Heading to the coast in search of Whale Sharks
Trip Start
Mar 30, 2008
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130
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Trip End
Mar 31, 2009
Pongola,
KwaZulu-Natal,
South Africa
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Tuesday 10th February - Magaliesburg to Pongola. Via Pretoria, bad news about Mozambique and changing plans
Long drive, potholes, Not sure where to go. Stopped at Pongola all accomodation booked out to contractors on sugar mill shutdown. Found CasaMia lodge to stay, nice place, owner Cathy, shown to club for food, peppered steak, cheap.
It was our intention today to drive to Pretoria swap the car for a cheaper one and drive across the Neslpruit border into Mozambique to Maputo before heading to Tofo in search of Whale Sharks. Unfortunately it would cost 1000R for a cross border fee with most hire companies, but Budget who we were with wouldn't even allow their cars into Mozambique as they had no support agencies there. We were scuppered and so finally gave up on our hopes of reaching Tofo and headed instead to another world class diving area, Sodwana Bay. We had heard that shark sightings were common, including Ragged Tooth, Tiger and the occasional Great White! along with a huge variety of other life there.
So mostly the rest of the day was a long drive towards Sodwana until we gave up trying to dodge the afternoon rain showers and stopped in Pongola. It was difficult to find anywhere to stay as in Jan, Feb and March the local sugar cane mill closes and contractors flood in to carry out the shutdown maintenance. We finally found Cathy at Casa Mia who showed us to a nice lodge type accomodation with a double bed, own bathroom and kitchen, plus a TV! She suggested we ate at the local mill's social club where we found fillet steaks with pepper sauce, chips and veg for only 45R.
Wednesday 11th February - Epopping with Cathy, Sodwana and 'Mad Mike's' place in Kozi Bay
This morning we popped our heads into the house to say goodbye to Cathy, who insisted we went in for tea and rusks. While we were taking tea Cathy enlightened us about her efforts in South Africa in the fight against the AIDS pandemic. She had had an earlier chance encounter with the CEO of a company producing enriched mealie pop, or 'Epop'. One of her staff who was HIV positive had been using this Epop and it had dramatic effects on her health. The research she presented us with showed how poor the diet of many Africans is and how nutritionally deficient it is. Just small amounts of the vitamin and mineral loaded Epop can bring malnourished children or those dying of AIDS back from the brink in a matter of weeks or even days. The challenge of course is convincing those in need that a small bag of expensive Epop is more beneficial than a sack of mealie meal that has been so highly processed that it no longer contains many essential vitamins. Of course in addition research must continue in the pursuit of a cure for AIDS and prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV. Also the third area in which the battle is being lost is in family planning and prevention of pregnancy or abstinence.
After all this help in fighting the HIV virus, Cathy's staff member that I have mentioned, recently gave birth to a child. They will be tested in the next few days probably to confirm they too are HIV positive. Why? Nobody knows, did she tell her boyfriend? Did he threaten her with violence (a huge percentage of African women suffer from domestic violence)? Or did she simply disregard the dangers to her unborn child? Whatever the reason as is so many cases there is there is now one more HIV baby in Africa who is likely at some time in the near future to be orphaned and requiring expensive care including anti viral drugs. At present 650,000 people are on on state provided anti viral treatment for HIV. Going back to Epop for every women who's life can be prolonged by a nutrient enriched diet, whether suffering from AIDS or malnourishment, this could mean less orphans and less burden on the taxpayers in Africa. It makes sense, but who pays?? I felt that this could be of considerable benefit to 'Wings Like Eagles' efforts in flood ravaged Mozambique so forwarded all of these contacts to Cathy.
Having felt more educated about the real cost of AIDS pandemic we finally got back on the road. It was South Africa's budget day today so we tuned in to SAFM to hear what Trevor Manual proposed. He began with a lengthy, but very considered, summary of the state of the worlds present economical position and how we all had to watch while the world was reevaluated by the financial institutions. South Africa is in the very fortunate position of having low debt and now having saved for a rainy day can afford to borrow to continue to finance developments in infrastructure. He announced the usual allocations to departments while forecasting a reduction in growth to around 1.5% so SA escapes a recession, for now. Also interestingly to us he announced the increase in available anti viral treatments for HIV from 650,000 people now to 1.4 million by 2011. Also of course the highly anticipated 2010 football world cup will help lessen the blow of the global downturn. Today we also listened to Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsangirai being sworn in in a power sharing deal in Zimbabwe.
Budget delivered we soon arrived in Sodwana Bay. It had been raining hard all day making driving particularly hazardous and had no sign of slowing. We were keen to dive in this area and checked a few places out. There are a couple of dodgy looking backpackers offering diving so we drove into the national park in search of Coral Divers. We found them and were suitably impressed with what looked like comfortable affordable cabins or tents and a professional diving operator. We took their prices and continued to Kozi Bay still in the rain. We had been recommended Thobeka Backpackers there by Garth and Leigh Ann at Go Vertical. 'Mad Mike' greeted us and showed us to a double bedded straw hut and we settled in for a night of more persistent rain after a home made fish supper. Before bed we had a good chat with Lloyd and Philly, a South African and his British partner, who were travelling around and funding their travels by making promotional DVD's of the backpackers they stayed at for resale back to them. A great way of offsetting costs and getting some activities free too! We also met another South African, Wickers and Christine his wife, who later had to evacuate a family of field mice from their pillows! Mad Mike also suggested that we consider a trip across the border to Mozambique to dive at Ponta Du Ouro, which he feels is much better than Sodwana Bay.
Thursday 12th February - rain, afternoon drive out around Kozi Bay, fishing traps in lagoon,
After raining all night it looked like it would rain all day also and pretty much did. So we spend the morning sorting and went out after lunch to Kozi Bay to get money. While we were there the security people arrived with money to fill the ATM's. This was like a military operation an armoured car arrived first and secured the scene with two shooters armed with pistols. Moments later the armoured van arrived, which looked more like a grey tank! Out of here two more shooters disembarked securing another two corners one of course armed with the obligatory AK47 and with two magazines attached, ready for quick reload. Only then did a sack truck full of money emerge from the van to be quickly taken into the bank area.
After this trip Mike the rain eased slightly and so Mike was determined to take us to show us around the area of Kozi Bay. We jumped up onto his four wheel drive and he took us into the protected park area where we got a view of the inland salt water lagoon there. Although the water here was a deep brown and in some areas black from the tanin washed in from the mangroves, there were a number of large fish traps. The people here, the Zulu's, have adapted to live by designing some very unique and effective fish traps for use in the shallow lagoon. They coral the fish into swimming through a gate made of sticks through which they can't return and later are speared and removed fresh to eat or trade.
The highlight though was the shallow sandy entrance to the lagoon and the beach there. With it being so rainy and windy snorkelling wasn't advisable today, but the beach looked stunning. We were there with Lloyd and Philly and went for a walk to the entrance sand bar to watch the ocean crashing into the shore. Later we spent the evening chatting to them about their DVD making exploits before retiring to a film and to listen to the rain that started yet again..
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