally were escorted out about 7:45 and stood in line to get our passports back from ship's personnel and wait in the immigration queue. They had about 14 stations set up, 12 for us and two for the crew. It went smoothly enough and after about 45 minutes, our bus left at 8:30.
We were warned earlier that Durban had issues with crime and pickpockets and not to travel alone, only in groups. Our tour was taking us away from town on a 90-minute drive, but as we wound our way through town, I saw many areas where homeless people were sleeping on the sidewalks, garbage was everywhere and people were going through it, filling their own bags with whatever they could salvage.
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| Market place |
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| Litter in front of cemetery |
There were cleaner areas to be sure, but it was sad to see the poverty that was prevalent. It’s hard to understand why the city can’t pick up all the trash! It was piled up all over and you could tell it had been there a while.
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| Street scene |
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| Another street scene |
Once we got out in the countryside, it was, like other areas
we visited, quite lovely. Although, it
seemed like people were living in small houses all over the hills and there
didn’t seem to be much for roads to get to them. Our guide, Tina, said most of them commute to
Durban for work by train, bus, bicycle and walking. We did see quite a few people alongside the
road looking for a ride.
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| Typical view of homes among the hills |
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| Entrance to Phezulu Village |
Our destination, Phezulu Village, is a reconstructed Zulu village that was typical of what it was like back in the 1800’s before the modern era. This included round thatched huts placed in a circular pattern.
A large, thatched auditorium provided seating for around a 100 people to watch the performers singing and energetically dancing. They wear the traditional Zulu attire which are colorful and full of meaning, each color having a distinct purpose. The auditorium faced a spectacular panorama of the “Valley of 1000 Hills”. Our performers went through the progression of a young male proposing to a prospective bride, her acceptance after the offering of a cow as a dowry. Supposedly, a Zulu male could have as many wives as he had cows! They performed the male visiting the witch doctor to roll bones from a cape buffalo horn to see if she could bless the marriage. Then the wedding and celebration. This all took about 45 minutes and was very entertaining. I will post some videos, I didn’t have a very good seat, but hopefully the sound will come through as well.
Valley of 1000 Hills video: https://photos.app.goo.gl/SfoPPbRMnPhFBpLm8
Male dancers' video: https://photos.app.goo.gl/oKZZQ57ob5hX1bVk6
Zulu singers (sorry about sideways): https://photos.app.goo.gl/4zeoWCDWwyC9PkJq8
Witch doctor's blessing: https://photos.app.goo.gl/BLCk8HEPm12H2LRV7
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| Sue posing with the boys |
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| Me with the girls |
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| Sue shopping for fabric and a souvenir pin |
From there we went through their Reptile Park which contained crocodiles, alligators, snakes, tortoises, spiders and iguanas. Not all of which were local, but imported from other countries, including the U.S.
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| The big one is Ramses, he's 103 years old |
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| One of many |
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| Yikes! |
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| Also had some tarantulas |
After returning to the ship and a brief rest, we headed back ashore to do a geocaching Adventure Lab that was close by. We were questioned by some security people around a railroad yard as to what we were doing.
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| Part of the Adventure Lab |
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| An area of the promenade leading down to the beach |
It is wheelchair friendly and is a perfect place for family outings which we saw several with skateboards, scooters, three-wheelers, etc. It borders a wonderful sand beach which likely would have been busier if it had not been a Monday. While Jan and Sue were chasing down one of the answers to question, Dorothy and I took the opportunity to share a beer at the café located under the promenade.
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| Sue and Jan found some sand art while we were having our beer |
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| Sharing a beer |
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| More sand sculptures |
It had been a fun day, and the weather was near perfect with partly sunny skies and just an occasional few drops of rain. But we had walked about 11,000 steps according to Sue's watch and we had had enough. So back to the ship, stopping for an unsuccessful attempt at finding a traditional geocache along the way.
Next stop: Cape Town, South Africa
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