Shark Soup

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Nope, we didn't eat shark soup, we swam in it!

After leaving Nelspruit, we spent a night at a cool hostel in the middle of a game park in a new country, Swaziland, eating bean stew under the stars by a campfire. The next morning, we woke up to zebras in front of our little round hut! We wanted to push on so got picked up by Baz Bus again the next day and made our way to Umkomaas, home of the famous Aliwal Shoal.

We did some great dives with 30 or more ferocious-looking but friendly ragged tooth sharks (raggies) accompanying us throughout most dives. At first it was quite scary as they approached us at close range, their rows of sharp teet5h clearly visible. "Jaws" has a lot to answer for! By the second day we had become completely accustomed to them and it really hit home when Scott pointed out a tiny starfish to me, completely ignoring the four sharks circling us!

Apart from the sharks, the other main highlight was undoubtedly seeing a pod of about 30 dolp-hins passing by so close that we could almost reach out and touch them. We've snorkelled with dolphians before but diving with them was a totally different experience.

Even on the surface it was clear that the reef is healthy. From the boat we saw a whale breaching (something we have never seen even on specific whale-watching trips), more dolphins pods, and two hammerhead sharks (but Scott and I both missed them - gutted!)

All in all we really enjoyed Umkomaas. The town itself is nothing special and has the usual South African crime problems. The locals advised us not to walk at night and we found out that someone had been fatally stabbed just a few weeks prior - even small towns are unsafe here! The people were really nice, though. We had lunch with our British dive master, Becky, a few times, including a local specialty called bunny chow. No, it's not salad, it's actually a small loaf of hollow bread filled with curry - delicious!

From Umkomaas we were kindly offered a lift to Durban with a fellow diver, Sean. He liked the look of our hostel and ended up checking in for the night, eating pizza and drinking beers at the hostel with us.

From there we were off on Baz Bus again up to Drakensburg. We stayed in Ampitheatre Backpackers which had a lovely restaurant and bar but was ruined by the arrogant owner. It was like being in India or Egypt again - everything that came out of his mouth was aimed at extracting lots of money from you! He also had some hilarious notices up, take a look:

The trips offered are not compulsory
(Erm, well I didn't expect to have almost $60 per person charged to our account and told that we HAD to go on the guided hike the next day!)

In this area, hikers have been burnt alive, struck by lightning, bitten by snakes, fallen off the escarpment, some have frozen in the snow, broken bones, suffered from the heat and the neight, whenever it happens it is traumatizing for everyone. That is why you have a quide!
(Charming! But I don't see how a guide can help you if you get struck by lightning...jump- in front of the bolt maybe?!)

Guides are NOT allowed to take people shopping during, before, or after trips. It is not safe and iut takes too much time.
(In other words, they want to ensure you have to buy their overpriced evening meal rather than cooking, helping the owner to buy that farrari he has been saving for! Oh, and we were told it was safe!)

Do NOT even ATTEMPT to hold us responsible for your camera.
(Wouldn't it have been more pleasant to simply have said something like, "Please take care of your own valables as we cannot be held responsible for them")

As the trips were, thankfully, not compulsory (!!) we decided to forego the trip to see the second highest waterfall in the world after Venezuela's Angel falls (saving almost $60 each) and instead we did the 7km hike to the bottom. After 2 and a half hours of hiking we reached the bottom of the dramatic ampitheatre cliff where the waterfall was supposed to be. It was no-where to be seen, being completely dry as it is dry season. Not to worry, it was still a nice hike. Not surprisingly, our hostel owner forgot to mention this fact to the 30 or so people signed up for the "waterfall" trip - cheeky! Nevermind, at least no-one got struck by lightning or burnt alive so, waterfall or not, they should be happy with the trip!!! 😊

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Photos

Drakensburg
On the way to the ampitheatre and the world's second largest waterfall after Angel falls in Venezuela

Comments

[Patricia Somewhere]

hello again
Hi Guys. Nice to know you bravely encountered the sharks and are well. You, know! After I witnessed "the not-so-brave bug encounter" in McLeod, I wasn't so sure about you handling the sharks!!! (ha, ha, ha!). What's next for you guys? I am going to Turkey in September. Tchau and take care. Patricia