St. Lucia and iSimangaliso Wetland Park

This morning, as we walked over our wooden walkway to breakfast, a staff member was carrying a suitcase on her head. Unfortunately, she and the suitcase were apparently too heavy for the porous wooden steps, as they collapsed beneath her and she fell down the steps with the suitcase. HELP!!! But she survived the fall!

On the way back from breakfast - same wooden walkway - there was a long, thin green snake lying there. Since Daniela forbade me from screaming hysterically when I see a snake, I quietly screamed behind Daniela and said 'Snake'! The snake looked so green and slippery, so naturally I thought it was highly poisonous. However, the hotel owner later told me it was harmless!

Today we traveled to St. Lucia. St. Lucia is a coastal town with kilometers of white beaches. But there are also hippos that walk through the town at night ;-)!

Since I praised my left driving skills three days ago, I naturally wanted to drive again. Oops, at the first right turn, it almost crashed. I was only looking to the left and wanted to turn right. Hmmm, there was plenty of traffic coming from the right. That was close and my heart sank again. Phew, took a deep breath and the journey could continue.

After an hour, we arrived in the coastal town of St. Lucia. The town has a slight touristy feel, but very pleasant! The beaches are incredibly beautiful and extremely long. All accommodations are secured with huge gates and security. Otherwise, you can also move around in St. Lucia safely in the evening.

Today we chilled at the beach for 1 1/2 hours. Fortunately, the surf was too strong, so we couldn't swim. Because here, swimming is a gamble, Shark Spotters are not used in St. Lucia! But just staring at the sea was also relaxing!

Then we freshened up and walked into town. After our restaurant visit, we wanted to walk to the river and watch the hippos. When Daniela asked the waiter for directions, he looked at her completely bewildered. His look was quite disturbing. We were strongly advised to go home immediately. The hippos would come out of the river in the dark and roam the town. This is life-threatening. OmG! Now we have a place where we can go out in the evening safely and it turns out we can't because of the hippos. Although they look so cute :-)! Due to animal attacks, most people in South Africa actually die from hippos :()!

So we walked quickly back to our accommodation. I kept stopping because I thought there was a hippo. But luckily, they were just filled garbage bags!

We want to go back to the town by car soon, maybe we will see a hippo :-) and if not, maybe we will discover it tomorrow in the iSimangaliso Wetland Park. We are already excited about what we will experience there.