I woke up at 4:45 am to say goodbye to the Nomad group (Carrie, Katherine, Brenna, Ashley, and Alex). They were scheduled to be picked up by taxi at 5:00, so we all got together to say our goodbye and wave goodbye on the curb. It was sad saying goodbye to my three roommates, and I was definitely crying when I had to say goodbye to Carrie…this is the longest that we will have gone without talking to each other! After their taxi was out around the corner and out of sight, I went back to an empty apartment to sleep for another two hours. I had a hard time sleeping because the sun was up and shining in my bedroom at 5:00am but I managed to get another hour of sleep in before having to get ready for out trip. At 7:15 I crawled out of bed and gathered my things for the Durban trip. By 8:00 our car arrived and we were all ready to go. Our car is a Palio Go! and she is smaller than a Geo Metro. We decided that it is about the size of a twin mattress. We named her “Big Red” and we managed to squeeze five girls and all of our duffel bags into the trunk. It was quite a tight squeeze! Leslie and Christy took turns driving, while Laura, Kasy, and I cuddled in the back! Tonya saw us off and we were out on the open road to find a map (we were told that we were going to get a map in the car, but didn’t…just like we were told that we would be getting a four door car, but got the delightful surprise of a two door). We found a map and headed to the N2 at 9:15 am. We drove until 10:45 and had a quick bathroom stop and were back cruising the N2. We drove until 4:00 and we stopped in Mthata for gas and a lunch/dinner at the grocery store. We ate on the road and we drove the rest of the way to Durban without making any stops. During the second half of our drive we ran into really crummy weather. Leslie did a great job navigating us through clouds on the hilly and curvy mountain roads. All five of us had our eyes glued to the road too look for animals that wander and camp out in the street (cattle, goats, dogs, donkeys, and horses all line the ditches and roadways and don’t move out of the way when they see oncoming traffic). We also learned that people are equally as easy to hit along the road at dark (we didn’t hit anyone fortunately) because many hitchhike home from work and they stand on or in the road to flag motorists down for rides. Other than those few worries, we had a fun drive with great music! Thank goodness for the music because it would have been a miserable ride in the backseat where if you wanted to move, everyone had to move on the count of three! We all would sing along, belting out the words, and every now and then we would break out the dance moves! When we were driving through particularly unsafe towns we decided that country music wasn’t the most appropriate genre of music to be listening to, so we would play Soweto Gospel Choir or Lestie’s songs. When we were pulling into Durban we were so excited to see the city…the problem tough was that we didn’t have a map of Durban. All we knew was that we had to take the exits and follow the signs for Ushaka Marine World because the Happy Hippo backpackers was right next to it. We also knew that the backpackers was on Mahatma Gandhi road and we had to cross over Bell Street to get there. We took the last possible exit after seeing no signs for Ushaka and we ended up in central Durban. We made a few guesses with turns and roads to take and just when we came to a T in the road and we were going to go back to the N4, I screamed, “There’s Bell!” We looked at Ushaka was right in front of us! We were so close, we went left and circled the block back around and went right and we found Gandhi. We took a left and saw an Engen (our other landmark that we were told about) and there was the Happy Hippo right in front of us! We unfolded out of Big Red a 9:00pm after 12 hours of driving! There was a bit of confusion when we arrived, apparently there was a mix up about our booking. 1.) They only had us booked until Tuesday—we are supposed to stay until Thursday morning, 2.) Our first night we would have to split up into two double rooms and a dorm room, 3.) Our price was quoted differently. Lets just say that we weren’t very happy, but we will sort it out with the owner tomorrow rather than dealing with it at 9:00 after driving the entire day. We made it work though, because w brought the mattress from the dorm room into the double room on the floor and we were all comfy and cozy. I slept on the floor mattress with Christy and Leslie and Laura and Kasy slept in a double room next door. We talked for a bit, then read, journaled, and we were sleeping at 10:30!
