Places: Durban

Contrary to name of this blog,I rarely ever mention places I travel through.

Maybe it's psychologically - my work is traveling and after years of living nomadic life I don't find it so new or interesting anymore,now I prefer to put down some inner travels,like what books I read or what music I listened,what moved me one way or another.

Than again,I said to myself "it's not fair towards the places I visit,I should not just take for granted all these travels that other people have only in dreams".

So here is Durban - my current place of work - it is a huge city on a Indian coast of South Africa,very very far from anything remotely close to Europe and I always find myself here in the middle of what is summer for locals but its winter elsewhere. Sure,there is excitement about walking around in summer heat when my friends back home have snow,and locals & buildings are colorful. There is excellent "marine center" called "uShaka" with aquarium,restaurants,shops and a famous beach,also lots of nice shopping malls like "Gateway" where you can spend the whole day browsing around and getting lost between floors and floors of offers (actually I prefer much smaller and more compact "Musgrave road" shopping mall because its simply more manageable for me,I dislike getting lost in these big places.

Everywhere I go,I always find bookshops & music CD shops - unfortunately they always push big names best-sellers I can get elsewhere but its thrilling to check out local music (I am still stuck with wonderful Miriam Makeba who is probably internationally best known South African artist) and as for the books my recent discovery is Wilbur Smith who is very well known South African author and he is VERY good.

Most of my colleagues right now don't care much about going out in Durban which is a pity because place is interesting if you know what to do and where to look: last year I even rented little plane and flew above the city,had a excellent view from above on suburbs and the centre. This year,contrary to what I expected,I was actually glad to be back and happy to see familiar places again.Sure,Durban does not match beauty of Cape town but it has its good points as well.

(Note to myself: I have to drag my colleagues out and show them some of my favorite corners of Durban)