Back to Joburg and Back Home . . .

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My trip to South Africa is reaching it’s end . . . Two days ago, I packed up from the backpackers in the Drakensberg, spent some time looking out across the ampitheatre, then hopped back on the Baz Bus for the last time. Early that evening, I returned to Johannesburg.

To be honest, I didn’t care to come back to Johannesburg. I saw what I wanted to see here at the start of my trip, then spent too much time waiting for the rest of it to continue. But I was determined to finish it off well. One spot near Joburg that I wanted to see is Sun City, an entertainment/casino/resort an hour outside the city that is famous much like Nassau’s Atlantis. I worked at organizing a tour. The tours out of Joburg are so much more ridiculously expensive compared to the rest of the country, and especially when a single traveller. But I was willing to spend the money to end my trip off well. I arranged a tour. Yesterday morning, I was up, dressed and ready to go, waiting to be picked up. Then the guy who works at the reception came out to say that the tour company called that they’d cancelled. That was it! No explanation, no apology, no hey-here’s something you could do instead, just cancelled. At the time they were supposed to pick me up!!!

I then loathed Joburg.

My only option then was to go to a nearby mall. Not exciting. But I made the most of it when I got there. Now that I have work lined up (I’m going back to a ship January 10th), I know I’ll be making money again and that it’s okay to buy some new work clothes! So I’ve got some new things to wear on the ship, including a new formal dress! And then I went to the movies one more time. Before I left for this trip, I read the entire Twilight series in only a few weeks. I loved it. The movie came out about a month ago back home. Here, it came out this week - so Twilight it was! Saved my day.

Out of frustration, I commented on facebook about disliking Joburg. Jenn, one of the girls I met back in Chinsta down on the Wild Coast a few weeks ago, is an American girl who lives and teaches in Joburg. She replied and said to give her a call, which I did.

So today, Jenn came and picked me up at the backpackers and took me out. We went to Moyo, the same restaurant chain I had drinks at in Durban, for lunch and cosmos. We had great conversation and were serenaded by the singers who went from table to table. Then we went to one of the city’s markets. Even now, I still can’t get enough of those markets! I picked up some last minute gifts for the extended family (that I’m very excited to be seeing soon!). And I got myself one last big treat . . . a traditional African drum. I wanted to get one when I went to Uganda but couldn’t figure out how I’d get it home and decided not to. I’ve regretted it ever since. So today, I got myself a drum. I’m going to be carrying it from plane to plane all the way back home, but it’ll be worth it!

And now here I am, my trip having reached it’s end . . . I can’t quite believe I’ve done it! I feel such a big mix of things: sadness that it’s over, excitement to see family for the holidays, relief that I made it through the aftermath of my mugging, sentimental about leaving the people here that I care about. But the biggest thing? I feel proud. I have talked about this trip for so long. But I actually did it. I earned the money, I saved the money, I researched the trip, I bought everything, I packed up, I went and I did it all. That feels really really great.

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