So on our third day, we hopped back on the bus and headed to South Africa's eastern coast, settling in Durban. We didn't get into Durban until about 6 p.m., and we had to be ready to go the next morning at 5:30 a.m., so there wasn't much time to explore the city. Even still, Erin and I were determined to see the Indian Ocean, so we walked the half-hour from our hostel to the beach. It was pretty dark by the time we got there, but we did get to do a little wading (see photo at Flickr). Just before we got on the beach, two women warned us that they had been mugged about 10 minutes earlier on the same beach, so we mostly just got our feet wet and then got the fuck outta dodge.
As I said, the next morning we were up at around 4:30 a.m. and on the road by 5:30 a.m., heading north to the Hluhlwe-Umfolozi National Park in northern Kwazula-Natal. We got to the park around 9 a.m., where we spent the first half of the day on a land safari through the park and the second half on a water safari. For the land portion of the day, we shared our ride with two nice English people: Chris and his daughter whose name I can't remember.
Weird but illustrative story: As part of our package, we had lunch at a B&B in a town called Mtuba-Mtuba, about a half hour away from the park. The place was a little uncomfortably swanky and I was happy that we were only there for lunch, especially after meeting the owners. The man was a big, white South African with a shirt buttoned far too low. The conversation went like several others I've had over here: people seem nice at first, but then the veiled racism comes out, and it gets less and less ambiguous as the conversation goes on.
"You like Jo'burg?" he says to me.
"Yeah, well, it took some getting use to and stuff, but it's really grown on me," I reply.
"How much longer are you there for?"
"Until the middle of December."
"Well, by the time you leave, you'll be a racist."
That was one of our clumsy interactions.
Luckily, Chris and his daughter were equally uncomfortable, and we were able to talk about it after.
Back to the safari ... On land, we saw one elephant; lots of giraffes and zebras; a few distant rhinos; lots of impalas, nyalas, kudus and baboons; a few warthogs; and several packs of wildebeasts; but no cats. Still, I thought it was pretty good for a half-day. On water, we saw tons of sleeping hippos and a few crocodiles. Click on the photo to see crappy versions of all the ones I've uploaded.
The one elephant we saw was a pretty lucky thing: We were literally 30 seconds into our drive when we saw it; I could actually see the park's parking lot in the distance. So when that happened I was like, "Alright, this place must be full of elephants." And that was the only one we saw. But the day was still pretty thrilling. The park itself was so beautiful that even when we couldn't spot anything, it was still a fun ride.
BK
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