A Day of Airports

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We had a leisurely start to the day with a pickup for the airport not expected until about 10.45am. We had brekky and then on our way back to our room were diverted by a mongoose family frolicking in the grounds. We followed them to take a pic and were then ensnared by a French lady who was determined to practice her very faltering English, with French lapses from time to time. But of course she had to tell us that the original grapevine stock for the blossoming South African wine industry came from France, and that they shouldn’t call their sparkling wine champagne etc etc. She was totally unconcerned about what our intentions for the day were, as she continued in her extremely hesitant and laborious conversation. We eventually got away from her to do our packing and prepare to leave.

So we were collected and transferred to the airport. It seems that all of the airports only ever have one officer working on immigration, and we spend a long time standing in line. Our one and a half hour flight from Victoria Falls to Jo’burg was uneventful. When we got there we had to go and claim our baggage and check it in for the domestic flight to Cape Town. It was a half hour longer than the previous flight and we were fed meals on both flights - lunch and dinner, and they were both the same meal. Mine came with a nice South African Chardonnay.

When we emerged at Cape Town airport a nice little man was holding up a sign with our name on it - he took us to our Radisson Blu hotel down on the waterfront. The city looks lovely at night. They’ve been having rain for the last two weeks and their water supply level has risen from 17% to 40%. They have 30% unemployment and so he said it was not safe to be walking around at night. They have a lot of illegal immigrants who just walk across their borders. Their infrastructure has not keept pace with their rise in population.

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