New Years Eve

me and Beefy

Quite a leisurely day (recovering from the excesses of the test match!)

I went with the Scottish lot to some nearby markets. It was everyone's last day today and so nobody really wanted to venture that far.

The markets were actually pretty interesting mostly selling wooden African nik nak stuff, brass or spices. We wandered around for a couple of hours. The scots bartering everything in site (even things costing about 10p!)

In the afternoon I went down to the beach front for a final time. The beach at Durban was really bustling with people getting ready for New Years Eve. Despite the constant police prescence (they patrol about every 3 minutes) you never feel absolutely at ease!

We ate Nandos (very easy - and I guess as it's a South African company we can sort of say we tasted the local cuisine!!)

Kevin came to pick up everyone about 4pm. I had arranged to meet up with a guy Paul who was a merchant banker. He'd seemed a nice guy. I called him a couple of times but to no avail.

Kevin recommended a good place for New Year called Some Place Else - and yes the taxi driver WAS confused when I got in and said I wanted to go "Some Place Else!"

I got there about 9.30 and the place was chokka. It wasn't a very big bar, and to be honest I'm not sure if it was entirely worth the effort of getting there (it was in the extreme North of Durban).

Anyway, I befriended this dodgy couple of blokes, Anil (from Leicester) and Darren a skinny Irish guy. They were setting up a recycling business in Durban (apparently they'd spotted a gap in the market and were going to make it BIG!) They told me about how they'd been struggling with a machine that crushed all the plastic (they had 45 tonnes of the stuff) Once compacted they were going to flog it back to Hong Kong....seemed an unusual plan!

Anil introduced me to Gold Tequilla (a bit of a mistake considering my flight out was 9.20am) and Darren was soon dancing on the table (I kid you not). It all made for an amusing New Year. There was a small dance floor and everyone danced to very ropey 80's music and the floor was soon awash with...well actually I'm not really sure what it was awash with - it was very wet though!

It turned out to be a nightmare getting home. Because I'd gone so far North no cabbie would go out there on New Years Eve. I began to worry about my flight!

In the end I cadged a lift to a place called "Gateway" a modern place with bars, clubs etc which was similarly packed with people. There I hopped in a cab and made it back!

Happy New Year! A strange way to bring in 2005 with a skinny Irish guy and an Indian from Leicester but never mind!