AND THE ADVENTURE BEGINS
Friday, May 5
I neglected to mention yesterday that Frankfurt is a very "green" city. 30% of the city is forest with wild deer and wild boar among other things. There are recycling bins everywhere in the downtown area and the fine for throwing a cigarette butt on the ground is 20 Euros (about $30 Canadian).
My check out at the hotel in Frankfurt was at 7:15 pm (never did even lay on the bed) and my trip to the airport was reserved for 7:30. I finished checking out about 7:25 and just as I turned around I saw the van driving away so immediately told the desk clerk that he was supposed to drive me at 7:30. She called or radioed him and got him to turn around and come back. I don't suppose he was too happy but a deal is a deal... As soon as I arrived at the airport I went to change some money into South African Rands but the young lady told me to wait until I got here because she would have to convert my USD to Euros and then convert the Euros to Rand so it would cost me a hefty commission. I thought that was quite good of her. Picked up another book thinking I might need it during the night and headed to security. No problems at security except that I had some cough drops in my pocket and the foil wrapper set off the buzzer so I had to empty my pockets. Of course they looked very carefully at the x-ray of the maze of stuff in my carry on bags but all I had to take out was one of the cameras for them to swab it.
I sat in a snack bar where you could smoke and had a couple of drinks for about an hour or so. At 8:20 (boarding time was 9:55) I decided to go to the gate and wait for the boarding call. In order to get to the gate I had to go through another (second) security check point. Never seen that before and I have no idea why they do it. I asked but no one could, or would, tell me. When I arrived at the gate there an horrendously long line up so I thought I would sit inside the enclosure until it shortened somewhat. As soon as I pushed open the gate an alarm sounded. Oops, guess I wasn't supposed to do that. I asked the agent who came running over to stop me what flight they were boarding and she told me that it was mine. The thing is they weren't boarding just putting everyone through the procedure and then making them sit in the enclosure. Something else I have never seen before anywhere. I sat and chatted briefly with the lady from Oregon until they called the flight. Instead of boarding by rows (with business class being able to board at leisure) they called pre boarding and then general boarding and an entire 747 load of passengers rushed for the doors. What a zoo! The flight itself was uneventful and nothing out of the ordinary happened for a change.
The woman beside me was a native born South African and we chatted for quite a while until dinner was served. She was the first "seat mate" I had exchanged even one word with since I left Yellowknife. One of the things I asked her was about the malaria problem. She told me that she, her husband and children only go into affected areas in winter when the risk is somewhat less and they always take the medication as a precaution. She said that Jo'burg was not a problem but I began my medication anyway. My dinner was a mixture of great and awful but the wine remained excellent. The smoked marlin appetizer was great but the perch entree was absolutely horrible and try as I might I could not eat it. Some sort of spice or marinade completely obscured the taste of the fish. After dinner we talked for a bit again and by then then it was 12:30 so my seat mate donned her eye shade and blanket and went to sleep as she had to go into work this morning. Sure glad I didn't have to go to work or anywhere. We arrived in Johannesburg around 9:00 after a ten plus hour flight.
The airport here is undergoing massive renovations and additions so the plane parked a long way from the terminal and we had to cram ourselves into two buses for the ten minute ride to the terminal. Many steps up and down and then a long walk to Immigration where I stood in line for more than half hour waiting to get my passport stamped (and to think, I will have to go through that two more times). The people desperately need typing lessons to speed up the process. Needless to say I was thrilled when I arrived at the baggage carousel and found my bag waiting for me. Having not seen it for three days and nights I was expecting the worst. Once I had my bag I went out into the arrivals area and soon spotted a guy with a sign for me. I told him that he was quite brave for writing the sign the way he did. It said, "Black Party". Not the sort of thing I would say in South Africa! He told me that one person had called him racist because of it. He didn't seem to know that I was traveling alone so didn't know what to put on the sign. As were driving to the hotel he let me look at some of his photos of wildlife. They were fantastic and I will ecstatic if I get shots half as good.
