Charles Apple

I can give my highest recommendation to the fine folks at South African Airways. After being a resident on their planes for most of the last 24 hours, I can assure you they’re most definitely top-notch.

I spent 16 or so hours on this Airbus A340. I took this
picture as I deplaned this afternoon in Johannesburg.
—

We departed Washington only a few minutes late. You’ll recall I wondered how we’d circumvent Hurricane Bill, which was spinning right into our path. Even before we left the ground, the pilot explained he would head northwest out of D.C., circle across Pennsylvania and New York and then cross over the shore to the Atlantic somewhere between New York City and Boston.

The good news: This would put us safely away from most of the turbulent air. The bad news: It’d put us at our stop in Senegal about an hour later than planned.

The seats themselves were nothing short of luxurious. This was the first time in 13 years I’ve flown business class. The seats were nice and wide and I had an unbelievable amount of legroom. When it got late, I was able to stretch out and sleep.

Here I am in the middle row, where I moved after takeoff.
Note the Diet Coke. I switched to that after having quite
enough red wine for one day.
—

The food, too, was awesome. I had lamb for dinner. It wasn’t baa-ad at all. After talking the ear off the poor fellow in the next seat — Mike, from the Triangle area of North Carolina — I moved to an empty row to spend the night.

Each seat had an individual touch-screen monitor where you could pull up movies and TV shows. I noticed with interest they were offering two Brad Bird animated movies: The Incredibles and the Iron Giant. I watched a little of each, despite the fact I have them both at home on DVD.

For the most part, though, I slept and read. I brought a book about former president Gerald Ford – I’m a sucker for political biographies (especially when they’re on sale, cheap, at Barnes & Noble.) By the time we got to Johannesburg, I had worked my way through two-thirds of the book.

We arrived in Senegal right around sunrise. A bunch of folks got off; the airline crew turned over and they took on fuel and food. During all this, though, all the cabin doors were open. A couple of folks in Business Class started worrying about mosquitoes.

I thought they were being a little paranoid. Reading my mind, Mike leaned over and whispered to me that lots of the nasty health issues in this part of the country are spread by mosquitos. Uh-oh. Suddenly, I wondered if I really shouldn’t have updated my shots.

When we got ready to resume our journey, the flight attendants shut the cabin doors and then walked up and down the aisles carrying large, smoke-belching cans of insecticide.

Here I am, back in my assigned seat, on the tarmac in
Dakar. It was just after sunrise there, and very hot and
muggy. It was probably close to 4 a.m. Sunday, EDT.
—

For the Senegal-to-Johannesburg leg, the business class cabin was full — mostly of off-duty British Airways personnel. I had to move back to my original seat next to Mike. Then, they brought us lavish fruit plates and omelets for breakfast.

We got to Dakar late, but our crew managed to get us to Johannesburg on our original schedule. Which was a good thing. I had a layover scheduled of two hours and 50 minutes, but it darned near wasn’t enough time to do all I needed to do.

First, I had to stand in line to go through passport control. Sure enough, no visa was necessary. Then, I had to retrieve my luggage. It was a long, long time before my enormous suitcase made its way to the carousel. And the tall, skinny package — which contains a golf club meant for an old friend — never came out at all. Glumly, I ambled over to the lost luggage department to file a claim.

Folks wait for their luggage at Tambo airport in Johannesburg.
—

The lady there was less than sympathetic. She simply gestured to a large mound of suitcases and told me to look over there. I did, but didn’t see my missing parcel. I was in the process of lining up to speak to her again, when I spotted what my wife calls “a little man” walking through the airport with what LOOKED like my box. If someone had performed Kung Fu on it. The man dropped the box onto the stack of unclaimed bags and walked off without a word.

So I jumped out of line again and checked it out. Yep, it was the golf club. The box was beaten all to hell. But I hope the club itself is still good.

My troublesome luggage. A huge, dark grey 50-and-one-half-pound suitcase, my brown suede SND bag (in front), the smashed golf club carton and my computer briefcase (behind, near the handle).
—

I changed a few dollars for South African Rand — at a rate of about eight Rand per dollar — and checked my luggage for the trip across country to Cape Town. I had only about an hour left before departure. So much for my layover!

The Johannesburg airport is huge. It’s also in various stages of remodeling. The country is hosting the World Cup next year. By the looks of what they’re doing in the terminals, I’d say they’re off to a great start.

Eventually, I came to realize this little green block showing a
man running is Tambo International’s symbol for departure
gate. So this sign tells you there are gates in each direction.
Perhaps that’s helpful. But I came to a dead halt, laughed and
took a picture of the sign. All the folks standing nearby looked
at me as if I had lost my mind.
—

I found a Wimpy Burger that appealed to my finely-tuned American sense of fast-food. I bought a quick cheeseburger and fries — which they call “chips,” just like the British — but I never did find out how to log onto the Wimpy wi-fi system. Perhaps they have signs or something explaining it, but I never found them.

A Wimpy burger isn’t bad. But it has a taste and texture
completely different from American burgers. And mine
had way too much ketchup on it (I think they call it
tomato sauce here).
—

I’m writing the bulk of this from the very first row — which I have all to myself — of a nice Boeing 737, winging its way from Johannesburg to Cape Town. Dinner consisted of beef tips and rice and salad… and two Heinekins.

We board the 737 for a two-hour flight
from Jo’burg to Cape Town tonight.
—

We’ll be there in a few minutes. It’ll be time to do the luggage dance again, find a cab and head downtown for the Westin Grand, near the waterfront.

I’ll be getting in around 11:30, I think. I’ll need to unpack, post this blog report and see if I can contact Sharon back in Virginia Beach, where she should be nearly ready for dinner.

I report at the newspaper offices at 9 a.m. tomorrow morning.

—
UPDATE:

I got to my hotel even quicker than I thought — just after 11 p.m. I’ve communicated with Sharon via video iChat and I’ve made arrangements to have breakfast tomorrow morning with an old friend.

Looks like this week is going to be a lot of fun…

—
EXPEDITION TO SOUTH AFRICA

You’re reading the fourth chapter of my journey to Cape Town, South Africa.

• CHAPTER 1: Preparing for the journey.
  
• CHAPTER 2: I made it as far as the Dulles airport bar
• CHAPTER 3: Getting really bored sitting at Dulles
  
  

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 23rd, 2009 at 5:45 pm and is filed under Charles Apple, Travelogue, Trip to South Africa. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.