Durban, check, Joberg...here I come

We are into September now which means, incredibly, I am nearly halfway done my contract here in Lesotho. Today is Friday and in another few hours I am off work and back on the road, this time to Joberg. Obviously, when one thinks of this city one thinks of crime, car theft, danger etc. What I have learned since my time here though, is that like any city, there are places you don’t go but also some places that are extremely nice. This weekend I am going to a place called Melville, a place people tell me has a similar feel to San Francisco. We will see about this… Anyways, over the weekend my hope is to take in some culture, perhaps see a play, do some shopping, buy a book or two and hopefully, see the SA Apartheid Museum.

Last week this time, I was already on my way, in a car I rented (VW Golf), heading to Durban. This is north and east from Maseru. Six hours later, driving through the entirety of the Free State and Kwazulu-Natal, another province in SA, I arrived. Durban is a crazy city. What becomes immediately clear is that it is an industrial hub. There are huge factories, warehouses, so many lories on the road and a hustle to the city very different than that of Vancouver or Montreal. One area is actually called Toyota City. On one road we were stopped by a traffic controller so that shift-workers could cross the street. We stayed in a place on the beach in Durban which was a little removed from the city core. While the beach was nice, it still didn’t have that relaxed, beach feel that one might expect when walking along a beautiful sand beach with the Indian Ocean splashing around your feet.

On Saturday morning we headed North to St. Lucia. This is a UNESCO World Heritage Site about 2 hours North of Durban, actually very close to the Southern tip of Mozambique. St. Lucia is a beach town. People walk around in surf attire and bare feet and the hostels there are full of back-packers from around the world. In St. Lucia we went to a crocodile reserve as well as an estuary where Hippos and Crocodiles could be easily spotted. This was the first time that I had experienced animals like this just there, not fenced in, but just living life in nature.

We (my Irish friends and I) also visited the game reserve in St. Lucia and Umfolozi Game Park, about thirty minutes from St. Lucia. In both cases we did self-drive safari’s, which means driving a car, sometimes on paved-roads, through forests and over plains, in search of animals. We were not to be disappointed, seeing monkeys, giraffes, rhino’s, various sorts of deer-like creatures, and elephants. Unfortunately, the lion and the leopard remained elusive. One of the funny things here is that while for me, seeing monkeys was a novelty, in SA they are considered “tree rats.” Apparently they are quite a nuisance, harassing tourists, eating garbage, etc.

We stayed in St. Lucia till Tuesday morning and took the day to drive back. This was one of the more beautiful drives I have ever done. The sun was just starting to go down as we hit the Golden Gate Highlands National Park in the Free State, which allowed for some great photos.

A couple of observations I had driving home were: a) that South Africans drive way to fast and very badly, especially Boars, who seem to solely drive BMW’s or Merc’s, no joke b) a favoured driving technique of white South Africans is, first to exceed the speed limit by half c) if a car were to respect the speed limit this social leper would need to be taught a lesson, by having a Boar drive his BMW within inches of his or her rear bumper and then by being passed in such a huff that you would have thought that Boar X needed to get somewhere in a hurry, which is just not true.

Another thing I noted was that in truth, we do not have it bad in North America when it comes to Malls or big-box stores. SA is the king of big box stores and malls. They go for miles. Many of them are also quite new. Apparently this was a result of the end of apartheid. Many white South African were fearful of what might come to be in their country and felt that malls, and guarded mega-centres (restaurants, shopping, cinemas all bundled into one) would be the best way to provide security and fun, all in one.