Southern Sun North Beach Durban

... trees that grow in water, if you haven't seen one you should google it they are neat. and there was a bunch of crabs and Phillip got to see a crab and he had never seen one that big before. Then we went to the beach! We literally got 20 minutes for playing/swimming but it was still fun :) the indian ocean is brutal! The waves are huge!

And that night a monkey tried to come into our ...

... of their dodgy lockers, the receptionist warned me not to take any valuables with me. Great I thought!!! I just wanted to find an internet café and use my laptop.

So I was not in the best of mood with Durban but I must say as soon as I hit the streets and mixed with all the locals, all those bad feelings went away. It just felt great to be walking around with the streets absolutely packed. It very much felt like I was the only white person there - I loved it. It is ...

... added “God is in control so there will be no problems, if you don’t believe in God, ask me to slow down and I will” I was not sure how to take that really J and he finished off by saying that we will arriving in Durban “at 10pm African Time”.


The drive was bumpy at times and I was literally ejected 3-4 inches off my seat. We drove through a village where I saw a guy ...

... in the direction we were told to go when a women from the tourist office came running down the road shouting at us. Apparently we had been given the wrong directions and after a quick debate on whether to get a proper taxi we decided to follow the new directions. We eventually found our particular minibus taxi rank and got home safe and sound. We also high fived to celebrate our mastering of the local transport system.
Next day we went back into the city center for our ...

Sabbath Services are at 11:00 in Durban. The weather is uncharacteristically cool. We've been here after the Feast and it's been hot. Not today. The congregation is about 65 people. What a warm and friendly group of people. We were again surprised to know so many people from past visits. But, we had never come to Durban for Church services. We recognized Mark and ...

... security prison for leading political activists such as Nelson Mandela. Today, the island is a protected area, and the former prison is a museum. I was told by John and Melanie that the tour guides for the island are all ex-prisoners. I spent Thurs. and Fri. last week with the children in the Transition Home providing daily care. Here are two more of the children in the home awaiting ...

... and very un-tourist experience of Durban; the places and people we worked with were not only off the tourist map, but mostly off the (white) residents map. Our initial concerns about being vulnerable if seen filming with expensive equipment were sensible, but proved to be unfounded. Mostly people were simply interested in who we were and what we were doing. Our base was a warehouse opposite the Durban Solid Waste (we used their toilets ...

... on the flight, and he shakes his head. I am not getting on the flight. Its too late. ****! At this point, I was looking a little defeated. He said to me that he could put me on a flight two hours later. I agreed and thanked him. Then he said that he was upgrading me to Business Class for "my inconvenience". He told me to go to the "Executive lounge" and have some free beer and relax. Not too shabby! I ...

... in Africa... FACT. We had a hearty lunch, and a hot chocolate to warm our cockles, then it was back down the mountain, and a journey back to lights and sounds of Durban. I loved their culture; they have a choice to go to the base of the mountain and live normal lives with cars, electricity and money only a few kilometers away. But they insist their way of life leads to a happier one, and I was wasn't about to argue with that! So tomorrow I will head to ...

... ditches hard work, but it can be kind of stressful constantly being on the move. So for four days, we didn't go anywhere. We didn't do ****. We got up, ate breakfast, drank gallons of coffee, went to the beach, read books, talked with other backpackers, played pool, drank beer and box after delightful box of tasty red wine, and generally had fun. It was very nice. The few times we did go out we had really good times. One night, we decided that we were ...