‘How much for a bag?’ Mak asked the woman at the roadside.

‘Twenty rand.’

‘OK, I’ll take one then.’

Mak handed the money over to me and out of the car through the small window, and I took the bag of sliced pineapple. It smelled delicious and was surprisingly cold! Mak smacked his lips with relish and enjoyed one cold slice of pineapple after another while we stood in line in the shade of the trees in front of the construction site. ‘Usual waiting time 20 min’ a sign a few metres further on explained to us.

‘What’s going on here? “ I asked Mak.

”Oh, they’ve been repairing the road here for some time’

Oh yes, I had heard about that. The journey time to St. Lucia, a small, sweet place by the sea, should have been considerably extended, I remembered Tom’s words. I was really looking forward to a few days off, proper showers and rooms and aesthetic facilities, because the last few weeks and especially the last few days had been very busy.

farewell

On Thursday morning, after the final theoretical exam for the NQF2 Nature Guide, there had been a big, emotional farewell. Time had really flown by, the short course was now over and Ilanga was history.

Most of them had already passed their practical exam, spent a few more days in South Africa, but then had to go back to Europe or had already planned further commitments. Jona planned to go back to a monkey conversation centre and I had to prepare Joss for further exams for his university. Only Shile, Cameron, Mak and I stayed in Kuleni, but had no programme for the next few days. So I wanted to explore Durban with Mak, spend a few days alone in St. Lucia and turn to the second chapter of the ranger: the field ranger and the anti-poachers.

The drive to Durban had been a bit adventurous. Mak’s small, red SUV, which I liked very much, was not really designed for long distances and talking during the drive at more than 110 km/h made my throat dry and raw. The road conditions were at times terrible, the car had hardly any suspension and the air conditioning system bluntly refused to work.

We arrived in Durban at around 5 p.m., soaked and with slight back pain. Durban was an interesting city and reminded me a little of San Francisco – at least in my imagination, as I had never been there. The city was built on huge sand dunes and was located directly on the sea. The houses were a mix of old, cute Dutch Gründerzeit houses and dirty, shabby high-rise buildings. The road conditions were also very poor here and the pavements were partly lined with homeless people and drinkers. But there were also some really beautiful corners and Mak showed me one of them that evening: his water sports club, right on the beach, in the middle of the city!

The freshly tapped (!) pint of IPA ran down my gullet with a tingling and pleasurable sensation, and to the sound of raging surf, I ate what was by far the best fish fillet I’ve had in months, together with Mak. It was a magical moment after all the privation of the last few months, the life in the bush and the stress of studying!

On Friday morning, I had arranged to interview Sarah Fergusson, the long-distance swimmer and world record holder, to talk to her about strength. I wanted to record the whole thing to develop a podcast about strength later, and boy, was I excited! – More than I was before the theoretical final exam to become a nature guide! But that’s another story.

So now that this very important point had been ticked off, I had real free time for the first time in a long time! Exhausted but overjoyed, I let myself fall into Max’s red speedster and let him show me the rest of the city, because he had a few errands to run. A new hunting rifle, for example.

The gun shop where the rifle was stored resembled the one in the computer game GTA. From the outside, it was completely barred, but inside you could examine and buy almost anything, except rocket launchers. The ammunition that Mak still needed was available in another shop on the other side of town. While the first weapons store was still dominated by black men, the second store was the playground of mostly strong, white Afrikaans-speaking contemporaries. Very interesting, but somehow surreal.

The subsequent visit to ‘Robsons’, a stylish bar in the harbour area, was also surreal. They were preparing for the German Oktoberfest and the bar was decorated with countless German flags and white-blue banners. In the evening, when I was already slightly tipsy, Mak’s family invited me to another merry neighbourhood barbecue in the courtyard of the apartment complex. Cheers!

Despite the drinking session on Friday evening, we woke up surprisingly early on Saturday morning and at around 6 a.m., I was sitting with Mak, his brother, his mother and a friend of the two boys in a small silver car on my way to a market thirty minutes outside of the city. The market took place every Saturday and consisted mainly of permanent stalls. You could buy anything there: good coffee, lots of food, clothes, cosmetics, crockery and even second-hand tools.

But we were already on our way back by 9:00 a.m., and we spent the rest of the Saturday morning driving across Durban again, this time to show the new rifle to all kinds of people. My personal highlight, though, was when we stopped in front of what I’ll call a ‘party butcher.’ The butcher shop belonged to the father of a friend of Mak’s, who was obviously also keen to see the new rifle.

In front of the building were four huge jukeboxes piled up into two ‘sound towers’. Deafening Afrikaans-country music ironed out the wrinkles in my shirt as soon as we got out, while an extremely well-fed man, already drunk at 10:30 a.m., tended a grill in front of the restaurant, singing along loudly and contentedly. The father himself was so enthusiastic about the rifle that he first did some target practice in the customer area of the butcher’s shop – which didn’t bother the customers much.

On Saturday afternoon, the family was invited to dinner at Mak’s aunt’s house, and I was allowed to be there again. There was a barbecue in a garden again – or as the South Africans would say: braai.

