South Africa: Durban

 Sunday, April 9, 2023, Durban, South Africa

We arrived in Durban at 8 am and took the ship’s shuttle to UShaka Marine World. This is an extremely clean complex that includes lots of retail shops, restaurants, an aquarium, and a seal and dolphin show. We bought postcards at a gift shop which also carried stamps! At the entry to the actual theme park there was a drumming/singing/dancing group performing African music to get us in the mood. 

Downtown Durban

These were good dancers & singers

Whale skeleton at the aquarium

We bought tickets to the aquarium, and it was one of the best we’ve been to. We had just enough time to see everything, including the octopus (who had a toy in the tank). Jill somehow connected with a very large fish and a tortoise that each migrated in her direction. 

The shuttle got us back to the pier in time to catch the bus to the Tala Game Preserve for another photo safari. Once we arrived, the group was split into 3 groups. Charlie got us into the eight-passenger vehicle, our choice over the larger trucks. This is the way to go if you can climb up into it using a step ladder. In this vehicle everyone has an outside seat.

Tala Game Preserve

This preserve was bigger and had hippos! They were in the water (where they spend most of the day time) but there were clearly 3 of them, tops visible and including a baby. The guide told us a bunch of hippos got out of the preserve a couple years ago and were on the road. One of them tossed someone off a bridge. Getting hippos back into the preserve is not easy, as one might imagine. One hippo could not be re-captured and had to be put down, meat donated to the nearby village. We didn’t see elephants or lions here, but did see gazelles, a wildebeest herd up close, lots of Cape buffalo, impalas running, ostrich, rhinos (with birds on their backs), blesboks and lots of giraffes close up. It’s hard to have a bad day on a game drive.

I should mention here that game preserves, while typically smaller than national parks, are still huge and you will likely not see all the animals there are to see. They are not fed, but must fend for themselves. 

Our jeep

Note: horns have been cut (will grow back) and a bird on top!

Blue-eyed wildebeest

Hippo!!!

Blessbok

Later as we sailed away from Durban during dinner, there was a lightening storm that lit up the sky with sheets of lights and bolts, along with torrential rain. We were lucky to have a beautiful rain-free day.