Rising Sun 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 ...

... where I saw a guy who did not look like a tramp just lying in garbage – bizarre!

We drove through a place called Mthatha in the Homelands I think. It looked a lot more like what you’d expect Africa to look like. The place was heaving with people and it was very run down.

We arrived in Durban at about 9.30 (a German girl from the bus was stopping there as well) and my first ...

... who I'd heard a lot, but it was also interesting to hear her views on South African life. The sentence that best sticks in my mind - apart from her guarantee that we would see Leopards in Namibia, we're holding you to that! - was that everyone has such great respect for Mandela, at least partly because he basically saved the country from civil war during the transition. Think Zimbabwe, Uganda or many others and you see her point.

... We have met whites who have worked hard to bring all sides together and have seen their proposals shot down by stubborness on both sides. We have met displaced Zimbabweans (sp?) now thinking of, again, moving on... but to where? In spite of all the struggles they all love their country. "Without Pressure there can be no Diamonds" These people are under tremendous pressure. Reading the newspaper I feel their despair. Every time headway ...

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.

... discussion of their medical and psycho-social condition. I can't imagine what it's like for the patients to have 10-15 doctors, interns, nurses, social workers, psychologists, etc. standing around them while their condition is being discussed. After the case conferences, I then follow-up with any patients where there's a psycho-social concern. With the time remaining, I go back to the wards (male/female medical, male ...

... an Indian restaurant in The Workshop for lunch. The food was really tasty and cheap. I paid $5.25 for my meal including tip. The taxi driver on the way home insisted that we go a different way home, which inevitably cost me more money. I couldn't figure out if he went that way intentionally or not, knowing that the fare would be higher. We drove along the harbor before heading inland, which was a nice drive, but I would have preferred to save the ...

... rough with a really strong side-wash so the lifeguards had their work cut out for them. We saw one man rescued by a lifeguard, he had gone too far out and could not get back in so he had to be picked up on a board and brought in. Once he got over his fright I think he was a bit embarrassed as he walked up the beach quite sheepishly. For the rest of the ...

... she replied "Shame! Shame! Shame!", that lovely South African expression of sympathy. She later saw me shivering outside the combi, eating my breakfast of four bananas, beckoned to me, and offered me a place in her friend's minibus, as it had a heater in it. I declined appreciatively, wanting to keep my window seat in my vehicle, but was cheered up by this display of African caring hospitality. I was only the third passenger in our combi, and it took around two hours for the ...

Back to good old regular life again: Occasionally a break from travel is required. Zen a friendly black man from Zimbabwe offered that opportunity. We had met on the bus en rout to Durban. Being my typical mess of a self, I sat flipping through my lonely planet figuring out "what next?". Zen sat close by and I consistently bothered him with questions; "where will the bus stop here on my map?" And "Where would be a safe place for me to stay here in Durban?" After about ...