Sunday, December 2, 2007
November 17, 2007
I woke up at 4:45 am to say goodbye to the Nomad group (Carrie, Katherine, Brenna, Ashley, and Alex). They were scheduled to be picked up by taxi at 5:00, so we all got together to say our goodbye and wave goodbye on the curb. It was sad saying goodbye to my three roommates, and I was definitely crying when I had to say goodbye to Carrie…this is the longest that we will have gone without talking to each other! After their taxi was out around the corner and out of sight, I went back to an empty apartment to sleep for another two hours. I had a hard time sleeping because the sun was up and shining in my bedroom at 5:00am but I managed to get another hour of sleep in before having to get ready for out trip. At 7:15 I crawled out of bed and gathered my things for the Durban trip. By 8:00 our car arrived and we were all ready to go. Our car is a Palio Go! and she is smaller than a Geo Metro. We decided that it is about the size of a twin mattress. We named her “Big Red” and we managed to squeeze five girls and all of our duffel bags into the trunk. It was quite a tight squeeze! Leslie and Christy took turns driving, while Laura, Kasy, and I cuddled in the back! Tonya saw us off and we were out on the open road to find a map (we were told that we were going to get a map in the car, but didn’t…just like we were told that we would be getting a four door car, but got the delightful surprise of a two door). We found a map and headed to the N2 at 9:15 am. We drove until 10:45 and had a quick bathroom stop and were back cruising the N2. We drove until 4:00 and we stopped in Mthata for gas and a lunch/dinner at the grocery store. We ate on the road and we drove the rest of the way to Durban without making any stops. During the second half of our drive we ran into really crummy weather. Leslie did a great job navigating us through clouds on the hilly and curvy mountain roads. All five of us had our eyes glued to the road too look for animals that wander and camp out in the street (cattle, goats, dogs, donkeys, and horses all line the ditches and roadways and don’t move out of the way when they see oncoming traffic). We also learned that people are equally as easy to hit along the road at dark (we didn’t hit anyone fortunately) because many hitchhike home from work and they stand on or in the road to flag motorists down for rides. Other than those few worries, we had a fun drive with great music! Thank goodness for the music because it would have been a miserable ride in the backseat where if you wanted to move, everyone had to move on the count of three! We all would sing along, belting out the words, and every now and then we would break out the dance moves! When we were driving through particularly unsafe towns we decided that country music wasn’t the most appropriate genre of music to be listening to, so we would play Soweto Gospel Choir or Lestie’s songs. When we were pulling into Durban we were so excited to see the city…the problem tough was that we didn’t have a map of Durban. All we knew was that we had to take the exits and follow the signs for Ushaka Marine World because the Happy Hippo backpackers was right next to it. We also knew that the backpackers was on Mahatma Gandhi road and we had to cross over Bell Street to get there. We took the last possible exit after seeing no signs for Ushaka and we ended up in central Durban. We made a few guesses with turns and roads to take and just when we came to a T in the road and we were going to go back to the N4, I screamed, “There’s Bell!” We looked at Ushaka was right in front of us! We were so close, we went left and circled the block back around and went right and we found Gandhi. We took a left and saw an Engen (our other landmark that we were told about) and there was the Happy Hippo right in front of us! We unfolded out of Big Red a 9:00pm after 12 hours of driving! There was a bit of confusion when we arrived, apparently there was a mix up about our booking. 1.) They only had us booked until Tuesday—we are supposed to stay until Thursday morning, 2.) Our first night we would have to split up into two double rooms and a dorm room, 3.) Our price was quoted differently. Lets just say that we weren’t very happy, but we will sort it out with the owner tomorrow rather than dealing with it at 9:00 after driving the entire day. We made it work though, because w brought the mattress from the dorm room into the double room on the floor and we were all comfy and cozy. I slept on the floor mattress with Christy and Leslie and Laura and Kasy slept in a double room next door. We talked for a bit, then read, journaled, and we were sleeping at 10:30!
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