Travel to Cape Town

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Well, the time had come. All the packing had been done, bag weighed, unpacked and excess bits taken out, repacked, duplicate stuff taken out, packed again. Then bits I had forgotten were added. That is the way with packing! Finally the time came to throw the bags in the car and get going. Miraculously I actually left on time which was slightly surprising. The trip to New Haw in Surrey was easy. I left the car there and my brother Dave very kindly gave me a lift about 6pm to Heathrow airport via an almost miraculously empty M25. I arrived at terminal 2 and panicked. Had I forgotten something? I must have done. In my panic I went through the security checks, then realised that I hadn't checked in my bag so had to talk my way out of the security check again. I should have remembered the mantra I developed when at the age of 14, flying to boarding school from Holland, all you need really need to travel are ticket, passport and money. Anything else can be sorted out.

Finally I sat town in a cafe after checking in and over a coffee and sandwich said to myself 'and relax'! At that point there is nothing more that can be done so there is no point in worrying. I arrived at the boarding gate early and was one of the first to board. I chose a seat right at the back so I could get a window seat. I won't be doing that. It's significantly more noisy at the back but I'd never noticed before. Anyway, eventually the plane filled until just over half full. Sod's law, I was one of the few in a window seat who had someone sitting next to me so I couldn't spread out. Single word answers to the few questions that I asked and the fact that he immediately dug a book out of his bag and started earnestly reading suggested that he really didn't want to talk.

We were only a few minutes late taking off into the night. I love the first part of the journey. I always try and recognise the places we are flying over. Dorking, Gatwick, (easy to spot!) Brighton, French coast, Rouen, Paris in the distance and Auxerre. Then a lot of small French towns before Marseilles floated into view. Only the black of the Mediterranean followed then, a significant gap before the African coast and then nothing. I closed the blind and ate some rather indifferent dinner. The movie choice wasn't great but I wasn't that tired so I watched When Sally Met Harry which I realised that I had never seen before! I actually reallyrenjoyed it but of course the airline had edited out the best bit. Why do they do that? It always pisses me off.

I awoke about 7.15 after a fitful night of sleep. It was very bright outside so most of the blinds were closed but I had to see what was outside. Angola apparently according to the real time map. It's amazing that Angola and Botswana which we flew over next are actually pretty wet. There were thousand of small lakes and rivers sparkling like jewels flung across central Africa. Breakfast next. Cooked bacon and eggs but tasting pretty indifferent. Finally Johannesburg appeared ahead and after swinging round to the south we had a rather good and very gentle landing.

I had about 4 hours to wait before the internal flight to Cape Town so I took things pretty easy. After hunting for some time for a check in desk for internal flights a young chap in an orange shirt came up and asked if he could help me. I was flying with Mango, the company owned by South African Airways who run internal flights. Their colour scheme is not surprisingly Orange! The guy who helped me was excellent. He carried my bag, showed me to the check in, then told me where the boarding gates were, where to get something to eat and chatted about what I was doing on holiday. And then he explained that he wasn't paid by anyone andaasked if I could give him a tip. I was happy to but it was not a good time as I only had 200 Rand notes so I gave him all the English change in my pocket, a couple of pounds or so. He was happy with that and so was I. Very helpful and saved me a load of aggravation.

The flight departed on time and we flew in a very full flight across central south Africa. Kimberly floated past and it got drier and more empty until I couldn't see a single patch of green or a road. Just parched orange red rocks everywhere as far as the eye could see. It was very cloudy when we arrived in Cape Town. Table Mountain was completely shrouded in dark clouds. All my luggage arrived with me, good news, so I hopped on an airport bus to the Civic Centre. Just a 20 minute walk to my hotel right in the middle of the city and just as I arrived it started raining. I found this slightly amusing as Cape Town is in the middle of the worst drought for a century with hardly any rain for 3 years. I dumped my bags and unpacked a bit. Then I felt a beer calling so wandered down to the small but satisfactory restaurant and dispatched my first beer pretty rapidly. The second one was on its way down my throat when I ordered some food. The prices seemed very cheap compared with English hotel charges. 2 beers and a burger for about £10 is what I call pretty good. It was then time for bed. The torrential rain continued all night but it made no difference to my sleep. 26 hours travelling and I could have slept through a hurricane!

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