The house was beautiful and I liked it very much. It was located in the middle of the city, and was fenced in the local way, but then it was greened with all kinds of large plants. It had definitely seen better days, both inside and out, but it was very tastefully decorated. ‘I’d stay here too,’ I thought. After a little family drama, the evening was rounded off with a delicious Guinness from a can at Dropkick Murphy’s. Just as the visit to Durban had begun on Thursday evening, it ended on Sunday morning: with a delicious meal and a sea view at Max’s sports club, where he met two more friends.

So much more had happened in just three days, including some bizarre things, but overall I had just enjoyed this weekend. I was glad to have finally escaped Hluhluwe completely and I was grateful to have gained an authentic insight into the lives of the people of Durban – I would never have had this from a hotel visit.

But now I was looking forward to my new role as a simple ‘tourist’ in a beautiful hotel in St. Lucia.

Barefoot in Saint Lucia

‘Are you free today?’

I was lying on the bed in my hotel room, trying to figure out what to do with my days off when my phone displayed this message. It came from Nunu Jobe, the ‘Barefoot Rhino Whisperer’, one of the most iconic trail guides in the region.

Nunu Jobe

Starting out as a meat poacher at a young age, someone who poaches animals for meat, he had come to understand and love nature more and more and then changed sides. Now he protected and explained nature and was on a mission to preserve it. In addition, it was close to his heart to make the wilderness accessible to everyone, including the poor communities in the area. From darkness to light – an exciting personality for another interview about strength!

I always made time for someone like that – and that was the end of my ‘leisure activity’ question.

We arranged to meet here at my accommodation at 9 a.m., so I still had a good hour and a half to have breakfast and then prepare everything for the interview. But that was the end of the relaxation.

First of all, I needed a good place, which was not so easy. ‘Too dark, too reverberant, too much water noise, too bad a sitting position, too much “patchy” sun, too little privacy’. Time was running out and I still wasn’t satisfied when I decided to have breakfast first. While still eating scrambled eggs and drinking coffee, I tried to gather some last information about Nunu and also planned to go through the interview again. But time kept running out. I was just scribbling the last line about Nunu’s company in my notebook – I had already finished the calligraphy two pages ago – when suddenly my mobile phone rang. It was Nunu.

‘I’m at the door.’

As I reached the entrance to the property, a slightly smaller, sturdy, deep black man in his early forties came towards me through the already open gate. Nunu had thick, short dreadlocks and was, of course, barefoot, his trademark. I particularly noticed his broad, friendly grin and his attentive eyes. I liked him immediately.

‘You can park here,’ I said, pointing to the empty space in the driveway.

‘No, that’s okay, my wife and kids are going shopping for a bit,’ Nunu replied, and only then did I realise that there were several more people in the car.

‘All right. Do you want a coffee?’

‘Yes, please.’

‘What kind?’

‘Cappuccino’

I quickly realised that Nunu hadn’t brought much time with him and while I was formulating the coffee request to the service staff, I realised that my whole plan had now been overturned. Originally, I had wanted to do the interview with Nunu in the open air, in front of a tree in the resort’s ‘garden’. But there was no table there. So we sat down at a round, stone table-bench combination and started chatting a little until the fragrant coffee was served.

‘OK, let’s do this quickly, my family is waiting,” Nunu shouted and took a big gulp of coffee. So here we are at the table.

Although the questions were the same as those asked by Sarah Fergusson, the interview was completely different from the one with Sarah. While Sarah had answered very briefly and concisely and specifically, Nunu answered rather diffusely, elaborated more and touched on some open questions that were yet to come with his answers. I didn’t get the feeling that he was avoiding my questions – he just had a different understanding of his environment. This became particularly clear in his answer to the question about a powerful book: ‘The Galaxy,’ he said, pointing in a circular motion to the nature around us. ‘Trees, grasses, tracks. You can read so much in it. It’s the best book.’ Normally, I would have been annoyed that the questions were not answered in a really specific way. But I really bought the answers from Nunu. They seemed authentic and not produced. This was simply his reality. For him, the environment, nature IS a ‘powerful book’.

After a good 45 minutes, I finished the recordings and we shook hands. It had been a really interesting conversation and I had already received an incredible amount of input to think about.

the tourist

Satisfied, I dropped onto the hotel bed and looked through the large balcony doors over the veranda at the palm trees moving in the wind by the bright blue pool. The view was super cosy and the furnishings and decorations were of a very high quality and well chosen. It was a nice contrast to all the weeks of wooden huts or tents in the wilderness, rudimentary washing facilities, student kitchens and, above all, the hectic learning programme for the final exam.

I had really achieved something and was now looking forward to a few days of relaxation, just with myself, as a guest in a lovely, high-quality environment. A few days just doing nothing with wild animals and plants. Just strolling on the beach, swimming and enjoying delicious food. A few days just to let your soul dangle and be a ‘guest’ yourself – before I took the last step: the practical final exam for Nature Guide NQF2!

Santa Lucia is a small, charming village on South Africa's east coast, nestled between the Indian Ocean and the lush wetlands of the iSimangaliso Wetland Park – a UNESCO World Heritage Site. With its relaxed atmosphere, a single main street lined with restaurants, small shops and cosy accommodation, Santa Lucia offers a quiet, nature-oriented alternative to the major tourist centres. Santa Lucia is much more than just an idyllic coastal village – it is one of the few places in the world where hippos regularly walk the streets. Especially in the evenings, the animals leave the nearby wetlands to search for grass in the front gardens or on the main street.