As the trainer whispered to us before they came, "Don't step out of the boat--if you do, they'll pull you in the water with your teeth!" So much for being cute and cuddly. (On a side note, 3 out of 3 online surveys agree that my inner animal is a dolphin. While this has always pleased me immensely, I've always doubted its veracity. This revelation, however, makes perfect sense and has finally allowed me to accept that the online surveys are correct and it was merely my perception of the dolphin that was faulty. Clearly this is in keeping with my inner animal, thus bolstering the clairvoyant perceptions of these online surveys.) The show ended with a solo show by Gambit, the living legend dolphin who is 30some years old. He was huge--the size of a small whale--and was able to create enormous waves in the pool, do advanced tricks, wet audience members alike, and croon melodies to the giddy human and dolphin females.We left the show and made our way towards the aquarium, located beneath the replica of an old ship. Some of us went into the aquarium while others made their way to the Shark Dive. The aquarium was deceivingly large and filled with all sorts of fish not found within the United States. We made our way through, learning about pineapplefish (an organ its jaw makes it glow a yellow neon color at night; the light is created from bacteria), the black musselcracker (who experiences sex change later in life when the alpha male dies and one of the females must undergo a sex change to become dominant male), moon jellies (who glow in the dark), a fish the size of a shark, and the devil firefish (whose spines either harm the enemy or corner & envelop it). We got to pet sea anemones, touch old teeth and skeletons, and see star fish and giant crabs. But most of all, we were very pleased to find Mount Wannahockaloogie:
Who knew that Wallaby Way was actually in Durban?While we were finishing up the aquarium, the others were beginning their Shark Dive. From the aquarium, their cage appears like:
From outside the aquarium, it looks like:
See the shark outline at the right-most tip of the cage? They were that close. Stay tuned for a first-hand account of the experience from someone less daunted by two notes and one fin.After eating lunch alongside the shark tank, we made our way to the water park, where we spent the afternoon trying out all of the rides. Our favorites included a pitch-black tunnel that local kids emotionally bullied us into going down, a lovely lazy river that went under palm trees and next to the shark tank, and the highest water slide in all of South Africa for which there are only two words: atomic wedgie. Fortunately, all spectators were rewarded with endless laughter as we flailed our way down the slide and out of the end trough.
We left the park to walk around the surrounding areas, where we sampled Mozart ice cream, window shopped at local boutiques, and finished the day watching a traditional dance:
