So this post is long overdue and is going to be cock full o’ fun. I’m going to skip any attempt at a witty introduction and dive right into the meat of the post. So for Christmas we (me and a bunch of fellow Peace Corps volunteers) headed south east of Maseru to spend the holiday at Malealea Lodge. Before we went, however we made a quick stopover at Lady brand (my favorite South African border town) to do some serious grocery shopping, and by serious I mean we got both bacon and shrimp, score! Then after some skillful negotiating by some of my fellow PCV’s we got an awesome deal on a taxi down to Malealea, needless to say, since we got a special ride down and there was just our group on the taxi, we had a little fun and some choice beverages to make the two hour ride go by in no time at all. That night, after arriving at the camp site and settling in our rondavels we celebrated (mildly) around the campfire. The next day was Christmas Eve. I woke up early to make cinnamon rolls and then found my self dealing with some unexpected homesickness, I mean it was bound to hit but I think the cinnamon rolls really pushed me over, mom always makes them, and carrying out the tradition in Africa just gave it the extra push over. After recollecting myself I dove right into to some major cooking, which was quite the challenge due to the lack of resources, I hardly had a knife and the pots left much to be desired, but I think I pulled off my menu of shrimp bisque, spinach and artichoke dip, olive tapenade, and etc. well enough. I then continued another famous family tradition of drinking wine late into the night, which I think may have lead to the multiple scrapes I acquired from an unfortunate fall I took that night in pursuit of fire wood. Oops. So needless to say I woke up the next day sick, but not from a hangover, in the twenty-four hours I had spent there had acquired quite the sinus infection and was unable to make breakfast; however the troops rallied and helped me out and made quite the impressive breakfast for Christmas morning. After that I washed up and soaked up some of the rays at the camp ground then dove head first again into cooking our Christmas dinner. We had mashed potatoes, challah bread, green beans with tomatoes and feta, stuffing, balsamic glazed chicken, and walnut cake that my friend Kristen made. Also Julie cooked the chicken over an open fire which was extremely impressive and even more impressive with how well it turned out. The next day was much more simple cooking wise, we got up had some bread for breakfast then peaced out of Malealea to prepare for our journey to Durban.
For Durban, in attempt to save a little money me and my group of travelers decided to take public transportation, so how that goes is this, you arrive super early at the taxi rank, then wait for SIX hours for the taxi to fill up, cram in then take off to travel another SIX hours to get to Durban. I will not travel public anywhere for long distances anymore; I will forevermore rent a car. So after getting to Durban late, we just chilled out at the bar at the hostel and made it an early night, the only one we experienced the whole time there.
So the next day we went to uShaka Marine World to see the aquarium and to see the sharks, which was soooooooo cool. I was like a kid in a candy shop looking at all the freaky marine creatures they had in there; I took a ton of pictures which I will post asap. It was so cool, so so so cool, I think I made friends with a Hammerhead Shark, and I now think myself something of a shark whisperer, however, I still have a great fear of sharks so I will not pursue this as a career option. I then went shopping in a legit shopping center, and it was some much needed overly commercialized therapy. I then got dinner that night with a friend and we got a sushi dinner for 2 at a really nice restaurant for $16!!! I about flipped my lid. Then later that night we went out to a club and I danced my American butt off. The selection of music was soooo weird, one minute they would be playing some rap song I had never heard before, then “Walking on Sunshine,” then Chris Brown, then “The Time Warp.” This club was mainly visited by Boers so that might explain some of it. Anywho it was a blast, it had been so long since I had been at a real night club. So that was late night number 1.
The next day we went to the Indian Market in Durban which was pretty cool, basically the same stuff at every stand, but neat to see nonetheless. That night we celebrated my friend Nick’s birthday by going back to the sushi place then we attempted to go to about any bar in Durban, but they were all closed because, us being on vacation time, forgot it was Monday, oops. So we jetted back to the hostel where we got the bartender to keep the bar open late so we could have a little birthday party, and he let us and I think our poor bartender had never quite seen a group like ours. We stayed up until 4am taking crazy shots and dancing to disco. It was a good time. And thus concludes late number 2.
We got a little bit later start the next day but headed to the Gateway Mall which is supposed to be one of the biggest in southern Africa. Naturally I spent all day there while I dropped the boys off to see a movie. I did work, however, I expected a little more from this mall that people raved about. Nonetheless it got the job done. We then got to see “The Dark Knight” at the IMAX theatre there, which was the first new movie I had seen in 7 months and it was fantastic. Not only did I think the movie was great but it was sooo nice to sit in the movie theatre and forget where you are for a solid 2 hours. When the movie ended I was so confused as to where I was, I knew I was in Africa, but it was just like America. The move started at 9:15 so we didn’t get home until like 1, and had late night number 3.
