February 20th - 23rd -  Durban, South Africa

Saturday, February 20th

Today started out with a real rain storm and it ended with a really loud thunder storm.  In between it was incredibly windy and raining on several occasions but lightly, not like the morning or evening storms.  Because it is a weekend, the bleachers and streets are much busier now.  Heck, everything is busier.  We were no longer the only ones in the restaurant for dinner!  

Some people braved the beach today but I did not.  I went out for a walk in the morning but the wind came up so strong and there was so much junk blowing around that my contacts just couldn't handle it any more.  I'm assuming there was a lot of sand and salt blowing around too and that's probably what bothered my eyes more than the junk that was bigger and easier to avoid.  Sometimes the wind was so strong you really did think it was going to knock you over.  I confess that from my room I was laughing at people on the street but once I got down there I realized it was a struggle to walk.  My favourite person on the street was the big macho surfer who was coming off of the beach and trying to cross the street.  As long as he held his board into the wind he was okay but when he had to turn it sideways to the wind he was quite literally going sideways down the street no matter how hard he tried to control it.  And as the wind kept changing directions it was hard not to get caught facing the wrong way.

Later on I went out for another walk and went to a pharmacy to try and get some medication for high altitude travel.  I had everything else with me but I really hadn't thought much about Bolivia being at such a high altitude.  We have an 11 day trip there and all of it is over 2,500 metres and some of it over 4,000 metres.  We also have some days before the trip starts and some days after and they are over 4,000 metres.  I know I didn't do very well in Peru when I was trying to walk the Lars Trek or in Tibet when just walking up to the palace so I figured I should have some medication with me.    The pharmacist first said she didn't have any and then later decided she could get some by Monday so I could pick it up on Tuesday before we leave on Wednesday.  I was happy to hear that, and the price seemed quite reasonable.

Aside from my two forays outside I had a good day of blogging, booking flights, doing banking, clearing e-mails, and just generally cleaning up a lot of things that I hadn't gotten around to because the Internet had not been working well enough for me to accomplish anything.  Well, to that statement Randy would say that my iPad wasn't working well enough.  He had no problem with the Internet whereas I couldn't get it to work no matter what I did.  Anyway, the day disappeared and we went down the street to the closest restaurant for dinner.  The thunder storm was right above us at that point and the lightning was bright and the thunder loud.  However, we didn't get too wet either coming or going so that was good.

Sunday, February 21st

This morning after breakfast I decided I was going to go to uShaka Sea World.  The folks at our reception desk had tickets for just 150 rand or less than $15 Cdn so I bought one.  It included uShaka Wet 'n Wild as well so I wore my bathing suit and packed a towel and book and sunscreen and thought I'd make a day of it doing the world's fourth or fifth largest aquarium (sources differ on exact status) but definitely the largest in the Southern Hemisphere and have a nice cool break in a pool at Wild and Wet.

I walked down as it was just on the water front.  It was supposed to be a 15-20 minute walk but it took me more like 45 minutes so either I'm getting slower or their estimates were a bit off.  By the time I got there I was already hot and ready for a break but I decided to plan the day around the shows and feelings.  I had missed the first feeding of the day but I caught the seal show and the dolphin show and the penguin and shark feelings later in the day.  It seemed like a very confusing place to me and I actually had trouble finding the aquarium itself.  I saw where you could go into the cage and be down with the sharks - something I can't say was ever on my bucket list.   There was also a place where you could go walking on the bottom of the tanks with the fish all around you and you wearing a strange bulky looking head  sphere that did not look comfortable at all.  I also saw where you could go snorkelling about the reef pool and that seemed like it might be nice because there were lots of colourful fish in that area.  However, once I did find the aquarium I was glad I hadn't done that either as everyone down in the aquarium was looking up at all the snorkelers  at the top of the pool.

The aquarium itself was in what looked like an old boat.  When you entered you walked way down a series of ramps at the one end and then you were below and beside the tanks as you walked along.  The whole things was done as if you were in a series of ship wrecks so you had to watch out for old sunken chests and containers and the look was quite effective with the fish swimming past on both sides of the walkway.  And the walkway was quite large and the viewing windows varied in size and location.  The jelly fish and the sea horses and the rock fish were in small areas for instance while the Sharks and big fish were in huge areas.  There were crates and objects to sit on to enjoy the view and for some of the feelings you just gathered around the windows and they did commentary from the viewing area and the feelings from above.  It didn't seem like there were many people in the aquarium as it was so roomy but when it came time for a feeding and the people all gathered together there was quite a crowd. It was such a different layout to other aquariums that I found it hard to compare its size.  The aquarium we visited in Barcelona is very open with lots of light and glass everywhere.  This was like you were on the bottom of the sea among the cluster of sunken ships so it was very different.  At one point you were in the ships latrine with old toilets and sinks between the windows where the fish were swimming.  It was just very different and very enjoyable.

The seal and dolphin shows were in outside tanks and they had large stands for the audience.  These were covered so you could sit in the shade and they would certainly also help if it was raining.  They were your typical shows but really tastefully done.  The seals and dolphins showed what they could do but the commentary also gave a lot of history on the animals and told you a lot about them.  At least half of the seal show involved one seal and he showed us his ears and eyes and flippers and coat and how he swam.  The commentary was great and his actions were perfect for what was being talked about and if you didn't want to watch him directly you could get a good close up on the big screen projection to the one side so you could actually see his tiny ears and the fingernails on his flippers.  They also did a lot of talk on the environment and recycling and how important it was for the animals in the wild.  I guess the shows were good not only because the animals were cute and fun to watch but also because there was some education involved as well.  I enjoyed both shows, especially some of the synchronized moves from the five younger dolphins who were pretty darn good.  

I never did make it to Wet 'n Wild but I had lunch overlooking some of the slides and pools.  By the time I saw all of the other shows and the entire aquarium and walked around all the other pools and exhibits, it was almost closing time and I still wanted to go see the Scary Creatures exhibit.  All around uShaka Marine World there is an outdoor but covered shopping area that is huge.  One  of the new exhibits there was this scary creature one.  Basically it was just snakes and spiders and a few frogs but it was interesting.  Most of the animals were very quiet in their cages so they didn't look to scary.  The lady behind me had her flash go off when taking a photo of a cobra and he did immediately sit up and fan out his neck in attack posture so that was pretty cool.  There was one huge long cobra that was wound in a circle and his body must have been 20 inches in diameter in places.  He was unbelievably huge.  

The most interesting exhibit was a big python and he was moving because he was shedding his skin.  I had never seen that happening before so it was interesting how it just peels back and the exact design remains below and the snake just has to keep crawling and wiggling to get out of the old skin.  It looked to me like it would be very itchy but there wasn't much he could do but keep crawling along.  He was almost out of it when the place was closing.  It was right down to his tail and the coil of skin was several feet long and now dry and looking like dried skin.  A couple of us wanted to see the final moments but then the girl said the lights go off automatically so we decided maybe we wanted to be out of there before the lights went out so we left.  It was an interesting exhibit and they tried to scare you along the way with little gimmicks.  I'm sure they are treated well but most of the animals looked like they were in cages way too small for them and it just didn't seem like a nice environment.  It was also in a very strange location between all the fancy shops and restaurants in the shopping area.  I never did figure out if it was truly connected to uShaka or whether it just happened to be in the same area so they did some joint advertising.  The entrance fee was certainly separate.

Monday, February 22nd

Today was a really slow day for me.  I seemed to get a lot accomplished but it was pretty trivial stuff and I didn't do anything substantial so it seems lie a boring day.