Once upon a time a bunch of Durbanite nutjobs lived in a madhouse on Peckham Rye, South London. Innit? As with many sons and daughters of the African diaspora, they relished the idea of being a zillion miles away from mom, dad and home. When they went to bed at night their misty memories of Johnnies roti’s, ten-rand bankies and regular ass-over-kettle baptisms in the shorebreaks of their hometown were slowly slipping away.

London is an easy place for bright-eyed and bushy-tailed lighties to lose themselves, something that’s all the easier to accomplish when there are copious amounts of top-quality drugs. As with many Durbanians, some of them just couldn’t stay outta trouble / jail / nightclubs and eventually made their way back home to the land of kiff, my bru and hundreds, my china once their luck / money / visa’s / sentences ran out. The rest stayed on, grafted like slaves and bought pozzi’s on Camden Lock.

Time passed, as it does when you’re up to your elbows in chip and cheese and only come up for air to have another toke on a Swazi. Some went off and built pressed-earth communes in the hills, some got married, some went to 330 and others took the road less travelled - they got jobs. No, none of them went to market, and none of them went whee whee whee all the way home. Alright, some did, but that’s not the point! The point is the wanderlust never really left them, and memories of the good old days back when they were a ruthless posse of Durbanuts giving London what for were still, like, fully rosy.

So, after 11 years of talking about the wild years, an opportunity presented itself to reconvene the crew. Admittedly, some had been lost to marriage / normality / Town Hill, but the core were still there, and it was they who would haul ass in a pilgrimage halfway across the planet to meet in that beacon of art, architecture and unabashed debauchery – Barcelona!

Now, Durbanites have an inbuilt anti-hijack mechanism, something that comes from years of being hunted across the harsh and unforgiving terrain of eThekwini. So it comes as no surprise that, when the Poms, Germans and Yanks are being picked off by predatory gypsies like so many stragglers in the herd, that the average Durbanian on tour is to be found sitting outside the cerveceria, cold Estrella Damm (Google it) in hand, wallet and camera still happily in place. After all, what perils can continental Europe possibly lay in the path of an intrepid Durbanite that they have not already survived?

And so it was that the maties were reunited amid much high-fiving and hash smoke in the Barri Gotic (I said Google it!), and set off to discover new cultures and generally leave a trail of nonplussed locals going ‘Who the fuck?’

The End.

Well, kinda. It might become an annual expedition.