Its UK Sarah, one of the researchers, birthday this weekend, so we are all piling of to St Lucia for 2 days. Should be good as I haven't been before, and its a chance for real shops, real food, internet and running water!!!
So, my shower situation at the lodge. I didn't have a working shower from Monday morning to Thursday night, which let me tell you, as someone that washes their hands a lot, this was not easy! But, you have to just remember that there is a severe drought and the whole area is struggling, so I really shouldn't make a fuss. Which would be a lot easier if I wasn't just about the only one who didn't have any water!! So I became a bit of a shower slut, I went to anyone's cabin so long as they had running water! After 2 days of wet wipe washes while living & working in the bush I was ready to get grumpy, so thanks very much to Amanda, Sarah & Sophie for letting me use their showers whenever I needed to! Needless to say I was very excited about the prospect of a whole weekend with unlimited water!!
We arrived in St Lucia at about 5pm and this is it...
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| The one street in St Lucia |
it was actually a really great place and I would definitely recommend a visit. After some initial confusion over rooms we got checked in to relative luxury compared to what we were used to at Thanda, and I was sharing with US Sarah & Miranda, both from the community project. We had lost Tom somewhere along the way, but found him at Ocean Basket (really good seafood) and had some really good grub for dinner, though strangely I was the only one having seafood, all the others were having steak from the adjoining restaurant! Can't really blame them though, South African steak is the best in the world I reckon! Quite an early night for us, in bed by midnight, falling asleep to the sounds of St Lucia nightlife - the karaoke bar across the road.
Saturday morning saw pretty much everyone hanging out at a local coffee shop enjoying bacon, eggs and real coffee, glued to laptops, either editing photos or updating blogs. Or for those who rolled home at 2.30am drunkenly singing 'Happy Birthday' it was spent sleeping by the pool! I had already explored the 'town' the night before but still somehow managed to spend 2 hours walking up and down the street visiting all the shops again and the Spar at least 7 times. It was suddenly so hard to make a decision on the type of crisps to get and how many packets of biscuits, all to be taken back to Thanda for feasting on between bone stew and pap (African dish of maize meal, looks a bit like mashed potato but do not make the mistake of thinking it tastes anything like mash and putting a lot on your plate. You will regret it, it is the most tasteless food ever invented, even smothered in sauce).
Saturday afternoon Tom, Miranda, Lisa (also from the community project) and I took the boat trip to see the crocs and hippos, which was pretty nice just floating around in the sun. This is what we saw...
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| Two Pied Kingfishers having a domestic |
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| Some crocs |
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| Not so much hungry as happy hippos |
Since it was UK Sarah's birthday all 20-odd of us were going out to dinner together to the Italian called Alfredo's. Really good food again, I had a super steak, and a couple of people even had impala stew! Lots of wine and good times, followed by a trip to Babooshka Sports Bar, the place to be seen in St Lucia. So there I am, partying on a Saturday night in flipflops and unstraightened hair, just a tad different from Leeds on a Saturday night! But actually a lot more fun! Much dancing and merryment was had, even though I left at about 1am, some others including the birthday girl (led by, more like) were out til 6am!
Part of the reason my little group were early to bed is that we had booked to go on the Isimangaliso (say that 3 times fast) wetlands tour from 9am-2pm. It involves a drive through the game reserve where we saw more hippos, some lovely kudu and a great troop of baboons wandering across the road. The drive takes you down to the most gorgeous beach, where you can snorkel, but it wasn't the right tide, so we had to just lie on the beach for 2 hours instead. Its a hard life.
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| Baboon hanging out |
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| Isimangaliso Game Reserve |
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| Sophie, Tom, Me, US Sarah, Sam, Miranda |
Well, it was a bit hard actually, our driver for the day said there was water & snacks in the car, so I went back to get some only to find the vehicle full of vervet monkeys who had eaten whatever snacks he had brought! I wasn't too pleased, and I'm sure one of the monkeys hissed at me as I reached in to get a bottle of water (not so interested in that!), unfortunately I didn't have my camera at that moment so no pics. We were a tad hungry but had to make do with a bag of crisps and some chocolate chip cookies between us, but we managed!
Back to St Lucia for 2pm, time for a quick shower, some lunch, some last-minute desperate internetting & binge-shopping at the Spar and back to Thanda at 5pm. It was a much quieter drive home as all the hangovers kicked in.
First week done, Thanda already felt like home, and I was thinking I was wishing I had booked 4 weeks instead of 2!
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