Vacation in Durban

Sunday, December 21, 2014

We had a wonderful South African adventure last month.

It was a bit tense before we left as Nick got stuck interior congo because of weather. Praise the Lord the morning we were supposed to leave, weather was good, the officials at the airstrip let him leave right at sun up and we pick him up at the Airport 10 min after he arrived and continued on to the international airport to catch our flight.
He didn't even get to shower but because he was in his pilot digs we got though the international airport nice and quickly.

Driving on the left side of the road

The flight to Joberg is about 4 hours long, I convinced the kids to sleep for maybe 30 min of that... But it was better then nothing. We had a 2 hr layover there before we headed to Durban which went by quite quickly because we had to change terminals, diapers and find food. We got into Durban at 11 pm, picked up our rental car (with the worst car seats ever...) and realized we have to drive on the left side of the road... And Nick forgot his glasses.

So it was a roller coaster ride, feeling like everyone was going to drive into us but after only getting lost once we made it to our bed and breakfast, settled everyone into bed and drifted into beautiful slumber.

Kids were up a little later then usual and we headed to breakfast at 9am. Oh it was beautiful. Eggs, toast, sausage, grilled tomatoes and mushrooms, with fresh tea for me, coffee for Nick and Juice. Delish.

It was defiantly one of our favorite parts of our stay in Durban was the beautiful bed and breakfast. Lillian and Tony have been running fiddlers rest for 26 years. She is South African and he is an Irish musician (hence fiddlers rest). They were lovely hosts and even offered to baby sit for us 2 nights so we could go on a date. Their grandkids also came by a few days which Ruth LOVED and we had lots of fun just running around the garden.

Our goal of this vacation was to rest... So to be honest we did a lot of that, having little kids really helps with that but we did a lot of sleeping and movie watching. We tried to do one thing everyday along with going out for supper (vacation isn't vacation if you have to cook ;-)

Mitchell Park and the Blue Zoo were within walking distance of the B&B. The Blue Zoo is a small animal zoo, monkeys, birds, lizards, turtles... All for under 1$... Awesome. We had lots of fun walking around there looking at all the fun animals.

We also spent a couple of days just going to the mall, buying Christmas presents and other things we needed. If we didn't have kids we probably could have powered through it in one day... But alas t'is not possible with 2 little ones.

But it was so fun to see all the luxuries we miss and be able to eat fast food. Even though we were back in the first world we were reminded of home in Congo as both Saturday's we were there the power went out, and the gate to leave the B&B only had so much reserve battery. It was good to keep us on our toes, reminding ourselves no matter where we go we are not in control.

One night, Nick and Ruth went out to go grab our supper and right after they grabbed the food a huge African downpour started. the food he had picked up was in a paper bag and it quickly got soaked, dumping the food out the bottom with the salad scattering across the ground.

Nick even grabbed a newspaper and tried to cover Ruth's head. They came back to the room, soaked, laughing with newspaper print across the side of their faces.

We went to the beach one day but it was very windy. Ruth loved it... Pascal not so much lol.

We also had the opportunity to hang with some good friends (whom we had never actually met in person) but have a long congo history. It was wonderful to see them and see the ministry they are apart of there.

All in all, it was a wonderful vacation and I would recommend anyone with kids or with out to visit this beautiful part of South Africa.