St. Lucia, South Africa

As I mentioned in a prior post, I tried to go whale watching in South Africa a few years ago when I was there for the World Cup.

We were staying in Durban and woke up long before the sun came out to make the two-and-a-half hour journey north to St. Lucia. It rained almost the entire way there, so we were already expecting at least a delay, if not a cancellation.

Upon arrival, we were informed that the waters were just too rough to go whale watching, and we could instead take a hippo tour later in the afternoon.

With a few hours to kill, we decided to explore the small area of St. Lucia. Just down the street from the tour offices, there was a small outdoor marketplace where locals sold their wares and art. When I say locals, I mean these people actually lived in this marketplace. It was very humbling to see them crawling out of these little cubbies behind where their shops were set up. I’d never quite experienced poverty the way I had in South Africa, so it was very eye opening (and honestly, very upsetting). In any case, we poked around all of the shops and ended up buying more than our suitcases could really handle.

After loading up on all kinds of artwork, statues, painted ostrich eggs, etc., we piled into the car and headed out for a drive to check out the St. Lucia Estuary. Along the way, we encountered so many Vervet monkeys that I basically lost my shit. I kind of love primates and had never seen any in the wild, so I was giddy and furiously snapping photos while simultaneously annoying my travel companions with my excited outbursts: Aw, look at that one! Ohmigod, it’s so cute! (There might have also been some squee-ing.)

We finally made it to the Estuary, which was lovely even overcast and foggy. It was pretty empty that early in the morning–probably only one other car of people there. We stepped out in the early morning cold and wandered around for a little bit before realizing it was almost time for the hippo tour!

I know that hearing “hippo tour” sounds kind of lame, but it was actually very cool. Hippos are incredibly adorable and fun to watch frolic around in the water with each other. We even saw them get playful and bite at each other the way that dogs would play. The tour was a couple hours long, and our guide was very knowledgeable and fun to work with. They passed around a giant hippo tusk to get an idea of the size.. and it’s massive. Maybe the length of an adult’s forearm.

Our short little day trip to St. Lucia was really wonderful and concluded with a delicious meal of various types of seafood at a local restaurant. I highly recommend a trip to St. Lucia, especially if you’re in Durban–it’s a quick and easy day trip to make.