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Durban is an absolutely beautiful city. We didn't get to see much of it because we were only there to sleep but what we saw was gorgeous. Well, not when we first drove in. It was dark when we got there and we were sooo lost and we're pretty sure our friends were trying to kill us because they led us to the HOOD!! And I mean, crack dealers on the sidewalk, bums warming themselves over a roaring fire HOOOODDD. We were not amused. However, in the morning everything looked much more pleasant. Plus, they have actual restaurants and clubs and buildings and it just felt amazing to be in a real city again. It was also really fun to see some of our friends from school. I got really lucky, about seven of the 13 people here in South Africa are people who I hang out with at home so I always have a place to stay in Durban and Cape Town! Another interesting thing about Durban is that the dominant tribe is the Zulu and there is also a significant Indian population. It was fun to see something other than the black/white that we get in East London and Zulus and Xhosas could not look more different. Zulu men are tall, dark, very handsome, and apparently very chauvinistic. Xhosa men are lighter, shorter, and less obviously good looking but so far they have also been very kind and generous and thoughtful. A girl's dilemna...
This weekend we weren't up to see the city, we were going on a safari!!! I can't even begin to tell you how excited I was. However, Latoya and Matt (the friends we were visiting) neglected to tell us that we would have to get up at 4 AM to drive to the site. I wasn't thrilled but the promise of lions and elephants (which were not to be) got me up and behind the wheel. After driving for about three hours through a landscape that changed from Northwest to wine country to, finally, African bush, we drove for another forty minutes on some of the worst dirt roads in history before we finally made it to the Mzuki Game Reserve. 
This was a particularly low-budget type of safari, a drive-it-yourself type of deal, a lot like the buffalo farm places we used to go to as kids when we lived in Oklahoma. We paid our 35 rand (about $4.50) and drove through the gates, determined to see some animals. The game reserve was kind of like a zoo with no cages. There were a bunch of animals that were clearly used to seeing humans (they didn't attack and didn't run) and much like a really good zoo, there was so much natural vegetation that we probably only saw about 1/4 of the animals that were there. It was sort of like Jurassic Park before the T-Rex attack.
However, we did see a bunch of deer and antelope (they really look like they're loping, it's kind of cool, except when they're loping in front of your car...), zebras (very awesome), giraffes (which are way more graceful than you would think), a very large African moose looking thing that we couldn't identify, two warthogs that we only id'd because they looked like Pumba from The Lion King, some hippos (apparently some of the group was almost attacked while I was on the other side of the watering hole), and the other car saw an elephant but my car was too far behind :-(. Overall, it was a pretty awesome day. The giraffes and zebras were totally worth it.
We're definitely planning on going on lots more safaris, including one that includes lions, but this one was awesome. When I first got to Africa I was devastated to discover that tigers are not native to the continent. I was just about ready to go back home but now I'm glad I stayed. They may not have tigers but Africa definitely has just about everything else you could want. And South Africa is just so incredibly beautiful. It's no America, but it's close...
Travel well,
kat
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kat
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