Charles Apple

I wasn’t exaggerating when I posted on Facebook that Saturday was quite possibly the worst travel day of my life.

Let’s walk you through it and see if you don’t agree…

Saturday started off so well, with a breakfast with the most excellent Kenny Irby. You should all be so lucky as to get a little Irby in your day.

I drove to the airport insanely early and checked in for my late afternoon flight. When I left you last, I was sitting in the Irish Pub at O.R. Tambo International Airport, drinking Coke Light and eating fish and chips.

And then I went down the concourse to board the plane. Amusingly, I found this across from my gate.

What’s so amusing?, I hear you ask. Do you see the tiny little sign, on the far right? Let’s zoom in so you can see it better…

Only in South Africa would someone put a No Smoking sign in a smoking lounge.

My flight to Cape Town was aboard British Airways, the first time I’ve flown with them. Here was the 737 on which I traveled.

The flight itself went OK. We arrived in Cape Town only about fifteen minutes behind schedule.

As soon as the flight attendants opened the hatch, though, things went downhill fast.

It was raining here, you see. Hard. Very hard. And it rained that way for hours.

And because the airport here in Cape Town is way, way over capacity, they tend to park the airplanes way out on the outer reaches of the tarmac. They send buses to pick you up and carry you back to the terminal. Not a problem in the least — as long as it’s not raining.

For some reason I’ve not yet ascertained, they stop the buses a long way from the plane. So you get off the mobile stairs and you have to hoof it a long way — through the pouring rain — to the buses.

By the time I got to the baggage check area, I was already drenched and very unhappy. Seems like there would be a lot of ways to prevent passengers from suffering this fate, I reasoned. I was fuming that no one seemed to care.

So my bags came down the conveyor relatively quickly. I piled my stuff onto a pushcart and headed for the car rental area. My rental car was set up with Budget — the same company that lent me a Mercedes for the past month. I was rather looking forward to seeing what I’d get for the next eight days.

When I got to the Budget window, however, I found a sign that explained Budget was no longer staffing its desk there in the terminal. In order to pick up my Budget rent-a-car, the sign said, I’d have to walk over to the Budget office located in the car park.

No problem at all, right? Wrong. The walkway between the terminal and the Budget car park isn’t covered.

And it was still raining hard.

Already soaking wet, I was a complete mess by the time I got to the Budget office. A wet, angry, seething mess.

So the nice woman there pulled my reservation, logged me into her computer and gave me the key to my car. A Volkswagen.

OK, still no problem. I’m sure the VW will be every bit as nice as my beloved Mercedes.

Kind of.

So I asked her where I might transfer my luggage to the car in an enclosed area. And she shrugged and told me there was no enclosed area. I’d have to go out in the rain to pick up my car and load my stuff into it.

You have got to be kidding me.

Nope, she was serious. She did offer the assistance of a guy with an umbrella. But that guy was so tied up with other customers I just didn’t see him helping much. So I pushed my cart — loaded with what felt like tons upon tons of luggage, back into torrential rain toward the cute little blue VW.

By now, I was completely soaked and so were my bags. Water was pooling on top of them, in fact, I put the smaller bags into the back seat and I then wrestled the big suitcase — the one for which British Airways charged me a huge penalty earlier Saturday — into the trunk. Or the boot, as they call it here.

Only to find the damn suitcase wouldn’t fit in the boot. I could cram it in there, but then the boot itself wouldn’t close.

Heavy sigh. Heavy, heavy, wet sigh.

An artist’s depiction of me piling my suitcases into the Volks-
wagen, in the rain. Slight exaggerations might be present here.
—

I pulled my smaller bags back out of the car and set them into the huge puddles forming in the parking lot. I tossed the big bag into the back seat. And then I moved my smaller bags into the boot.

That worked. I managed to slam the boot. So — more wet than I’ve ever been, outside of a swimming pool — I slung myself into the driver’s seat, plugged my key into the ignition and started the car.

I adjusted the defogger — very important, due to the humidity — reset the rear-view mirrors and fastened my seat belt. Then, I reached down to throw the car into gear so I could get the hell out of this aquatic mess.

