St. Lucia Part 1: the Estuary

Last weekend we drove down to St. Lucia, a huge inland lake and estuary nature reserve about 5 hours away, on the east coast of South Africa. We crossed the border at Lavumisa, where we saw this sign:
I think they meant "SADC" forms (Southern African Development Community), but "SAD FORMS" is pretty funny.

Unfortunately, Lake St. Lucia itself was completely off limits. Because of the prolonged drought over the last few years, the lake is apparently extremely low. At any rate, the lake is protected and human activity is prohibited there, so we couldn't go out on the lake itself. Instead, we went on a hippo and crocodile boat tour on the estuary, which is the part of the river near the ocean where fresh and salt water mix. Here's my mom and Aviva, with some hippos in the background:


During the ride, the boat operators passed around this gigantic hippo tooth for everyone to see. Aviva apparently thought it was a banana and promptly tried to eat it.
Aviva enjoyed herself...


...even if she spent most of the time playing with her toes.

Afterwards we ate lunch at a terrific little place called Thyme Square Cafe. I try to spare our readers the details of most of our meals, but this place was so lovely and surprising, that I have to post a few shots of our very yummy food - a roast beef sandwich, a lamb burger, and a chicken salad sandwich: delicious!



We enjoyed our stay in a nice little rental house, where apparently there are dangerous children.