April 16, 2007
Ben and I had a wonderful time on our trip to Zinkwazi Beach, South Africa. We flew from Milan-Lison-Maputo, Mozambique-Johanessburg-Durban. We joined my sister Fiona and her 4 kids (Mitchell, age 12, Lauren, age 10, Max, age 4 and Scott, age 3), plus another friend of Mitchell's, Alex, at their beach house. It is a spectacular house and has already won Best Home for it's region. It's on the beach, has two pools and is very peaceful and cool. The week before we arrived, there had been a mini tsunami that had washed out many decks and beachfronts in the area, but Fiona's deck and beach was fine. The beach there is so wild and rough. The waves were huge and beautiful.
We spent our days at the main beach, or right in front of the house, playing an insane amount of table tennis, watching kids movies, and hanging out with everyone. Mike, Fiona's husband is climbing Everest (again) right now and just got to base camp. Fiona is going to meet him at base camp on his way out in May.
We had dinner a couple times with their friends in the neighborhood and it was great to be with other english speakers and have a good time. One day we went into Durban to a water park/aquariam called uShaka. It was a lot of fun and beautiful too. The weather was perfect most of the time, except 2 days that were grey. The kids were lots of fun and it's neat to see them grow up. As we do not see them but every couple years, we can really tell how much they've grown. All in all, we had a very relaxing, luxurious time. We are so grateful to have gone there for a much needed Italy-free break.
