Hippo mania!!

April 10th : You know since I have arrived in Durban, the weather had been fantastic. It’s been humid and hot as hell, but still ideal and sub-tropical. We woke up ready to go to the beach and relax and what do you know… just our luck… its pouring. And its not just pouring for an hour… it poured from morning until we went to bed. Complete FAIL. However, we tried to make the best of it by doing some indoor derived activites. We shopped around for a while and went to the fresh fruit market across the street. It was just a half block of fresh fruit and African crafts made by these owners who seemed to sleep in little cubbies towards the back of their stall. There were probably 15 or so vendors and as I walked through the various ones, they all had their awesome punchlines, “hello, today special price” “for you today, I make you deal” “shop with me and save” to sample a few. As annoying as it was, it was fun to walk around and look at everything and barter for some nifty objects that I can’t disclose :) We became hungry and went to the ski club for some lunch. There were hippos doing their thing in the estuary behind us. We sat in the bar area since outside was too windy and rainy. We watched a rugby game as we ate and that is one weird sport.
We arranged a hippo and croc tour at 4 pm where we would go on a boat in the estuary. We grabbed some lunch and took off for the boat. The best decision would be to bring blankets just in case. The entire cruise was rainy, windy, and freezing. We would have been miserable in our shorts, t-shirt, and sandals. The tour guide pointed out countless hippos but never any crocs since it was raining. We were even graced to witness a hippo mating, probably the last thing I was expecting. It was pretty sadistic since the male essentially drowns the female. The kids also watch on as the horror takes place. After two hours of being on a rainy and windy boat, we were happy to be back on shore.
When we got home we made dinner using what we bought from the fruit market and the local market. We made pasta, green beans with feta, braai garlic bread, (braai is a famous South African traditional barbecue that I am determined to experience before I come back), and a side of avocado. It was a compilation of things we miss back home + some new foods.