Palm Lodge Durban

I'm spending 2 more nights in Durban with a nice couple I found on couchsurfing.org. Margaret is an environmental consultant working on transportation issues for the city of Durban, and Gavin is a professional clown. They've given me a private guest room and various rides around town, which is great because public ...

... I am yet to see the other way around. I am just trying to get an understanding as to how post-Apartheid South Africa actually works. When you ask locals most of them contradict themselves so it is really difficult to know exactly what is going on.

From my perspective, Apartheid might be long gone but it seems that the disparities are still very big and that the whites still have most of the wealth of the country. I keep thinking how can a ...

... trying to be closer to nature. Everyone is very friendly and nice; some more eccentric than others in this little bubble world, with a different way of living than anything I've seen or heard of before!
Bernie, a French guy (yes, they are everywhere!), has built an awesome tipi there (see pic).
Some have theories that end of 2012, because of a very unique astral alignment, solar winds will destroy the surface of ...

... to marry her (this costs an enormous amount of money, especially for the people in the area I live in). Today sometimes people just pay the money equivalent, but typically cows are still used. If the lobola is not paid, the marriage is not accepted by the families and many believe your ancestors will send you bad luck.] Back to the reception...the bride's family gives blankets, pillows, straw mats, and bowls to the groom's family ...

South Africa is really... white. Durban is dangerous at night and there
is a huge mall. They have blackouts every day for two hours at two in
the afternoon, and even the malls shut down.

... from many of the people involved in my internship when both Dr. Gilbert and Anna Coutsoudis, the founder of iThemba Lethu, were present. A fall-out from our meeting was my receiving the approval to look for additional work to supplement my learning experience here. I've been accompanying two social workers on the screening interviews of potential adoptive parents for two of the children in our care. The children ...

... t really afford to take a taxi all the time and it's too hot to walk long distances during the day. On Saturday, I walked back down to the Davenport area to go to the internet café, cell phone store, bank, and grocery store. I ran into Kerry again in the shopping center, and she asked me if everything worked out with meeting my friend. I also visited the Art Society of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) Museum and had lunch at the café there. There was a fantastic ...

Hello Justin, we happened to read about your Czech experience with a girl called Veronika Havlikova (coincidentaly, one of us has the same surname). Well, we think the way you have described her suggests her appearance is a bit... special. Fortunately, we know all the Czech girls are beautiful, regardless to ...

... about not getting pushed into coral if you were at that depth. The ride back to shore was another fun one again up and over the waves and swells. The Germans opted to not do another dive that day and I figured I didn't have anything left in my stomach to feed the fish with, so no point in me going out snorkeling again so we went back to our accommodation. It was such a ****** day. It rained all day. There was a beautiful beach only 10 mins ...

... lion cubs that were from the same litter and included a pure white cub. We were led into their cage by their keeper and were allowed to spend 20 minutes playing with the cubs, picking them up and patting them. They were so cute! On the way out we saw four 4 month old lion cubs but they were far too big to play with. Off to a beautiful cabin overlooking Plettenburg Bay where we went for a walk on the beach but it was far too windy and cold to go for a swim. Dee had read that you ...