The Crazy Ones

A farewell dinner for Mark before he returns to study at Stellenbosch brought the CRAZY ones to the house.

They have almost grown up with us - Mark Bird (MB) - left and Dain - right, and in the top picture Brad joins the boys and I for a beer and dinner.

Dr Marc to the rescue

My dentist died on the morning of my appointment, but paramedic and guest Marc came to the rescue with a temporary filling. Working on a ship as the doctor on board in the Gulf of Mexico, Marc is used to stop-gap measures to tend to the sailors far from shore.

Ostrich Orange

We're into the quarter finals now and some of the fans are leaving Durban as we have only one game left here.. the semi-final on the 7th July... it is going to be Netherlands and Argentina or Brasil and Spain??? Vote for the winner on the top right of the Blog in my poll.

Here's a South African ostrich with a Netherlands flavour.. pretty cool.. picture by our guest Jenny at the fan park in Durban with an orange leopard-print outfit also in the photo.

Firetruck down Africa

Ronnie and Manu (left and right in the photos) are the 2nd of three groups of travellers we have met at the Guesthouse who travelled from Germany and Switzerland through Africa to Durban in time for the World Cup. Ronnie and Manu bought a genuine Fire Truck and this was their home for the incredible journey. The result 4-0 for Germany and 1-0 Swiss victory against Spain for Marco and Tamara, who also made the journey in a landrover, was sweet.

In between games

Each day we have a few guests leaving, some victorious and some sad at their team's loss. After the Ozzie supporters left, Peter and Tony in the yellow and gold of the Socceroos in the photos, we went down to the beach ahead of the Switzerland vs Spain game on Wednesday.

In the next photo Brad and Dave's daughter Kate-Lynn soak up the sun at the Moyo Restaurant on the pier out to sea at uShaka Beach whilst we looked at some of the amazing sandcastles built by the local black residents for the tourists.

In the following photos, Dave shows his Bafana Bafana shirt with a Spain logo on his cheek and Llewellyn's son Calvin enjoys the day out with his dad, whilst Strawberry Daiquiries were the order of the day.

Bielefeld to Durban 13 Mar - 13 June

We are privileged to meet at the Guesthouse trans-Africa traveller Armin Hollensteiner who made the journey from his hometown, Bielefeld in Germany, by jeep to Durban for the World Cup opening game Germany vs Australia today.

Travelling 21 000 kms through Europe, the middle east and Africa, Armin was joined in Dar-es-Salaam by Marcus and the travellers arrived in Durban yesterday making it a 3-month 13th Mar - 13th June journey. Armin has created a blog to document the journey and you can view it here.

In the top photo are Armin and myself (Dave) outside the Guesthouse with the reliable jeep that averaged 11 ls per 100kms. In the 2nd photo Marcus and Armin pose with their mascot Lohmann, the 3rd photo shows Armin's personalised numberplate with BI for his home town Bielefeld, ZA for South Africa (Zuid Afrika) and 2010 for the FIFA 2010 World Cup Football event. The 4th photo shows the route Armin travelled across Africa to get to Durban.

You can also watch Armin's YouTube Video Clip.

Wow, congratulations guys, what a journey and accomplishment!

It's happening in Durban

The fans and teams are arriving and it's happening in Durban.

The excitement is building and everyone has flags of the nations on their cars, houses and shop-windows.

In the photo above is a Makarapa (left and right) - it's a plastic constuction hat that has been turned into a football fan hat by cutting out figures and picture-shapes from the hat and hand-painting them so that they stand out in relief from the hat.

The Makarapa was invented by a cleaner Alfred Baloyi and they are being made at a workshop in Johannesburg especially for the World Cup. A real hand-made Makarapa would make a good souvrenir from South Africa and the World Cup. And have you got a Vuvuzela....?