The gear lever was a stick shift.

Heavy sigh. Heavy, heavy goddamned sigh.

I turned off the ignition, climbed back out of the car and trudged through the rain back into the office. Where I stood in line for yet another turn at the desk.

The man there looked at me quizzically. What now?

I explained I couldn’t drive a stick shift. So I can’t take the Volkswagen.

Now, you’d expect any normal customer-oriented representative to immediately go to Plan B. But not our guy. Oh, no. Instead, our guy reached for a printout of my reservation and showed me a capital letter typed in the corner. This means our travel agent specifically requested a stick shift, the guy told me.

No, I replied. I can’t drive a stick shift. In fact, I’ve asked our travel folks to reserve only cars with automatic transmissions, I said.

No, the man told me. This clearly shows your agent booked a car with a manual shift.

That’s when I began to lose my temper.

I told the guy that maybe my travel agent did order a car with a stick shift. Either way, I can’t drive a stick shift.

Therefore, there are only three possible ways to proceed from here.

1. I can take the VW. And within a half an hour, he’ll be dispatching a tow truck to bring me back to the airport.
2. He can give me a car with automatic transmission.
3. He can cancel my reservation and I’ll simply rent a car from another company. Or I’ll take a cab. His choice.

The guy looked at me funny for a moment and told me he’d find me another car.

Good goddamned choice, dude.

So he pulled another set of keys. An Audi.

Wow. Never even driven an Audi before. This might not be so bad after all.

What’s more, the Audi is marked only two or three spaces away from the Volkswagen. So yeah, I’ll get wet again transferring my bags. I won’t get any wetter than I am now. Because I can’t possible get any wetter than I am right now.

As if that wasn’t enough, the man insisted on running out into the rain with me and helping me transfer my bags over to the Audi. I was very impressed. Getting soaked to the bone didn’t seem to bother this guy at all. It bothered me, though.

The cute, sexy little silver Audi. I took this photo Sunday.
Note the absence of huge amounts of water molecules.
—

So once he was certain I’d be OK, the man bade me farewell and left me to drive myself into downtown Cape Town. I climbed behind the wheel of the Audi, plugged the key into the slot and…

…and nothing.

Have you ever started up an Audi? Me, neither. I couldn’t find the ignition.

I sat there for a full fifteen minutes. I ran through every control I could find on the dashboard. I found the lights, the windshield wipers and about four gazillion controls for the sound system. I even searched the glove compartment, hoping to find an owner’s manual. I couldn’t find any way to crank up the goddamned car.

I thought I was going to cry.

I climbed back out of the car. Into the rain. Which, I might add, hadn’t even looked like it might abate before the end of my natural lifespan. And I walked slowly back to the Budget rent-a-car office.

My man met me at the door. What’s the problem, Mr. Apple? It’s always a bad sign when they learn your name this quickly.

I counted to ten before I replied. I… I don’t know how to crank up the car. I couldn’t even make eye contact with the guy.

A long pause. And I’ll never forget his reply.

You’re kidding me.

I stared at my wet, wet shoes. I heard him exhale slowly.

So then, thankfully, he sprang into customer service mode. No problem, he said. He’d take me back out to my car and show me how to crank it up.

And he did. You can’t just plug the key into the ignition, you have to press it in, while pressing down on the brake. How the hell you’re supposed to know this, I can’t quite figure out. But that’s how you crank an Audi.

The ignition system of the Audi. Step on the brake and
hold the key in. That’s how you crank up an Audi. In case
you’ve been considering stealing one lately.
—

I thanked the guy — firmly but quietly. And I think he understood how tired and wet and miserable I was. He wished me a safe journey. And, bless the guy’s heart, I think he actually meant it.

So I adjusted my mirrors, cranked up the defogger — boy, did I need it by then — fastened my seat belt and I headed for the airport exit.

The plan was to hit the M2 from the airport to downtown Cape Town. The termination of the M2 would deposit me at the foot of the Cape Town Convention Center and the Westin Grand hotel, where I spent three weeks back in August and September. From there, I’d be able to navigate the two or three blocks to my hotel, the Hollow on the Square on Hans Strijdom Ave.

