Wednesday 6/11/2008 – Friday 6/13/2008
We slept almost 13 hours and didn’t get out of bed until 9:30 a.m. the next morning, tired from our long drive. We had brunch at the local ‘Wimpys’ (their version of a fancy Dennys/IHOP) in Port Shepstone and then headed off for Durban. We checked into the Hilton Durban (Thank you Hilton Gold Honors points!) and took care of some things on the Internet. Katie then decided to get a massage and Dermot headed off for the beach for some surfing. The waves were perfect for an hour of fun. Katie enjoyed her massage as much as Dermot enjoyed his surf session. We then got ready for our big night out at Madame Zingara’s. It was a dinner theater meets Cirque de Soliel type of production held in a huge tent in the parking lot of a casino. The food was great as was the entertainment. We were so glad we had a chance to see it, as it was recently moved from Cape town. After the show, we took a taxi home, made some phone calls back home before heading to bed.
Up early, we took advantage of the executive lounge’s free breakfast at 6:30 a.m. and then headed to the Bananas Backpackers down the street from the Hilton to catch the Baz Bus to Swaziland. The Bas Bus is a backpackers bus that carts people all around South Africa for a reasonable price. The bus came at 8:30 a.m. and we were on the road until 6:00 p.m. when we arrived at the backpackers in Swaziland. We stopped at many cool spots along the way to pick up and drop off travelers, namely the Zulu Brewing Company (not the best beer….) and St. Lucia, which is a wildlife reserve protected by the World Heritage Site.
We realized this was our third country to ‘walk’ over the boarder—which was a very smooth process. We hoped that our experience from Swaziland to Mozambique would prove to be as easy…we’ll see!