Anyhow, it’s another long bus drive today, 480 km. When I first looked at the itinerary for this trip I was concerned about some of the long bus days, but then again, if you want to travel 4,000 km from Capetown to Johannesburg then there are obviously gonna be long days. But we have lots of stops for pee-breaks, lunch breaks, interesting places to see, viewpoints for photo ops, unexpected animal sightings an so on. The wheels on the bus go round & round and the hours fly by.
We are driving through the province of KwaZulu-Natal. South Africa has 9 provinces and this is the fourth one we have been though, the others are Eastern Cape, Western Cape, Free State and now this one, and next will be Gauteng.
We stopped in Howick to see a new and not quite finished museum dedicated to Nelson Mandela. It’s called The Nelson Mandela Capture site. It’s the spot where he was arrested on August 5, 1962 which resulted in his spending the next 27 years of his life in prison. Outside the museum is a walkway, and at the end of it is a sculpture is called “Release” which is made of 50 steel columns, and was installed to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Mandela’s arrest. As you walk down the path towards the sculpture, it “changes” to his face. It’s very chilling. You don’t have to move to a different angle, you just walk towards it and his face appears. I think perhaps the path might angle downwards to make the view different , but it didn't seem to. In any case, it was incredible.
The little gift store there sold all sorts of Mandela related items (from books and posters to handbags with his face to pens and playing cards) and nothing else except the book by Trevor Noah that I see our guide reading during his spare minutes) At this point I had nothing to read except a Rotary Club magazine, so I grabbed the only copy. Well. You should go and buy your own copy right now. It’s one of the best books I’ve ever read...funny, sad, informative and fascinating. It’s all about how he grew up in the township of Johannesburg, about apartheid, rascism, and life as a “coloured kid” in a world where he wasn’t wanted.
Then we continued on the N-3 highway, towards Durban. It’s the most dangerous highway in South Africa, both because of the traffic (hundreds and hundreds of 18-wheelers) and “gangsters”. White BMW’s are “gangster” vehicles and are always stopped by the police. We saw a lot of them, actually, and I tried to peer into the cars as we passed to see what a local “gangster” looked like. They looked like a regular person, mostly, but I imagined shifty eyes and intimidating glares.
This whole area is very violent and xenophobia is rampant. It is a toll highway though, so it’s well maintained and the police are all over the place, so I guess if your vehicle broke down, you would (hopefully) have a cop stop before a “gangster” did. I know, I’m probably severely generalizing, but when we stopped for a pee-break, we were told to leave cameras, purses etc on the bus and Wellington walked to the bathrooms with us and “stood guard” so as to keep petty thieves away.
The township in Durban is a place where white people never go. The Zulu believe in fighting, as opposed to negotiation. You can Google this, it sounds awful, but it’s a fact.
Another pretty stop.
We arrived in Saint Lucia by 2:45. It was gray and drizzly, the first day where the weather had been gloomy all day. Good day if you’re a hippo!
There was another room issue here. As the keys were being handed out, three of us were called to “Room One”. Going into the room, we saw the seating area with a TV, like any hotel room anywhere, one bathroom and 2 bedrooms. One bedroom was about as big as a prison cell with 2 tiny beds, and the other was a bit larger with a double bed. The two women who were called in with me were sisters. So. We looked at each other and no one really knew what to say. I had never met them prior to this trip, and while we had become travel friends, we were still basically strangers. They had paid for a room for two and I had paid for a room for one. The single supplement is ridiculous and if I have paid good money for a room of my own, then I expect to get that. The hotel manager was pretty rude, and when we pointed out the room situation to her she jabbed a finger towards the rooms and said: “A room of your own. You each have a room.” Which, technically is true. But sharing a bathroom in a motel with strangers can’t be considered “a room of your own.” We said that if there was absolutely no alternative then we would share, but that it wasn’t acceptable. Plus, if two of them with all their luggage wanted separate beds, then they’d be scrunched in the little room and I’d feel like crap having the big room, but if they took the big room, they’d have to share a bed.
Anyhow, it all worked out in the end and we had completely different rooms, but it was a really uncomfortable few moments.
And then it rained. And rained and RAINED. I have never seen rain like that before. And of course we had to walk over to the place where dinner was an outdoor BBQ with a cultural Zulu evening. We were drenched when we got there, and had to have dinner underneath a carport. And the steaks were tough as the proverbial shoe leather, the dancers were late, then their show was literally 3-4 minutes long (and poorly done) and then they passed the hat. No one was impressed and as it turned out, we were given a portion of money back the next day.
The sausage was kudu though, and it was good.
Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day. But one semi-crummy day so far isn't bad!
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