We flew out early in the morning – a 7:00 flight – to get to Durban early so that we could enjoy as much of the town as we could. Durban was so beautiful – we were all so pleasantly surprised, as the impression we got from the internet had lowered our expectations.
Our hotel was right on the beach -- as we looked down from our room, we could see the many vendors selling their goods as well as a small amusement park just across the street. Beyond that was the beach, marked by piers and a constant parade of cargo ships – we counted 14 that we could see at one time out on the ocean. A long, wide boardwalk (though made of cement/ brick) lined the length of the beach, with palm trees all along the boardwalk.
We started by taking a long walk on the beach – which felt so good since we’ve been cooped up in the apartment, unable to really walk much on our own. We walked down to the pier at the end, near the water park and stumbled on another Moyo restaurant (same chain as the one we went to earlier). This one was amazing, right on the beach with a pier end bar. So we had brunch and then headed back, changed and flopped on the beach for a few hours.
I went swimming in the Indian Ocean and it was wonderful – I’m guessing that the water was around 67-68 – very refreshing. There was a lifeguard who was constantly blowing his whistle to keep people in the swimming area because the current pulled strongly so that there was a constant crossing over into the surfing area. And yes, he blew his whistle at me as well.
After swimming, napping, and soaking up the sun for a bit, we showered, changed and got ready for our big outing – a rugby match, which none of us knew much about, but we figured some of it as the game progressed. The rugby stadium was right next to the new soccer stadium that had just been used for the World Cup – the Durban soccer stadium was beautiful with its very distinctive arch.
All of the seats for the rugby match cost about 10 dollars – The home team is the sharks, in their black and white jerseys. Our seats were waaaay up at the top, the stairs were really steep, and the beer was cheap…seemed like a bad combination to me. Thankfully there was a bar to hold onto in front of each seat so it didn’t seem so precarious. There were a couple of funny memorable points during the game…1) John noticed that when a kick was being set up that a little remote controlled dump truck came out onto the field with the ball holder…not sure why this was hilarious, but it was. 2) before the game there was pregame “pageantry” --a flag team that couldn’t seem to find their rhythm, cheerleader type girls who walked around the field in trench-coats and “flashed” the crowd in their bathing suits and ended up in front of a line of little kids who we were sure would be traumatized. It was a very exciting game, especially after we started understanding the game a little bit more…For a while the crowd would cheer and we’d have no idea why, so we just joined in…but by using our amazing powers of observation and our reasoning and critical thinking skills we were able to draw some conclusions: when they’re all in a pile, there’s some handing off stuff that is protected as long as possession isn’t lost; there is a certain kind of kick that is pretty effective in moving the ball forward; rugby players aren’t as good looking as soccer players because they get thrashed at every game. Marc came back from the concession stand with a bratwurst thing and a pitcher of beer, so we were feeling pretty good by the time we left.
After the game we caught a taxi to Florida St…the supposed hot-spot to go after the game. However, the first place we went to was full of unattractive white people with bad haircuts, many of whom were dressed in strange garb (bright pink wigs/women’s clothes/etc) to celebrate their bachelor parties…so we left after having our dinner and walked down the street to another bar (where I tried my first hookah) and stayed there the rest of the night – though Marc and John ended up going to a reggae dance club later that night after I had been safely deposited back at the hotel. The next day was spent basically recovering from the previous day and night, so there isn’t much to talk about there – movie watching, souvenir shopping, food eating, nap taking, etc.
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