23 Mar 2009 – Hippos, Crocs, and Dinner in Durban

This morning we met at breakfast in the dining area a little after 7AM and then loaded up the vans and trailer and hit the road by 8:00. It took about an hour to reach the St. Lucia estuary, where we ambled through a gift shop and then boarded the ferry up the river for aquatic animal viewing. During our two hours on the river we saw several pods of hippos, a few crocodiles, and dozens of indigenous waterfowl, one of which perched about four feet tall on the reedy river bank. Half of our group sat on the lower deck out of the sun, while the rest sat or stood on the rooftop platform, switching sides according to the guide’s advice. The water was the color of chocolate milk, and from time to time we saw the dark, lumpy heads of the hippos bobbing up and down in groups. The crocodiles sunned themselves on the beach, while an eagle alighted on a crooked branch surveying the water for wayfaring fish. Overall it was a mellow ride, which we shared with about fifteen or twenty other tourists carrying binoculars and zoom-lens cameras.After another round of souvenir shopping, we piled back into the hot vans and headed to lunch around the corner at a small restaurant with a straw-canopied outdoor seating area. We lingered a bit after lunch, glancing in some of the shops nearby on the short stretch of commercial road in the middle of nowhere, and I charged my computer for a few minutes inside the restaurant. We had three hours ahead of us in the vans before reaching Durban, the night’s destination, and the ride was far from comfortable, but somehow much of the group in the big van managed to doze.

The Hluhluwe area is South Africa’s biggest pineapple growing region, and driving along the highway towards Durban this afternoon, the citrusy scent frequently wafted in through the windows. Those of us in the back of the van were treated to a bumpy ride, since the fifteen-seat vehicle seems to be missing any semblance of shocks. We made several stops for bathrooms, stretching, and snacks, and reached Durban at 6:00 after hitting traffic.

Durban looked a lot more like Hartford or Bridgeport than Cape Town from afar. We drove through the urban streets past minibuses and street markets for a few minutes until we emerged onto a glitzy, neon-lit ocean front street boxed in by hotels, casinos, resorts, and restaurants. We jumped out of the vans in front of the Tropicana Hotel, across the road from the beach, and checked in at the front desk in groups of two and three. Dinner was booked for 7PM at a resort hotel and casino about five minutes away, so we all spruced ourselves up as best as possible in twenty minutes and convened in the lobby for the drive down the road.When we arrived at the resort hotel, the giant waterfront building was obnoxiously bright and glowing against the dark sky – a beacon of neon light attracting gamblers and consumers from all over Durban. It looked like something right off of the Las Vegas strip. The building housed a cinema, casino, and several shops and restaurants, including The Havana Grill, where we’d reserved a private room for the evening. We were seated around a large square of fancily-decked tables in a dining room resembling something between a board room and a yacht cabin, and we poured over the menu of delicious sounding dishes as the wait staff took drink orders and delivered the night’s specials.The antics over dinner – particularly those related to the consumption of copious amounts of food – made up in part for the slow pace of the event. Much of the table was growing full after the starters, so we were all just about bursting once we were a few bites into the main course. The desserts had caught my eye early on when we were perusing the menus, so I made a point to save room and split the five or six desserts with other people at the table, but since I was one of the only people who could still even contemplate a third course, I wound up eating more than my share of desserts for the evening: crème brule, chocolate mousse, coconut cheese cake…Most people were fairly distended with what the group has come to call “food babies” by the time we plodded out of the room three and a half hours later at 10:30PM, so just five decided to stay and try their luck on the casino floor. The rest of us opted to return to the hotel, where I proceeded to buy an hour’s worth of internet and check in on my housing and class registration, which had been scheduled for that afternoon. We also flipped through the five or six channels on the television in the room, trying to make use of the sudden novelty, but we found nothing but South African soap operas and – strangely – two different recent Lindsey Lohan movies.

As we got ready for bed, however, we were startled by a swell of cheering coming from outside our fifth story window. With a little exploration, we found that the drawn-out commotion was originating from the many windows of the Four Seasons hotel, which sat adjacent to the Tropicana. Shadow figures danced in the windows and hollered ANC chants (among other noisy cheers) out into the night, seemingly unprovoked and without prior coordination. But the fervor continued for far too long for it to have been unplanned; the hubbub waxed and waned for nearly an hour out the front windows of the hotel, and it was only when we were about to shut our window for the night that the ruckus died down. In the morning, we would discover that the hotel had been hosting an ANC rally of come kind, and many of the windows were plastered with posters of Zuma’s grinning mug.