In and Out

When we arrived in Durban it was early afternoon. We stopped along the beachfront to find a surf shop so that we could buy a board, surf, and find a place to stay.
There seemed to be a lot of dos and don’ts when it came to Durban. The city is not known as it should be for it’s beautiful golden beaches and boasting city, but rather known by for its crime and, sadly, for it’s post-apartheid decline. We drove and walked around the beachfront looking for surf shops, but couldn’t find anything. We stopped a couple of surfers for some direction and apparently all the surf shops had moved inland due to crime in the area. I found that surprising since we saw so many nice establishments while driving by. I guess a closer look showed us that the nicer parts and establishments are on the northern beaches and you should stay away from anything near the southern beaches. We drove to the area the surfers told us to find surf shops. They were right, there were plenty, but what surprised me is that they were all in this sort of industrial-like neighborhood, felt safer on the unsafe beach than it did in the “safer” place. Anyhow, after an hour or so on foot going in and out of every shop we finally found Jason a great deal on surfboard, it even had pretty blue skulls on it. At the place we bought the board the guys were really nice and had offered us some unsolicited advice about surfing in the area: “Don’t go to this break, don’t go to that beach, if you go to these others breaks, don’t go out alone, don’t go out in murky water, don’t go out at dawn or dusk.” We heeded this information, gave a Cheers, and headed out. Oh – but I had one question. What’s with this no surfing in “murky” or “chocolate” water anyhow??? Answer: you need the water to be clear so you can see sharks coming. Oh, yeah, that makes sense.
By the time we had found the shops, found a board, and headed back to the beachfront it was already getting dark. Jason would not be able to surf his new board until the morning so next on the list was finding a place to stay. Now, I mentioned there were some nice establishments, but they didn’t fit the budget, so we looked a little further south (where we were not supposed to) and looked for hotels that were near a restaurant or pub so we didn’t have to walk anywhere at night. Driving by we saw a crudy little beachfront hotel called the Parade Hotel with a pub attached and a restaurant across the street. Perfect, food then beer. We walked to dinner at the beach and mostly everything was closed, so we went to the only place open that was more than hot dogs and doughnuts. Jason and I ordered beers and our waiter said “if you wait five minutes, it will be 6pm and we have Happy Hour, buy one beer get one free”. Great! We waited five minutes and ordered two beers. Two bottles came with two more in ice buckets. What a deal! Maybe we wont be heading to the pub after all. When our food arrived about 20 minutes later we asked for two more beers and two more came. Wait a minute? Wasn’t there supposed to be four beers?? What happened to the two free ones? Apparently it was a happy half hour disguised as a “Happy Hour”. Bummer. Well, done anyway, let’s head to the pub. The pub was called The Londoner and when we walked in got real quiet. It was quite obvious we weren’t regulars here, but it was attached to our hotel and had nowhere else to go, so we put on a grin and beared the awkwardness, had a few drinks and started watching cricket like everyone else. When we started feeling a little more comfortable Jason and I started talking about cricket, trying to figure out how the game was played, what the rules were, what the points meant, etc. The bar had gotten busier and our discussion was overheard by a lovely gentleman Leon, who was also staying at our hotel. (He did at a later point ask us why in the world we decided to stay there. We felt bad that we didn’t have a better answer than the fact the pub was attached.) Leon was from a city call Port Elizabeth. He was on business and stays at this hotel when in Durban since it is close to the airport. After a few beers and explaining ALL the rules of cricket, which makes the game much more interesting when you know what’s going on, he asked us about our journey, where we have been and what our plans were for the rest of South Africa. Over the next hour or so Leon gave us some really wonderful tips and places to go, wrote little markings and notes on our maps (which became smudged from the condensation from our beers). Since Leon knew we were on our way to Cape Town and Port Elizabeth is on the coast, he gave us his phone numbers and offered us a free place to stay with him and his wife when passing through Port Elizabeth. The bar closed at 10:30 yet it was 12:45 and Leon had an 8am flight to catch. At one point we had offered to buy him a beer and he respectfully declined so that he could get some rest. About 30 minutes later, he had bought the next round. About 2am, we all headed up to our rooms for some shut eye. In the morning, all I could do is hope that Leon had made his flight.
Our hotel was kicking us out by 9am, so we were up and out and hitting waves by 9:30. Considering the night before, it was quite impressive. Jason surfed while I took some pictures and collected small seashells. While we were in Mtunzini I picked up a couple of tiny seashells, they weren’t anything special, but I have a very small collection of shells from San Diego beaches at home and thought I could add them to the collection. On that note, maybe I could pick up a few seashells from all the beaches we go to for my little vase at home. The waves weren’t too great and Jason was out of the water early so we were back on the road by 10:30. The night before Leon had told us about a place called Coffee Bay. Jason had heard of it and we had seen it on the map, but didn’t have intentions on making it one of our stops. Well, Leon strongly recommended Coffee Bay (especially since Jason was surfing) and so we decided to go for it. Little did we know just how long and precarious our drive would be to little Coffee Bay.
Oh yes, and for all you soccer fans, there is one impressive stadium going up in Durban for next year’s World Cup.

Days Traveled: 43
Distance Traveled: 30,939km/19,336mi
Countries visited: still 15