Pole Dancing in Durban

Greetings Everyone,

 

As I'm sitting in the airport, waiting for our delayed flight to Singapore, I figured I would try to catch up on a few blog posts I started and never quite finished.  Sean already covered our stops along the Wild Coast, including Cintsa and Port St. Johns, but I don't think either of us mentioned much about Durban.  Before I get to Durban, however, I just wanted to add a few things about the Wild Coast. 

 

The Wild Coast is by far, the most undeveloped part of the country we've visited.  One of the most interesting things about the drive through, aside from all the beautiful scenery, was the sheer number of stray farm animals along the side of the road.  I've never seen so many goats, cows, and sheep in my life.  They are literally everywhere, just chowing down on grass, and they aren't fences or anything separating them from the fields and the roads.  They usually don't jump out into the street or anything and the drivers are obviously used to them, but it would make me quite nervous to drive in such conditions.  A few times, we had to stop to let cross cross the road.  Once, when a group of cows was crossing, one of them stopped in front of the bus, turned and looked at us for a moment, then continued on, slowly, across the road.  It was cute, but strange.  We also saw a large herd of cows just relaxing on the beach in Port St. Johns.  They had their section of the beach and the people had theirs.  I captured a few pictures of them so be sure to check them out in the Photo Album. 

 

I've had a lot of firsts here in South Africa.  As Sean mentioned, we went horseback riding in Cintsa.  This was my very first time on a horse and while I can't say I had to do much given the well behaved horse I was assigned, it did require some balance to stay on.  The only scary part was when we were trekking through some brush and turned a corner and all of a sudden my horse jumped sideways and almost freaked out.  Apparently, she got spooked by a group of cows she didn't see right away.  She settled down quickly once she realized it was nothing and luckily didn't rear up and throw me off.  Other than that, it was nice to try the different riding styles along the beach and the two and a half hour ride made the money spent well worth it.  I was quite sore for a few days following the ride, but it was fun trying something new being the city boy I am.

 

Golfing in Port St. Johns was also a first for me.  I went to a driving range with Sean when we were in Myrtle beach last summer, but this was my first time playing a round.  While I can't say I'll become the fanatic that Sean is, I can better appreciate the technical skill and precision involved and the difficulty in being consistent, which can easily make the game addictive as you try to improve your shots and get better at the game.  It was also nice to play with the local teenager we met on the course, even though he would have kicked my ass too if we were actually keeping score. 

 

Once we arrived in Durban, South Africa, we stayed at a Hostel called Happy Hippo.  We had a few business things to accomplish so we didn't really spend much time sight-seeing or checking out different parts of the city.  We mostly isolated ourselves in the hostel, but still had a great time every night in the hostel bar.  There wasn't really much near the hostel anyway, other than Marine World, which is a huge complex with a water park, aquarium, and lots of shops and restaurants.  Luckily, the hostel has a nice rooftop bar where we've met some really great people and had many drunken nights of fun.  A really cool Zulu girl named Bridgette was working at the hostel bar the first couple nights we were here, but Thursday, her friends from Mozambique arrived and she had the weekend free to party.  Don, the regular bartender, worked the weekend and in between mixing drinks he was kicking ass on the pool table.  Throw in a sexy Ginger, a laughing German girl, a tall surfer dude, a shy interracial German couple (that can actually dance better than most of us once they loosen up), a South African Clark Kent, a hung Chaldean, and a sneaky French girl and you have one crazy party.  But as we learned over the course of a few nights, no party is complete without a pole.  As the nights went on and the drinks flowed, I think everyone found themselves on the pole at one point or another.  We also had dancing on tables, shirts coming off, and even a few bare asses on display.  The best part about it all is that we have at pictures AND videos of everything, and I'm sure everyone in the group has a few photos or videos they would rather see deleted. 

 

Bridgette was a big Chris Rock fan and we were laughing about a line he had in one of his stand-up routines.  He mentioned his newborn baby girl and said that as a father, his only responsibility in life was to keep her off the pole.  Apparently, some of our fathers didn't have the same convictions when raising us. 

 

Cheers,

Ozell