Back in Durban..........

After seeing off D 'n D from Hippo Hide I kept an appointment with Ana and the beach. The sun was shining, we got into town on one of those great minibusses that whizz around with truly deafening but quite cool music pumping out of them. You never quite know where they are going but you get in, nod to your fellow passengers (speaking above the bass is out of the question) and pass some loose change to the conductor- the driver's buddy. It's cheap and fun.

The beach was pretty much deserted so I got on finally with my task of looking like a Brit on holiday by burning some red patches onto my torso. Ana, who prides herself on being one of the last people to still use up her baggage entitlement on planes with used 35mm film took photos of surfers.
We had an appointment to meet Helen in the city so after a quick haircut we picked her up and grabbed the biggest chicken Kebab I have ever seen. No wonder there was a queue a mile long at the shop- it cost £1. Following the success of my silk sleeping bag I had a vague notion of buying some black silk to make a fitted liner for my sleeping bag and we set off on a quest to find some. The search took us all around the Indian markets, haberdasherss and bridal shops. It, as usual, ended in vain but the girls became more committed than I and the effect of walking into a shop full of chattering Asian women which goes silent before one is approached but a reluctant elderly male shop owner is quite interesting.

The day dragged on to the point where we needed a drink, so we had one in a park full of drunks who wanted, quite benignly to talk to us. They felt the sharp end of mine and Ana's complementary wit but didn't seem to notice. We grabbed a bus back to between the hostel and Helen's children's home but decided we should visit while we were in the neighbourhood. Helen had painted a very grim picture of the home which was nothing like as bad as I was anticipating.Unfortunatelyy nothing could have prepared us for the state of her room which, for a sweet little package like her was simply astounding. After doing my usual and allowing myself to be used as a climbing frame for the lads and celebrity for the girls we all went out for curry. Bunny Chow, a local delicasy'- half a big loaf of bread, hollowed out and filled with curry for- you guessed it- a quid was the order of the day- by now I was oozing curry from my pores. The walk back to the hostel from the curry place, heavily laded was tough because not only uphill but skirting what the hairs on the back of my neck (and later a garage attendant) told me was an area we should not be walking in.
And that was that, next morning, bright and early I caught a flight back to Cape Town and, due to lack of space rather than lack of imagination back to Zebra Crossing backpackers..