In early March, while staying at our holiday cottage in Trafalgar on the KwaZulu-Natal south coast, I went swimming, as has been my habit for many years, in the idyllic Mpenjathi lagoon. The lagoon looks pretty much the way it did when Vasco da Gama first saw it; the lower south coast and Trafalgar in particular are unspoiled - we frequently get duikers as well as monkeys in our garden.

LRB 6 August 2009 | PDF Download