Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Monday 19th February 2007
Journal entry brought to you by Tami
Well, today was a really super super day! We woke up fairly early. I had had a fantastic night’s sleep – as Vikki and Neil left our dorm yesterday I was able to finally get a bottom bunk (which is good for both me and Joe as I think he was worried that one night I would roll that little too far and land on him). I did wake up briefly when Joe staggered in “sober” at stupid O’Clock in the morning but what can you do.
We decided that we would spend this day checking out the Local Aquarium. I was particularly excited about this as they have sharks there (and as we all know I have a bit of an obsession with them). The Lonely Planet (and Joe) suggested about 2 hours to see everything, so Sophie and I headed down thinking it would be a good way to spend the morning. We paid our 80 Rand (we both forgot our student cards and therefore missed out on the opportunity to save ourselves some money – gutted!!) and got stamped with some UV ink in case we should wish to re enter that day.
The first few tanks were just filled with crazy fish, there was a whole tank devoted to Clownfish (think Nemo), and another two for different species of jelly fish, there were giant spider crabs and tiny catfish. There was so much to look at and read about, it was not only interesting but completely filled with amazing bright colours and crazy plants. It was immense. Anyway I won’t go into too much detail about all the different types of fish, there are lots of photos in our album which are pretty self explanatory, so have a look and be as amazed as we were!
Just a couple of things that won’t be in the albums…. We found these crazy long purple tube like eel things that are the only fish in existence to be fin-less, gill-less, month and jaw-less and eye-less. They were mad. I’m sure I took a photo but when I was just uploading my pictures it wasn’t there so I guess I must have forgotten or deleted it or something. Apparently these weird eel things can produce 7 litres of slime in a couple of minutes, so fishermen hate them because they get everything slippery and gooey.
Another interesting fact for you: last year 719 people were killed by toasters, but only 9 were killed by sharks. Sophie pointed out that loads more people use toasters every day than go in the sea, but I still thought it was rather interesting. (If anyone reading this has lost anyone due to a toaster related accident, then I express my sincere apologies to you. Ditto sharks, but that’s less likely when looking at the figures…)
There was also this massively huge tank which had 20 million litres of water in it and had big ragged toothed sharks in it which was amazing, and there was also this tunnel thing going around the edge so you really felt like you were in there with them. There was also a giant turtle who Sophie became quite attached to. I must admit she was quite cute but the sharks were just so awesome you have no idea.
We went for lunch at this restaurant next to the aquarium, it was so delicious, I had cannelloni and it was sooooo good. Seriously the food over here is amazing, it’s just so cheap.
When we got back to the hostel we had three new roommates to replace Sam, Vikki and Neil. They were a Londoner called Gaz, an American called Rob and a German girl called Uttah (which is probably spelt nothing like that). They were all really nice, except Rob snored rather a lot which annoyed Joe to the extent that he poked the poor man and told him to be quiet in the early hours. I wasn’t bothered by it, I slept straight through! In the morning he apologised profusely for his snoring and Joe felt guilty because he was so very nice about it all.
Sophie and I then randomly played cards with Freddie the receptionist til about 2.30am and were joined by Joe towards the end. We went to bed having had a fantastically educational day, learning lots about fish and the like. Was mint.
By the way, the two hours we’d allocated for the aquarium wasn’t quite long enough – we were there for five.
- comments