to Dolphin Coast (no dolphins)

Animal count: hare, wild dog, monkeys

Our return back to urban humanity.  The Indian Ocean roared ouside our window, blue and green with foaming white curls as metres high waves crashed onto the most lovely caramel sand.  It was warm. We had a veranda. They do laundry.  Oh, heaven!

Wearing clothes that hadn't left our backpacks yet, we wandered along the lane a kilometre or so to a clutch of bars and cafes and parked ourselves down with wifi.  Over the course of a few hours we worked, blogged and connected while drinking perhaps the best cocktails I've ever had.  If you are ever in toney, time share, retirement north Durban area of Umhlanga, go to the Sandbar.  Go thirsty.

It was great to see a clean beach, filled with families enjoying a day at the seaside in winter (winter?  this is a nice summer day where I come from!)  We dipped our toes into the third ocean they'd been dipped in (are there only three?  Pacific, Atlantic and Indian? Aren't the rest "just" seas? Aanswers on a postcard please). 

It was the first time I had seen black people on vacation mode.  And for the first time this trip I saw locals of Asian heritage now referred to as Malays or Cape Malays. They weren't originally from Malasia as their name suggests but rather from what is now Indonesia, which had been a Dutch colony from the 17th-19th century.  The Dutch East India Company took from their outpost what they felt was rightfully theirs, namely the inhabitants, and brought them to South Africa as slaves.

They weren't the only ones of course.  Other Southeast Asian regions, political dissidents, and Muslim religious leaders who opposed the Dutch presence were lso sent here, as exiles. This is why there is an Islamic presence here. Although it's not a large presence, most towns of any size seem to have a mosque.

In the second half of the 19th Century, Indians also came to South Africa, as either indentured workers or as 'free' Indians who came to trade and take part in the opportunities afforded by a "new world".  All these "coloured" people were descriminated against in the aparteid era, although not quite as viciously as the native black populations.  In 1994 a democratic constitution was written and immigration policy restrictions were lifted.  People from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh came here as new immigrants. However, there remains a major cultural division between these new groups and Indian South Africans,  just as there still is between the white and black populations. 

But here on this lovely day, even though the holiday-makers played on separate beaches, this was not because of a government imposed mandate.  I guess that's some form of progress. We walked along the tide line, sometimes getting more than our feet wet, and shared smiles and words with all.