Durbs-by-the sea

Zulu baskets
Originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

Had a great day in Durbie-Durban. A big city. A black city, also a bit Indian and white, but mostly black, especially the centre. A little similar to many many places, but mainly a typical Indian Ocean port city, albeit ringed by beautiful suburbs perched on hills with lovely views of the ocean.

We walked around all day and took a pile of photos, now uploaded onto flickr. First we walked down the hill here in Berea for a delicious breakfast of sweetcorn fritters, roasted cherry tomatoes and fried mushrooms, before continuing past the Botanical Gardens into the inner city - some pretty horrible flats, but soon streets bustling with activity - shops and stalls selling clothes, clothes and more clothes, spices, curios, fruit and vegetables (lots of red and green mangoes and bright green apples), along to Victoria market, avoiding the fish market because of the smell, through some Islamic arcades to the business centre (many cheap loans advertised mainly in yellow), down to the docks, the maritime museum, the Bat Arts centre for a lunch of bunny chow (chicken curry served in a loaf of bread) and a walk around the artists' studios and very interesting shop selling Zulu baskets (as in the photo), then through a rough district of brothels and allday, all night drinking bars and along to North Beach, just as the clouds started thickening up and getting wet! A great sight to see... many swimming pools on the promenade, funfairs and the like, all full of locals enjoying their summer holidays.

Tomorrow, we take a car up to Zululand, for game drives, St Lucia Wetlands, Zululand villages, Zulu Battlefields, hoping for decent weather.. was great yesterday when we arrived, got a bit cloudy and wet this afternoon... that same system which caught up wiuth us from Zanzibar to Zambia.

Off to Morningside again this evening... beautiful colonial architecture (think Tinbridge Wells meets Kuala Lumpur), treandy bars and a heavenly Italian restaurant, Spiga d'Oro!

Confirmed our flight back is Sunday 15th January, which gives us about 17 days still to enjoy this wonderful country.