Day 107: Market Tour — Lunch at Surf Riders Cafe — Family Bike Ride in the Rain
We started the day with a two hour tour of the downtown Durban markets, found on Airbnb Experiences.
There were several distinct markets with thousands of sellers — a blend of Zulu, Indian, Muslim and more — hawking all of the following and more:
- Colorful pinafore dresses and aprons (sleeves for married women, sleeveless for singles)
- Impepho (grass that you can burn to talk to your ancestors — but make sure you have the right grass…some is for Xhosa people, some’s for Zulu. Some’s to put in baby bath water to stop twins from crying, other is for burning specifically when a loved one’s died in a car accident. If you mix it up — or worse, burn it when you’re really a Christian and not really into this stuff, it won’t work.)
- Bootleg CDs and DVDs (mostly African pop music videos and Bruce Lee videos — no sign of GOT Season 8 sadly for us)
- Haircuts
- Magwinya – fried dough balls for commuters coming off the train (this market is also a train station)
- Indian spices
- Church uniforms and other assorted vestments
Two markets that we’ll never forget:
- The bovine head market. It was an entire market dedicated to cooked cow heads. We learned that traditionally, only males can eat cow heads in the Zulu culture — in fact, women can’t even handle/cook them. But since time’s have changed, women can now prepare AND eat the heads.So this market was staffed with all women, chopping, cooking, serving. Smelled horrible. Flies everywhere. Took a few steps in and then did a U-turn. Margaret and Willa ventured far enough in for a photo by a table lined with skinned but not-yet-cooked heads. Btw, the bovine head market used to be located next to the Hindu market, but the Hindus complained and it got moved.
- The traditional medicine market, with dozens of stalls filled with the makings of traditional medicine: bark, roots, animal bones, skulls, shells, features, skins and much more, all sold as a way to heal or talk to ancestors. That was the only market where we weren’t allowed to take photos. It was very much a market of rotting carcass horrors, even for the open-minded among us.
Near the medicine market is a bridge known as Music Bridge. It’s a happening, legit part of the market now but 15 years ago — according to our guide — it was fringe territory unprotected by the police. On a regular basis, thieves would throw shoppers off the bridge to their deaths after knifing their shopping bags off their bodies. So the city government put copper fencing up. But people immediately stole the copper to sell it. Then the government put the steel fence up that you see in the picture below. Mugging victims are no longer thrown over the side of the bridge.
The rest of the time James was like, “Wait what did she say about throwing people off the bridge?” Literally the only time he perked up the whole tour, despite cow heads and monkey carcasses.
It was a quiet day for a market tour, unfortunately for us. The Monday after Easter is a holiday called Family Day and many of the sellers were home resting up after a big weekend of church services.
The different markets all had different feels to them. Many were dirty and disorganized. Some appeared more organized and well-maintained — especially the indoor mall of sorts catering to tourists.
The kids were deadweight on the tour. They were bored after two minutes, complained out loud in front of the guide and begged to be carried the entire time — actually succeeding for some of it. Not sure what the hell we’re going to do in Joburg, let along Egypt, Jordan and all over Asia.
After the tour we drove to the popular Surf Riders Cafe. It was cloudy and drizzly but we still sat outside with other families and surfers in wetsuits having just come out of the waves.
Milestone alert! There was a bike rental place next door so we rented four bikes and had a wet but nice ride along the promenade (we “smashed the prom” as Luke and Meg taught us to say).
This was our first family bike ride and we shockingly made it through the one hour rental without any tears. There weren’t even any complaints about the rain which was really coming down by the last 15 minutes or so.
It was only 2:30 or so by the time we made it back to the hotel so we did some school and then met at the Lighthouse bar for some Rat-a-Tat-Cat, some adult beverages and a shared cheese and meat plate for dinner.
Another early bedtime, continuing to refuel the tank after early safari wake up calls.
