Shakaland and Beyond

It was a long bus ride through Swaziland then a border crossing back into South Africa and into KwaZulu-Natal Provence where we arrived at Shakaland for the night.  This is model of a traditional Zulu village built as the film setting for the TV miniseries about Shaka Zulu, the great chief and warrior who united the Zulu people in the 1800's.  The area has been maintained as a destination resort and cultural center where contemporary Zulus demonstrate traditional village life, music and dance.  Is it hokey?  A bit, like a Zulu Disneyland, but like Disney it is well done.

 Cultural Oops - We think of ourselves as pretty experienced travelers but cultural misunderstandings still happen.  Here's our most recent.  We checked into our Zululand native hut and discovered one barely double-size bed.  That's pretty tight for the two of us so we asked our guide to see if he could get us a room with a king or two beds.  He replied, "I have a double and can trade with you."  I responded, "We have a double, so there's no point in changing."  After a nearly sleepless night as the two of us hammocked into the center of the tiny bed, Rand again mentioned to the guide our disappointment in our accommodations.  Just then we realized he'd offered us his "double" the night before - double meaning a room for two, not a double bed.  Duh....

We bused to Durban (sleeping most of the way in our bus seats) where we boarded a plane for Port Elizabeth on the Indian Ocean.  This is an industrial port city with a beautiful city center with Dutch influenced buildings.  We notice lower walls around the yards and less barbed wire than we've seen in the residential areas since Johannesburg and many more white people than we've seen for a week.  We're in the British influenced area of South Africa (v. the Afrikaans/Dutch area).  We enjoyed a wonderful seafood dinner last night and a beautiful hotel room.  It feels like we're back in civilization - but not for long.  We were off to the Addo Elephant preserve this morning.

Addo didn't disappoint.  We saw elephants, eland, cape buffalo and innumerable other animals.  This is the southern most animal park in South Africa with the big 5 plus 2 - the great white shark and the southern right whale as the park's southern boundary is the Indian Ocean.