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Published: December 31st 2007
Happy hippos
Enjoying a good wallowHappy New Year from St Lucia in KwaZulu Natal, a village at the heart of the Greater St Lucia Wetland Park. Or rather, as they renamed it last month, the iSimangaliso Wetland Park. We arrived here yesterday lunchtime.
St Lucians seem to share with the Americans an aversion to the idea of going anywhere using those outdated contraptions at the bottom of your body called legs. The lady at our guesthouse looked stunned when she opened the electric gates to her property and we trotted in carrying our backpacks, rather than rolling in on four wheels. The stunned look turned to a look of horror from her and her husband when, after a walk round town, I arrived back later on in the day sans Gemma, who had decided to walk on to the beach. "But it's dangerous!" they said, "you should never let her do that again!"
I admired their touching faith in my ability to control my wife's actions. Gemma returned later on, having been offered no fewer than three pick ups along the way by people concerned for her wellbeing. She agreed to the last one, and was dropped back at the front gate.
The
Beehive huts
Accommodation, Swazi style theme continued this morning, when we set out for a boat trip in the Saint Lucia Estuary. The lady in the travel agent was wide eyed when we said we didn't have our own transport, and said she would make arrangements to take us to the departure point herself. However, because of various problems, she was unable to do so, so we had to walk. It took at most ten minutes, and probably nearer five. Nevertheless, some of the other passengers absolutely insisted on driving us back to the centre of town when we disembarked, horrified again by the idea of walking it.
As so often in South Africa, it's hard to tell how much this fear of walking, which is closely linked to fear of crime, results from the barely suppressed racial tensions that are impossible not to notice. We had asked the travel agent lady whether there was anything to do on New Year's Day, as most of the tour operators seem to be closed then. "Well I wouldn't go to the beach," she volunteered, then moved closer, whispering conspiratorially, "it's absolutely full of black people that day." I was dumbstruck (sadly we had already bought our
Zebra Crossing
Blocked path at Mlilwane Wildlife Sanctuary tickets). Maybe I've led a sheltered life, but no white person in England has ever said anything like that to me, perhaps because even the racists among them know that it would be a mistake simply to assume that another white person will share their prejudice.
Then again, it could simply be fear of hippos. St Lucia Estuary is home to around 1,000 of these most dangerous animals in the wild, and at night they come on to the land to graze, and can apparently sometimes be encountered in St Lucia's streets. This made us slightly fearful as we walked home after dinner last night, but thankfully the walk was event-free. If we come across any, I plan to give them a wide berth, particularly if they're out celebrating New Year tonight. We saw plenty in the water this morning, plus some enormous four metre crocs basking in the sun on the side.
We're in St Lucia for the next three days, and there's kayaking, snorkelling and turtle watching planned for the remaining time. I'll blog again once we've moved on.
*****************
Before reaching St Lucia, and after leaving Mozambique, we spent three days in Swaziland at the Mlilwane Wildlife Sanctuary. If I were you I wouldn't bother. It's beautiful, and contained rare antelopes such as blesbuck and nyala which we haven't seen anywhere else, as well as large quantities of zebra, warthog and impala which we could see from the thatched rondavel in which we stayed. But it's desperately badly organised, with guides not turning up for trips, and misinformation about the Incwala Festival which we'd gone there to see (they told us it was over - we found out too late that it wasn't). We were just glad to make it on to the bus out of the country by a matter of moments, after the transfer turned up half an hour late.
Happy New Year again,
Colin
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Claire
non-member comment
HNY
Just a quick message to wish you both a very Happy New Year! Thanks a mill for my Christmas pressies - I'm looking forward to testing some of Rick's recipes. I'm sitting at my desk in cold, damp Belfast feeling very envious of your trip. Keep blogging..........it's the closest I'll get to a holiday for a while!! Cxx