No problem, right?

I reached into my shirt pocket to retrieve the small piece of yellow legal paper onto which I had written my directions.

And the paper melted in my hands. Completely soaked, the paper reverted to what I presume are the tiny wood chips from which it was made.

Alarmed, I fished out the other items in that pocket. My diabetes pills. My cough drops.

My passport. Which was completely soaked.

I nearly rear-ended the truck in front of me.

My passport, waterlogged from being in my front pocket during
the mess on Saturday. What a disaster. I’m happy to report it’s
much dryer now, more than 24 hours later.
—

Fighting off panic, my mind began to race. What if my passport was damaged by all the water that had collected in my shirt pocket? Can I slide by customs by claiming I was in some kind of ferry disaster? Will Hillary Clinton herself meet me at passport control in Dulles to personally bar me from re-entering the U.S.?

By now, of course, it had begun to get dark. As if things couldn’t get any worse.

I knew I needed to stay on the M2. I strained my tired eyes to find the pavement markings so I could settle into a middle lane. I passed a couple of power plant cooling towers and what I think was the hospital where the world’s first-ever heart transplant was performed in 1967.

And then the road split. Signs showed something-something this way and something-else that way. Neither road claimed to be the M2.

Damned South African road signs. Arbitrarily, I took the left road.

Which, of course, turned out to be the wrong choice. I ended up wending my way around the foot of Table Mountain, emerging on a side of Cape Town with which I was not familiar. I hunted for landmarks I knew, realizing I was racing against time. Once the sun goes down, I’d be hopelessly screwed.

I zigged this way and zagged that way. At one point, my road dead-ended. When I peered ahead — through the rain, which hadn’t let up even a bit — I discovered I was looking at the South African Parliament building.

Holy cow! I know where I am! Elated, I turned right and then left again. I couldn’t be very far from my hotel.

And, in fact, I got lost again at least twice after that. At one point, I looked up to see a sign proclaiming a small courtyard was Ryk Tulbagh Square. Somehow, in the pouring rain and with only a minimal knowledge of the geography of Cape Town, I had actually stumbled across my hotel.

So I pulled in, parked the Audi and staggered into the lobby. The woman there stared at me as if I had just climbed out of a flying saucer. Except, If I had come from another planet, I suspect I wouldn’t have been as wet and as miserable.

It could have been worse. She had a room for me, at least. She handed me a key — an actual key key, not a plastic key car — and I gratefully trudged off for the elevators.

The room key is actually a KEY. Which says something about
how old this hotel is. Not that I’m complaining.
—

I entered the room and was immediately charmed.

I took this photo even before I changed clothes.
My suitcases aren’t yet even unpacked.

I might be wet and miserable, but that doesn’t stop me from
trying to get online and contacting Sharon.
—

This hotel is an old building — very, very old. But the room itself has a small kitchenette, including a refrigerator. Oh, man. I couldn’t wait to buy some Coke Light to store in that fridge.

A freakin’ kitchenette! Can you believe it? I couldn’t.

This is the first hotel room I’ve had in quite a while that comes
with a steak knife. After the day I had, man, there are a LOT of
things I could do with a tool like this…

Can you believe all this stuff? Isn’t this grate?

Here’s something different — it’s the first time ever in South
Africa that I’ve found an exhaust fan in the bathroom!

I read this entire sign in my room and I’m STILL
not certain what’s a Fire Blanket.
—

Job One, however, was to pat myself down with a towel, try to get a grip on myself and return to the Audi to retrieve the rest of my bags. I caught my breath and headed for the door.

And that’s as far as I got.

I couldn’t figure out how to open the damn door. It was no problem at all from the hallway. But from the inside, it was another story entirely.

I locked and unlocked and locked again the deadbolt. That wasn’t the problem. I turned the handle up and down. Neither of those worked. I was running out of options.

