Sica's Guest House 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 ...

... som mange hvide hernede. Jeg syntes sgu at de har lov til at raabe og skrige og baere haandvaaben. Deres praesident er en voldtaegtsforbryder der blev fyret fra jobbet som vicepraesident fordi han var korrupt.
Jeg laeste i en avis i gaar at ANCs ugdomspartis formand har vaeret ude og kalde stort set alle for imperialister. Der har vaeret en skandale med deres atlet Caster Semenya. Hun/han er blevet erklaeret hermophrodit, men ifoelge ...

From CT we traveled up the garden route, sunshine coast & wild coast to get to Durban. I gotta say the countryside in SA is pretty spectacular and changes so much in a relatively short distance. Briefly, some of our top spots were:

- Oudtshoorn: Ostrich country - we visited a farm, stood on their eggs (they don't crack), feed them (they don't bite), sat on them (well han did) and later I had one for dinner (low in cholesterol supposedly.

Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa hantyandhunnah

Well, this weekend was great, powerful, overwhelming, enriching, confusing, inspiring, and discouraging- to name a few of the emotions I am dealing with at the moment. Friday we drove to the Drakensburg mountains, where we all stayed in a big cabin without electricity and cooked over a campfire. Saturday we were free to relax and hike. I got up really early with a few friends to see the most amazing stars I have ever seen and go on a sunset hike ...

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.

... I've met socially. While South Africa has certainly made progress toward healing the nation since the ending of apartheid, there is still a long way to go. I've had to bite my tongue at times for fear of my own physical safety. In addition, I've faced religious oppression for the first time. I have started to overcome these challenges by spending more time with black South Africans and learning about their culture and ...

... and don't think that I ever will. The windows open will hopefully bring some more restful nights. Ironically having just typed what I did, I walked into the kitchen to put my tea cup in the sink and came across the biggest bug ever on my sink. It looked like a roach and had really long antennae. I saw one of slightly smaller size in Melanie and John's kitchen before that had come in one of the open doors. Geckos are OK, but roaches give me the ...

Today started off relatively well weatherwise so we headed off to the beach for a walk, not quite swimming weather just yet. It all went well, we even sat at the beach café, which is right on the sand, and drank delicious mango smoothies and then...... the wind picked up and the clouds came flying in at a speed I have not seen in Durban before. We took some photos, paid the bill and then beat a hasty retreat to the ...

... immediately jumped out of his car and angrily pointed out that there was a queue. After much argument he finally left me go with the second man, and a few minutes later I was knocking at the gate of Tekweni Backpackers, in the posh and trendy white suburb of Morningside. I got a dorm to myself, because the place was quiet. South African winter means low season, until all the Europeans start arriving during their July/August holidays. After having a welcome cold beer I headed ...

... also went to sleep, 6 of us sleeping soundly till the *wonderful rooster crowed at 0500. Was it profound trust or a simple understanding that these two strangers could spend a peaceful evening with hosts speaking a different language, from a culture miles apart from our own and in a village hours away from our sense of "civilization"? Sunday morning we set out for our (long) ride to Durban. Since we were holed up on the Baz Bus from 1500 until 2315, we did not expect any ...