Monday morning started with no water in the complex (the entire city as we found out). The fortunate people were the ones who showered before bed the previous night (Caroline). I was not one of them. Breakfast at the inn was very good. The place we stayed for 2 nights was very pleasant. The rooms were big and comfortable; there was a nice lounge area. The unseasonably cold weather made it harder to enjoy the facility because much of it was open air. Still a nice place to stay.
Pool just visible on the left, dining area on right. Rooms visible on the left.
After breakfast, we loaded up the van (always a trick with luggage for 10 people plus some materials for the school). Then we piled into open air vehicles for a ride to Cape Vidal and another animal sanctuary. Again it was cool and very windy and therefore not ideal conditions for us humans to watch animals. We did see some, including this buffalo who was on the road when we first encountered. He scampered (if a buffalo can scamper) up the hillside and continued to munch his breakfast. He seemed pretty unconcerned. We also saw zebras and other animals on our ride.
Our destination for a picnic was a beach in the area. On our drive into the area we saw several mongooses (not sure what the plural of mongoose is).
This mongoose posed for the camera. The first view of the Indian ocean as we crested the dune
The beach was beautiful, and on a warm calm day would be a great place to enjoy the sun and the surf. The surf was very high and pounding the reef and the beach. On a calmer day you can snorkel, but that would have been suicide when we were there.
Caroline on the beach. The surf.
We weren’t expecting to see whales, but a humpback whale had washed up on the beach. It was gathering a crowd and we joined them for look. Our guide speculated that the whale had drowned because of the high surf. Sharks had been taking chunks out of the whale and his guts were hanging out. It was perhaps not the best thing to view just before lunch.
Shark bites on the tail. The sieve the whale uses to get his food.
We had a very nice picnic on the beach prepared by our guides Zane and David.
Chef and tour guide Zane. The tablecloths would not stay on due to the wind.
Lunch was chicken, rolls, curried carrots, beans, beets, salad, and a nice SA white wine.
Monkeys are everywhere. We had one at our picnic who was looking for a handout. Our guide did not like this particular kind of monkey. He called them naughty monkeys. We stopped at a curio shop and there was a monkey on the roof just hanging out.
The lunch monkey. This guy was plotting how to snatch a pineapple from the curio shop.
After our tour ended, we packed up and drove to Umkomaas (just south of Durban) where we met the kids at the school. More about that in the next post.