Long Road to Durban

So, it was on this day that our trip began to take a sinister turn. Basically, we drove from East Londson to Durban and it was too long of a trip. Here was the gorgeous view heading of East London.

If you look at a map of South Africa, the major highways are blue. What they don't show is that each highway may have sections of it that are wide and wonderful and others that are narrow and pitted. We were on N-2 and just outside of East London we came to first of many standstills because of construction work. Most of the highway between East London and Durban is a two-lane highway, construction often caused the road to be one-lane which meant that we had to stop and wait. The longest wait of the day was 30 minutes.

It was on this day that we finally felt like we were in Africa, mainly because we would drive through tiny towns full of people and farm animals and vehicles going in all directions. While we felt kind of out of place, we never felt unsafe, just a bit uncomfortable.

As the drive continued, we realized that it was going to be a long drive, but we had not yet realized HOW long. It ended up taking us ten and a half hours.

We arrived in Durban after nightfall as a thunder and lightning storm opened up with large globules of rain falling on the highway. Our destination was the home of Scott Couper and Susan Valiquette (and their children, Micah and Maddie), who serve the Global Ministries of the United Church of Christ and Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) at the Inanda Seminary for girls. We had directions but not their phone number. We were exhausted as we arrived in Durban (especially Ben, who had been driving the whole time) and successfully made the turnoff toward Inanda, a large township just north of the city.

It is somewhat nerve-wracking driving into a township, especially at night. There aren't as many street lights and the roads aren't as good. Also, it's hard to tell whether it is a safe part of the township or not. The directions to Inanda proved to be accurate and Brooke proved to be an adept navigator. One of the great joys of our time in South Africa (great joy follows great adversity) was arriving at the Inanda Seminary, being granted entry by the security guard, making our way to Scott and Susan's house, and receiving their warm and enthusiastic greeting.

Micah and Maddie immediately dusted off some of their old toys and played with Marin and Sophia, who had been champions of car travel (and of tolerating their exhausted and stressed-out parents). Ben and Brooke had glasses of wine in the kitchen with Susan and Scott, sharing stories and getting acquainted. We had the best dinner of our lives (again, taste is exaggerated by situation) and enjoyed ourselves well beyond our usual bedtime.

Here are Marin and Sophia and Maddie playing dress-up.