The next day was New Year’s Eve, and so we decided to spend it on the beach. So our group loaded up and went to a really nice beach north of Durban. We got there and the waves were huge compared to what I was used to, but it turns out it was a pretty calm day. I couldn’t resist and spent like a solid 2 hours playing in the ocean and getting clobbered by huge wave after huge wave, it was soooo much fun! I felt like I was 10, which was a nice feeling. After that we had a bar-b-que with all this wonderful American food, it felt more like the fourth of July than New Year’s Eve, but I think it was a fair trade. After that we went back to the hostel to get ready to go out. We pregamed with our friend the bartender at our hostel then headed out to this bar super close to the hostel so we wouldn’t have to rely on taxi’s that night. We then went to this bar called the Groove. It was about 12 crazy American volunteers and the rest of the people there were all Indian, it was a little strange because us volunteers dance so crazy compared to the others at the bar, I think it is safe to say we made a lasting impression on them and danced our butts off again. It was a good time. We then all went to a fast food restaurant to get cheeseburgers because no one ate dinner because we all knew we would want cheeseburgers after the club and had a few more drinks up at the bar at the hostel. I called it quits at like 4 however some of us didn’t quite make it to bed until 8 am. Thus late night number 4.
On New Years day we got a pretty late start as well. So at about 1 o’clock, me, Andre, and Nick headed out to find the Durban Botanical Gardens, relying solely on public transportation to get us there. We made a quick stopover at a McDonald’s, which I’m a little ashamed to say I have eaten there but it was really good and they had fountain sodas, you can’t find that anywhere else in Africa, so it was pretty great. Well, I’m blaming the bad transport system and not our cloudy minds for our inability to find the gardens, we searched until about 4 then resigned our operation and headed back to the hostel only to see a map and find out that the whole day we were with in 1 km of the gardens and the taxi drivers just kept pointing us in the wrong direction. It was horrible. So we then went to a restaurant that claimed to serve Cuban food, but it didn’t (you can’t say you serve Cuban food then not use any lime in your cooking, come on!) I got calamari which basically melted in my mouth and was wonderful, then we again attempted a early night back at the hostel but ended up just staying up and talking until 1 am. Concluding late night number 5.
For the next day, we planned a little better and got an earlier start. We got coffee and breakfast at a coffee house and then went to the Apartheid Museum in Durban. It was kind of small, but crazy to realize that they are just coming out of the repression of Apartheid and to hear about some of the rules that were instilled was ridiculous, I could go on about how the feeling of repression is still there and how the tension between Blacks and Afrikaners is still there, but I’m sure you can well imagine. After that we went to Durban Art Gallery to check out their exhibits, which were pretty good and very interesting. I was surprised at how emotional and dark a lot of the art was. You could tell that people were using art to scream back at what society has done, however for a lot of artists there it seemed like they were young and still working on developing their style and niche. Regardless it was really interesting to see, there was this one piece that was a wooden chair that had a snake and the words “whites only” carved into the back of the chair, and the seat part was a sheet o glass covering a fake bomb that was attached to voodoo dolls with Afrikaner names on it. It was pretty intense, to say the least. After that we went to get Durban’s famous food, called bunny chow. It is a hollowed out piece of bread filled with a curry of some sort, it was delicious and the history behind it is fascinating. During Apartheid Blacks couldn’t go to restaurants so they had to always eat their food outside of the restaurants so a plate and fork weren’t really an option, so they devised the Bunny Chow option so they could eat it on the street. I love it when food reflects history because they are so intertwined sometimes. Well after that we set out for the mall again so we could do some last minute shopping before we left . Then that night we all went to a really nice seafood restaurant to end our trip on a good note. And of course we went up to the bar for one last drink with our wonderful bartender. And that was the last of our late nights in Durban. We left the next day and were all glad to be back to our humble little homes in Lesotho.
It is kind of crazy being back because being in South Africa, as a white person, you blend in, nobody is constantly stopping you and wanting to know all about you or you don’t have 10 marriage proposals in a day and you can just kind of be anonymous which is really nice. But being back it is back to everyone watching every step you make and I have to kind of readjust to being back in Lesotho. Also now that I’m back at the clinic I seem to have quite the list of work to get done, so I will be busy for the next couple of months, which will be great. Well so that was my vacation. I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and that you are all getting back into the swing of things!!! Have a great day and a wonderful week!!!
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