The Neuk 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 ...

Well here I am again in Hillcrest. Spent the week, sorting through clothes to take down in to the valley to distribute amongst the orphans. They were distributed on Wednesday, it has been a variety of weather as well...really hot to quite cold......not sure why I am here early, but I learning to take each day as it comes...

... to provide services (we had policemen who wanted money to look after the coach while we walked around) and a lot of hassle. Tourism hasn't taken off since the civil war some years ago, so white faces were a bit of a novelty. But a place with a lot of potential.
Some of the problem was the time of year, as we were delayed a month and had to go in June, middle of winter, so it was cold, wet and most of the limited activities closed.
We moved ...

... passed pleasantly with good food, good company and realtively few complaints about warm holidays. On the 26th my group of 4 took off for Bloemfontein (history here has been edited to exclude the temporary 5th traveler that accompanied us because she is inconsequential as to the events I would like to relate to you). Tricia, Ashley, Julie and I made it to Bloemfontein, successfully rented a car and were on the road by midday - me in the right ...

... we saw walking along the road, we would stop and ask her if she knew Lillian our old maid, who we have lost touch with, but we had no luck! The weather was very cold, and when we went up to the Midlands Meander to see a school pal of Ash's it was 6 degrees!!! Going up to Mtubatuba tomorrow and the game reserve.

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.

... stopped getting sick. I'm normally a pretty healthy person. While I was quite sick last summer due to a medication change for a chronic condition that I have, I have been really healthy since and was beforehand, having always been physically active my entire life. In the three years that I spent travelling to Africa on a monthly and sometimes more frequent basis ('98-'01), I was only sick that one time in the Ivory ...

... Nearly all of the black vendors were in a very sparsely shaded area and didn't have any sort of cover of their own. They were all selling traditional African art such as masks, carvings, etc. It was a very warm day. There was a blind man playing a guitar and singing in the African section. There were numerous people at each of the African vendors trying to sell their art. Unfortunately, compared to the rest of the market, they ...

... pa flygplatsen  och korde mig till  mitt  forbokade B&B-rum. Agarinnan till "A sunshine cottage" visade sig vara en riktig Big Mama, och det var litet sorgligt att lamna familjen i onsdags, da jag flyttade till en egen liten lagenhet (mer en stadskrubb...) soder om stan. Det ar ocksa en lgh i ett hus med flera inneboende, och hjalpsamma aegare. Jag borjar min sjukhusplacering har med nagra veckor pa en operationsavdelning for att komma in i ...

... nudge you along the top and in between reefs without any effort. We also managed to see a hammerhead shark on the way back to shore, which was a bonus. On our last night a few of us went to a bar and after a few drinks 5 of us decided we all wanted to go to Mozambique and 2 of the girls had a hire car, so we all decided "ROADTRIP". Anyways people take it easy hope alls well back in blighty, peace out A town......