That time of year again....

There’s no doubt about it... if Jozi is the pulse of the country and Cape Town the soul... Durban is officially the butthole of South Africa.

If anyone who reads this hails from Durbs, I apologise. Not for calling your home a butthole, but for the fact that you have to live in it.

I’ve just returned from a working weekend in this city and returning home was like arriving in nirvana.

I flew in to Durban at 08h00 on Saturday morning and by 08h05 I was suicidal. My hair had gone all kinky, my skin felt clammy, the air was so thick with humidity I felt like I had to chew and swallow each time I took a breath.

But without a doubt, the highlight of my time there had to be Saturday night. I was there with work colleague for the annual Tourism Indaba, which always features a beach party on the first night. A party on what is called ‘New Beach’ on Durban’s beachfront. Now if any of you have any experience with Durban’s beach front – you will know that this place is a cesspool of all that is wrong and evil in this world. C and I were stuck in bumper to bumper traffic for about 45 minutes – at 9pm at night, witnessing about three fights breaking out on the streets around us.

After searching for a parking space for a further 30 minutes, we eventually turned up a dark side street, where we found an empty parking lot. As we pulled in, we saw a man running after another man waving a stick at him. As I climbed out of the car (which contained two laptops, two wallets and two cameras), a lady watching the two men having a go at each other remarked “Oh yes, that’s the guy who always breaks into cars”. By the time we reached the beach, we had already seen another two fights as drunken men poured out of the shebeens around us. So unbelievably dodgy!

What I also don’t understand about this city – is the fact that most roads seem to have about six lanes – which will suddenly reduce to two – and then back to six, almost as if it was designed the sole intention of chaos as much traffic mayhem as possible. I also noticed that Durban is essentially one giant parking lot – with busses stopping in the middle lane, in the middle of an intersection, in the CBD, in front of traffic police, to offload and load up on passengers.

But I’ve made it out in one piece and have vowed to do whatever I can to speed up construction on Cape Town’s convention centre so that Indaba can be moved out of the butthole permanently.