Joburg 6/11

Wow okay so it's been a little while, sorry about that. lets see what has happend. After coffee bay I went to Durban, where I had a forced layover due to the Baz Bus schedule. I spent two nights there, and on my day in between I went to the victoria market which happend to be right in the area the hostel manager said not to go. I think her suspicions were unwarranted because although there were a lot of people I didn't feel threatened at all. That being said there were a few security gaurds standing outside shops holding shotguns while strapping enough ammo on bandoliers to incite a central american revolution. My interest in the victoria market was solely culinary, as I had heard Durban is the place to be for curry. The new additions to my pack are now half a kilo of red curry, and half a kilo of "rice spice" not sure what's in it but it tastes great. After visiting the market I and a fellow traveller signed up for a tour of the surrounding area, our guide was a crocadile hunter lookalike and with his South African accent I just started laughing. The tour consisted of going to a traditional "zulu" village where we learned about some zulu rituals, we watched some dancing, I have a little video and then two audio recordings of it, man I love my camera. After the village we headed to a crocadile breeding farm, some of the facts we learned absolutly blew my mind. For one crocs, and I would assume alligators as well, are natural hunters of humans, other animals might atack humans out of desperation, or mistake but to crocs we are food. One of the resident crocs was junior, a 100 year-old, 4 meter long, seriously ugly croc. not something you would want to run into during a paddle up some river. The breeding facility also had a few snake exhibits, and I must say is the only place I've ever visited, where Boas anacondas, and pythons rate a smiley face on the lethality scale. The spitting cobra, boomslang (a really cool snake), black mamba and many others rated much higher. Black mambas can stand up 2/3s of their height so a lot of the bites will be around neck and chest level as they are striking down, pretty sweet. That evening which I beleive was 6th or 7th, I fixed curry for the first time in my life, using a base of milk and butter I stewed in ostrich meat, simmered that for a while then served it over rice with the rice spice. Just a thought perhaps the reason I didn't get hasseled going to the victoria market was because I attempted to shave in a bathroom with no mirror and I looked like I had the mange. The next morning I set out for north drackensburg. on the favorite places scale drackensburg and Hogsback are neck and neck. The drive from durban to DG took me through savannahs running for miles broken only by the odd accacia tree. The grasses are over 6 feet high in places and when a breeze stirs them it looks like a golden ocean. I went on some great hikes the first being only 18km but I ate my lunch with my legs dangling off a 1km drop. That's over half a mile. The views were fantastic. on that same hike we visited the highest waterfall in africa, the second highest in the world, thought it being winter here the fall was naught but a trickle, so I purchased a postcard of it looking superb. The next day i did a 25km hike coming close to the bottom of the falls. The big thing to see there was the Gorge which looks very much like some of the slot canyons in Utah in dimensions and shape. Now I am in Johannesburg, already I can tell a diference just in the type of traveller. The people out in the rural areas are very courteous and in the major urban areas I find myself wishing evil tidings on a good number of others, principaly those who enter the room past midnight and go banging around for a while, then get up 3 times in the night. When I was in cape town my fear was that someone would hit me in the head with a sock full of quarters, but now I feel I should be carrying one to hit people coming in late from the pub. today i plan to purchase my ticket to zambia. Hope all is well with you all.
W.