Sunday, September 27, 2009

September 24, 2009 - Durban

We woke up early to head to Zululand for the King Shaka Day celebration. Unfortunately we found out that it is just the holiday today, and not the big festival. The fest is on Saturday, but funny enough we caught the dutch couple there!! We spent some time learning about Shaka Zulu's life and visited his grave and the actual stone he was sitting on when he was murdered by his relatives.



























































We then had lunch at the at the nearby Blythedale beach.




































We drove towards Durban and discovered the beautiful and posh Umhlanga area. We visited the Natal Shark Board (the organization that manages the shark nets along the Kwazulu-Natal coast) to watch a dissection but unfortunately, they were closed due to the holiday. We scheduled a boat ride with them later on.
































On the way to Durban, we stopped at a toll where the guy was rushing us to pay ("No time to count, just give me the money!"). He then started making small talk ("Where are you from?"). As he was giving us the change back, he said "Ok brother, I take 5 rands from you". Everything happened so fast that we didn't realize he actually took the money from us after we drove away. Needless to say that Gen was pretty pissed off, even though it was less than a dollar, while Sami thought it was quite funny!

We then drove down to Durban looking for a place to stay. Mirella's place was Hippo Hide, but it was fully booked. Bad luck all day!! But luckily we found a place to stay downtown (Tekwini) despite the long weekend. Believe it or not, we bumped into the dutch couple again there too! We finally spoke to the guy, who jokingly asked if we were following them.

To end this disappointment-filled day on a high note, Gen begged to eat some peri-peri chicken at Nando's. As always, it did the trick and cheered her up!!

We then walked around the popular street here, Florida Drive, and had a drink at the Thunderroad rock diner - a gritty, less cheesy hard rock café.

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