The hotel, "Sandton Sun and Towers" (http://cybercapetown.com/SandtonSun/) is quite posh - to the extent that guests are not allowed to wear trainers (running shoes) in public areas after 6 pm. Of course running shoes are all that I brought so I will either have to lock myself in the room at 5:59 or go out and buy some shoes and then hope that I can somehow squeeze them into my luggage. My room is quite adequate but nothing out of the usual for a good hotel except there is a good deal of African art on the walls. I'm on the 20th floor but don't have a particularly good view even though I can see for a very long way. I'll put a few photos on the web site anyway. Oh yes, one slight difficulty with the room is that you have to be a triple jointed contortionist to reach the toilet paper while sitting on the toilet. Perhaps that is too much information... LOL
My plan for the rest of the day is to go to the shopping centre to look for shoes. The centre is connected to the hotel and is said to be the second largest in the southern hemisphere and I was warned (seriously) to be careful not to get lost. While I'm out I will also look into tour possibilities for tomorrow. More later...
Back Again.
Well, after a host of electrical problems and a parade of maintenance people in and out of the room I finally got everything hooked up and recharging. As I was doing that I made a horrible discovery. Two important items that I swore I put in my bag are not there now so somehow I guess I managed to forget them. One is the charger for one of my cameras (the one I planned to use about half of the time) and the other is my electric clippers. I can't imagine how I missed them because they were both on my mental list all along and I looked at them both several times. Luckily I have a third camera with me so I shouldn't suffer too badly. Heaven only knows what else I will discover missing.
After I got all of that stuff done I went down and made arrangements for two tours tomorrow. One is to a cultural villlage (www.lesedi.com) and the second is to Soweto (one of the early Black settlements) (http://www.soweto.co.za/html/t_soweto.htm). The first tour leaves at 8:00 am and the last finishes at 8:30 pm. I think that after that I will take Sunday morning off to relax a bit and repack for the transfer to the Grace Hotel (http://cybercapetown.com/TheGrace/). The shopping centre is certainly all that it is cracked up to be. I don't know how it stacks up against the West Edmonton Mall but it is HUGE and, yes, getting lost is easy. I did really well keeping track of where I had been and got back to within a stone's throw of the hotel before I had to ask for directions. It seems to be more or less circular and many stories high. The escalators force you to walk in circles, thus seeing more stores, and contribute to the ease of getting lost. Wish I had had a machete to leave marks on the wall or the railings... I got a pair of shoes but couldn't find either a charger for the camera or clippers. So now I'm good to go for dinner but in a month will look like the wild man from Borneo and they may send me out into the jungle instead of letting me leave the country.
Yet another of the hotel staff just came to the room to leave me a complimentary bottle of wine, some apples and plums and a chocolate bar. Very nice.
Just to continue my trials and tribulations I received a package from the tour company and noticed that they had left me without a hotel room one night and also had me flying back through Zurich. As much as I would love to see Zurich even from the air it is certainly not on my itinerary this time. I called and left a message as soon as I noticed the problems. No reply back yet. It was quite funny, I was talking with the concierge trying to figure out tours for tomorrow when a woman came up, gave him a package and asked to have it delivered to Gary Black. I turned and said that it wasn't necessary as I thought I could carry it up myself. The package was my itinerary, vouchers for various and sundry things and plane tickets (Johannesburg to Maun, Botswana [http://www.go2africa.com/botswana/okavango-delta/maun/] and back and Johannesburg to Windhoek, Nambia [http://www.namibian.org/travel/namibia/windhoek.htm] and back).
Excellent and very eclectic dinner to say the very least. There were several items on the menu that looked good but after taking a quick look at the buffet I opted to go that route and am very glad that I did. Steamed mussels (two helpings), raw oysters (two helpings), lightly cooked asparagus (two helpings), lamb roast, lamb chops, fried fish, gnocchi, salmon kabobs, pumpkin ravioli and more. Everything was excellent and I even helped the chef cook the gnocchi and ravioli. along with all of that I had a bottle of a very good South African Merlot. All in all an excellent meal that left me very sleepy and ready for bed.
Good night.