Duck and Dive

It's a little dive of a place back off the main road. The building with its many additions sits surrounded by sugar cane fields. You turn onto a road named after one of my friends from the UK (really!) and come to the Duck and Dive at the end.

This place is great! The décor is a mish-mash of odd bits of nautical and technological gear. There are shrimp floats, boat flags, diving respirator pumps and hurricane lanterns hanging from the ceiling. A portable carrier wave generator from a radio transmitter sits on a counter by the main bar; next to this is an old 16mm movie projector. (That takes me back to my days in the A/V club in High School!)

We've rented a huge van with ten seats and it looks a lot like the busses that you see crammed with up to 20 black people. I continue to be amazed at the difference between the way white people and black people live here. There is nothing like a mass-transit system here; I've seen no streetcar, light rail or bus system to speak of. Even in Johannesburg, (a much larger city) there was no obvious mass transit. Instead, they have these little white vans that they cram with as many people as possible. I've never seen a white face on any of these vans. But, I digress…

After meeting and chatting with some of the locals (nice people), we all piled into the bus and headed to a restaurant for dinner. We went to a neat little place where we all had more wine, beer and conversation. Well, except for me, I was the designated driver for the evening. I volunteered. After dinner, we returned to the flats and continued drinking and chatting well into the night. Tomorrow we leave for the game park.

Wherever you are today, I hope you're enjoying the company of friends!

Don Bergquist – 06 November 2007 – Ballito, South Africa

Editor's Note:

The name, as your humble reporter discovered, has a more literal meaning. Beware: Some of the archways in this place are low enough to hit your head on!