We were asked to help a small community in a very poor rural area, but with a piece of apparently very fertile ground, just without the knowledge and equipment to really do anything else besides grow sugar cane on it.
After a day of driving through mostly ancient sand dunes, and waiting for guides to meet us. I had my doubts about this whole idea.
However we eventually arrived out on a piece land where the sand turn to soil as it went down into a valley.
My suspicions where confirmed by a huge boulder sticking out the ground as the rest of the ground was mostly a thick layer of a dark black fertile soil running down from the boulder. Inside the boulder fossilized sea creatures from a long long time ago.
These are apparently strewn all over the valley about half a meter beneath the now fertile soil. I knew the wetlands stretched out inland from the mouth of the umfolozi river millennia ago, didn't expect to see first hand proof 18 km inland though.
My best guess is that these rocks made up of ancient sea creatures, where once reef and oyster beds. The waters receded and these reefs/oyster beds became traps for topsoil.
The mangrove trees settled in this huge wetlands area as they do now around the Saint Lucia Estuary.
The waters receded more since then, but for a while mangroves swamps reigned in this area.
The views, the people... The whole experience.
This will be a long term project when we finally get it off the ground.