Day 26, This weekend I was slightly anxious as the prospect of staying in Mseleni on my own was very much a possibility. My colleagues were either away or working and this also meant that as I have yet to buy a car, I was rendered transportless. Luckily for me, our sleepy town is a hotbed of medical student elective activity. Four students, currently here from the UK, were heading out to the World Heritage Site of St Lucia and the wetlands park and kindly invited me along.
My attempts to have seen the so called big five may have been thwarted but in St Lucia I was on the lookout for what should really be included in this group, hippos. St Lucia’s estuary land is home to over two thousand of them and over a thousand crocodiles, it did not disappoint. These two tonne animals can reach speeds of up to 45km per hour are responsible for more attacks on people than any other mammal in the country. However here they happily mill about while tourists like myself gawp at their immense presence.
A river boat estuary cruise revealed how they spend all day wading and sharing the same space with herons and crocodiles amongst others. As we floated past groups of hippos they let out porcine snorts and disappeared under the water, only to pop up after we had pass to wag its ears or give out a large yawn.
The following day was spent driving through the foliage of the wetlands reserve and arriving at coastal site of Cape Vidal, a vast extensive beach with only a handful of people on it. The vervet monkeys constantly pester and try to steal food from humans while the yellow billed kites circle above to see what takes their fancy, apparently cheese sandwiches are what they go for as these massive birds of prey swooped in and took one off one of the med students, injuring her finger at the same time.
A dip in the Indian Ocean with the waves crashing round us and then we were set to head off, refreshed and ready for the grind of the week ahead.
Still no leopard? Shame on you...
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