The handle on the inside of my door. No, you don’t handle the handle
to get out. You have to twist the deadline knob all the way clockwise
in order to leave the room. Nothing else will get you out of the room.
Seriously.
—

After ten minutes or so, I had to admit defeat again, for the second time that day. I called the nice girl down at reception. I told her I was locked in my room and I couldn’t figure out how to get out.

Long pause. For a moment, I just knew she was going to say, “You’re kidding me.”

But she didn’t. After only a moment’s pause, she offered to send someone up to my room to get me out. And, sure enough, a few moments later, a woman from housekeeping was knocking at my door. I shouted that I was locked in, so she used her pass key to open the door and let herself in.

Then, she proceeded to show me how you get out of my room. It’s a two-handed job, it turns out. Even if the deadbolt isn’t engaged, there is a second, smaller deadbolt that’s part of the door mechanism. You have to turn the deadbolt latch just so and then turn the handle in order to leave the room.

Now, I can make a pretty good case that that’s an extraordinarily complicated way to engineer a door lock. But at this point, I wasn’t complaining. I was grateful I’d be able to leave my room. I had begun to feel distinctly like a character from an Eagles song.

You can check out anytime you like
But you can never leave

I walked by the front desk — trying not to make eye contact with Nazley, the very cute woman who called for help — and back out into the rain to pull the rest of my bags out of the Audi. The bellhops were caught so off-guard that they had to catch up to me. There was one huge suitcase, one large duffel bag and one carry-on case left. It took three of us to get them all inside.

Especially since the bags wouldn’t float. That’s about how bad it was outside by now.

An artist’s depiction of the landscape Saturday in Cape Town.
A slight exaggeration might be present here.
—

I cracked open the suitcases to survey the damage. Yep — not surprisingly, quite a bit of water had leaked into the bags. The duffel — which contained several of the books I’ve bought — was pretty bad. I laid out the waterlogged contents in the floor of my room, hoping they’ll dry out. One day.

I spread stuff all over the room to dry out.

Can you believe how wet my jeans were? Can you see the strip that was
completely drenched, around the belt area? That’s due to the wick effect
of my shirt. I can’t emphasize enough how freakin’ wet I was.

—

Once I dried off and changed clothes, I discovered I was hungry. So I trekked back downstairs in search of the hotel restaurant. I had prawn cocktail for an appetizer — some of the prawns still had their little heads intact, which unnerved me — a wonderful beef medallion dinner and creme brulet for dessert. And the draught beer wasn’t bad, either.

When the manager stopped by to ask how everything had been I just gushed. This was perhaps the worst — and most humiliating — travel day of my life I told him. But the meal he and his staff had served me pretty much salvaged the day.

So I stopped back by Nazley’s desk, ordered a second internet voucher, and went back upstairs so I could write all this up for you. Only to find I couldn’t log on.

Back downstairs I went. Nazley told me she thought it might be a temporary problem, caused by all the rain. We’ probably be back up again in an hour or so, she said.

That was two hours ago, as I write this sentence. No luck yet. [And, in fact, it was 18 hours before regained internet service here in the hotel. Dammit.]

Oddly enough, though, another glitch popped up as I sat here writing this story.

The TV came on by itself.

The TV here in the room is some kind of integrated unit with a laptop and a gaming system. I don’t pretend to understand it. Given how little TV I watched in Johannesburg, I’m not sure I even care.

The mysterious TV screen that activated by itself. I still
don’t know what caused this, more than 24 hours later.
—

But the monitor came on and displayed a variety of technical readout screens. I picked up the remote and hit the “power off” switch to no avail. I finally found a way to turn the damn thing off, but for a while there, I was afraid I’d have to pull the plug out of the way. Or, worse yet, float into the computer core and disconnect the computer, memory chip by memory chip.

Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do…

I’m not sure what time Sunday I’ll finally be able to post all this. But that was my Saturday. As I finish this, it’s 11:43 p.m. Saturday night. [As it turns out, it's nearly 1 a.m. Monday, with is about 6 p.m. EST.].

The forecast for the rest of the week is pretty dire.

I sure hope the rest of the week goes better than Saturday did…

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 8th, 2009 at 5:18 pm and is filed under 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.