The Baz Bus collected me from the Shell Service station in Mtharta. The bus was quite crowded. I had meet a number of the people before. That was to be expected as individuals and groups head along the Garden Route.
Bloke who could Talk
As well as the backpackers with ‘Hop on and Hop off’ tickets, there were two blokes that bought tickets off the driver. One looked to be in his forties and the other looked to be in his late teens. The older bloke got into the front seat next to the driver.
As we headed off the bloke in the front seat started talking to the driver. I caught bits of the conversation. He “owned a construction company….lived in Ramsgate south of Durban…owned a BMW 7 Series….”
The amazing thing was that the bloke did not stop talking. His comments seemed to get more and bizarre. He talked about “having over 20 poisonous snakes in his house” and “fatally shooting a black guy that broke into his house”.
A couple of times he turned back to say something to the teenager who boarded the bus with him. As time went he still didn’t stop talking and seemed to be getting pissed.
One of the other passengers started to chat to the young bloke. It transpired that the bloke in the front seat was his uncle. The young bloke worked for his uncle’s construction company. They had “just finished a section of new road near Coffee Bay and were heading home for the weekend”. The reason that his uncle sounded pissed was because he was “drinking a 26-ounce bottle of vodka”. The young bloke said “that 90% of what his uncle said was true albeit he was prone to a bit of exaggeration”.
It was about 5 hours’ drive from Mtharta to where we dropped these blokes off. The older had not stopped talking for the whole time. They were met at the stop by the younger blokes sister, his uncle’s wife and his children.
When he was unloading his luggage, the uncle took a cloth bag out of a metal case and placed it of the ground to show his children. It moved. There was a poisonous snake in the bag. Maybe he did kill and black guy the broke into his house.
Nomads Hostel
I was booked into the Nomads hostel in Durban. There was a young Australian girl on the bus that was also booked into the hostel.
As we walked through the gate that place seemed closed. As we got closer to the main door we could hear loud music. As we walked through the door we were greeted by a bloke with an extremely loud voice.
It later transpired that the boke with loud voice and number of other quests were in Durban for a music festival taking place over the weekend. The bloke with the lead voice was providing sound equipment. I was to later learn that the reason that he spoke so loudly was that he was partially deaf as a result going to so many loud concerts.;
Walking tour
In the morning I decided to take walking tour that was offered by the hostel. I had heard about the tour by a bloke I met in Coffee Bay. He told me that “the guide, Johnny, was very good.
Johnny was a ‘mixed race’ – Indian and Zulu.
There were four other quests on the tour, a couple from Brazil and bloke from Belgium. The first part of the tour involved taking a local mini bus in to the city. Passengers and the driver’s off siders use hand signals to say where they want to go and where the bus is going. It is a bit of a chaotic system but it appears to work.
Whites leave the city
We got off the bus near a large market. Johnny explained “that area had changed significantly since democracy”. It turned out that that was his term for the end of Apartheid.
He told us that during the Apartheid years “the downtown area was for the whites. The blacks, coloured and Indians were not allowed to live there. The Indians were allowed to have businesses, but the blacks were not. He said that the streets were all very clean and quiet. The blacks that worked on the downtown area had to return to their townships when they finished work.
All this changed with democracy. Everyone was allowed to move freely throughout the RSA. This included allowing the blacks to be able to live and start businesses in downtown Durban. Over time blacks started business on the streets and slowly started taking over shops as the white shop owners left the area.
Johnny pointed out that we, his quests, were the only white people on the street. He was right.
Markets
We went into a food market. The people manning the stalls were all black. Johnny explained that most of the stalls were owned by Indians. Some of the items on offer were ‘interesting’ – for example, goat and sheep heads.
After the food market we walked on a bridge over the railway line. It was wide and covered. On either side people were selling CD’s and DVD’s. They were all playing ‘music’ on ‘ghetto blasters’. The noise was excruciating.
Next stop was another bridge where people were selling ‘tradition remedies’. These included herd, roots of plants and animal parts.
Town Hall the same as Dublin’s
Leaving the market, we past the Town Hall. Apparently it is built to the same design as the one in Dublin.
In the square in front of the Town Hall there are memorials to the fallen with WW1 and WW2. Virtually all of the names are British, not Afrikaans.
Indian meal
Next stop was the beach. We had an Indian meal at a restaurant. It was pretty good.
Johnny explained that in summer that beach is packed with locals and people that travel to Durban from Johannesburg. He said that the people seemed to practice “voluntary Apartheid” with the whites going to the far end of the beach.
Beer in a glasshouse
We walked along the beach to an ‘entertainment centres’ that included shops, bars and restaurants. There is a pier with a bar, that Johnny suggested was a good place for a beer.
On the way out to bar Johnny pointed out that the people swimming in the water to the right of the pier were predominantly white. Those to the left of the pier were predominantly black.
The walls of the bar were all glass. The sun was streaming through and it was incredibly hot.
Curry meal
In the evening, the hostel put on a curry meal. It was really good and cheap – less than AUD 7 and the beers were less than AUD 2.
I had a chat with one of the other guest and the manager of the hostel. The guest was an older bloke who told me that he was in Durban on business. His business was to install mechanisms that make it difficult for “gangs of blacks” stealing copper wire from the electricity network.
The conversation turned to shark attacks. The Manager said “that the number of attacks had increased with the increase in the number of blacks that were taking to the beaches”. The other bloke agreed.
AUD 9 hair cut
I spent most of the next day in the shopping centre that was about 400 metres from the hostel. It had a large number of small shops and the big department stores including Woolworths (not related to the Australian company) and Ackerman.
I had a ‘full service’ haircut (i.e. cut and wash). It cost AUD 9.
I also had a really good meal with a beer and wine for AUD 21.
The RSA is cheap. Durban is particularly cheap.
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