Ironwood 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 ...

... next morning felt like rubbish but got my self up to do some stuff like hitting a few museums and botanical gardens (which would be a great place to take a girl on a date though a monkey did make me nearly **** my pants as it nearly jumped on me). Anyway back at the hostel that evening chatted to the americans and found out that Katie was actually really nice, funny,intelligent and hot (again a rare thing for me to get a hot girl as i am sure most of you know). Anyway got ...

... no solution is simple or can be successful without an understanding of the people and the culture. - Thursday was my big Zulu exam, including an oral section. I am now able to have basic conversations in Zulu, meet new people and ask about them, talk about my family, say what I did or will do on the weekend, and some of the basics of grammar. While I still can't understand too much of the Zulu I hear on TV for example ...

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.

... more) and took turns cooking gourmet meals, enjoying the incredible view from the balcony. We rented a car and took a day to explore up to Zululand, learning about the Zulu culture and another day to Shakaland in Durban. Shakaland was a mix of a wild water park with an aquarium. The week flew by. Easter Sunday we enjoyed a champagne brunch on the balcony then sipped more champagne on the beach while the sun shone brilliantly. A divine day!

... the monkeys. Apparently, they got inside a flat recently through the gate and decided that they rather enjoy human food as well. I do see geckos in my flat every day. Their body is almost translucent. They are frightened of humans and don't like the light, but they eat mosquitoes so they're a welcome visitor despite leaving their small droppings on the walls. On Friday, I went to the Childbirth Educators Professional Forum with Penny. At the forum, I ...

... car and they were going to a place that I was interested in going to and they were willing to give me a lift and let my tag along for the weekend. Sodwana Bay is about 1 hour from Hluhluwe and is a great place to go scuba diving. The two Germans both have their diving licenses but I don't. I didn't think that would be a probably as in Australia you can go diving on the Great Barrier Reef with no experience, just a quick lesson during the boat ...

... 8211; and rightly so. I saw so many things and it was beautiful. The dive that I was doing was an underwater naturalist one, so that meant that I got to learn what all the different things that I saw were called, but trying to think of them all now is impossible! I saw flute fish, eels, loads of different rays, sand sharks, scorpions, angel fish, octopus, blue box jellyfish, turtles, starfish, crayfish, and loads of other things that I just can't recall ...

... up by this ordeal we decided to stay at this spot for a while to get our wits back and have a nice cup of Twinning's from the thermos. After about 4 minutes we started to hear a chirping like a bunch of old grannies having a good chin wag about their days outing in the local market while chewing on a Worthing's toffee. I wanted to wind down the window all the way down but I had been having nightmares of being dragged out my car ...

... an ionad failteachaidh agus an uairsin chaidh mi cuairt a dh' ionnsaigh taigh-bidh Innseanach a bha air an oisean. Mus do rainig mi an taigh-bidh geta, choinnich mi ri nighean eile bhon osdail, Dara. Bha ise air an t-slighe dha na buithtean a dh' fhaighinn biadh airson a dinnear. Chaidh mise comhla rithe agus fhuair sinn pasta, balgan-buachrach agus sabhs tomato. Fhuair sinn subhagan-lair cuideachd ...