and back again

ok im sorry to all that are following and were not keeping up. sam's fault, i swear. we've been doing great. really great. since we last updated, we've finally made it to the coast! its great. beautiful beaches and almost no tourists... which makes great, greater. our first day at the coast we went for a run to the beach and it was amazing. miles and miles of beach. and hotter than hell,a nd that evening we has some freaking sweet fried fish, from a place called 'fishy petes'! i know how could we not eat there? the bar tender was a great guy that had a high freaking voice that we couldnt understand but found as long as we laughed when he laughed, we got along great. the second day we walked to the beach again and went to find for hipos. and find them we did. apparently they're pretty aggressive, or so i found out. sam was all "be careful! they're mean!" and i was all like " hon, they're fat and in the water". famous last word. i walked closer, and closer getting pictures, and one (a particularly big one, around the size of sams truck) got up real slow. stretched, yawned (well actually we was bearing teeth at me), slowly got out of the water, and faced me "sweet i thought" then he took a step forward, and i one back. then we started charging at me. lets just say i was the photo op for the tourists on the hill behind, skinny white boy funning down the beach away from a monster. sam informed me later that was the alpha male protecting the pond. needless to say we needed to end the evening with beers at fishy petes.

well before i get ahead of my self we went to swaziland before the beach and had a great time there. we met up with a lady we met in in jo that runs a hostel shop and we wne there to hang out and and mingle with some volunteers. it was a great time. tonnes of food and drinks and went for an amazing hike the next day. had a really great time there. the place is called lidwala in the esaweeny valley just west of manini. if your ever in the area.

ok so after st lucia (the first stop of the coast) we slowly made our way down to durban, where we are now. durban is the third biggest city in south africa. its huge. tonnes and tonnes of poverty. you drive through miles of shanty villages to get to the center. when i say shanty i mean a house made of scraps, like corragated metal and old doors about the size of a car and houses whole families.

durban had been really good. relaxing in coffee shops and such, walking through market after market. we came upon an india exhibit, the first day and went in (were really psyched for india), and came across a table of some of the nicest people we've met in south africa. they're a charity group thats run out of an ashram south of the city, apperantly they fed alot of people. so we decided to head on down the next day to see what it was all about. holy cow, what a group of people. this is a place with no government funding all small donations, and has been around for ten years, and feeds on average about 3000 mouths a day, ninty percent children. they cook around 150 kg of rice A DAY, and use 150 loaves of bread a day. they makes sandwiches and deliver them to schools and then make buckets and buckets of briani and serves people there at the ashram and also drives around town to feed people all over durban. it was very humbling seeeing what these volunteers do everyday. the ashram is run by a hindu monk simply called guru by all the kids. hes big guy but seems to giggle at everything and always has a huge smile on his face. he lives at the ashram and eats what the people he serves eats. he lives with quite a few people there, including adopted kids (one of which doesnt seem to take 5 steps with out a cart wheel in between) and one of the sweetest people ive met martha-gi, who can make a fantastic cup of chai and seems to control the crazy house hold with little effort. i hope to see them all again some time as they made us all welcome and fed us till we were about to burst. we came back for the dewaly festival and all i can say to that whole day is wow. thousands of people came through and we served them breakfast and lunch with a prayer session in between, with dancing and singing. i was a one in a million day.

anywim running out of time but try to see our pics on flickr.com try this.

http://flickr.com/photos/31168733@N02/

hope your all well