Month: October 2013

The short version: We’re home!

The long version: It wasn’t exactly according to plan…

We were scheduled to depart Joburg at 7:15p on Wednesday with stops in Paris, Houston and Seattle before finally reaching Portland at 10:14p on Thursday. One minute shy of 36 hours…

Our flight to Paris was delayed. In classic airline fashion, we all got strung along with the delay being 60 to 90 more minutes the entire time. At about 11:30p, they announced that since we wouldn’t depart by midnight, the crew was required to get 12 hours rest. We were also told that all hotels were full and that Air France would not be providing accommodations for the night. But they would give us snacks and water and blankets. We were expected to stay in the terminal. This caused a minor uproar – though honestly not as bad as I thought it would be. Some travelers quickly discovered that on a weekday there were plenty of hotel rooms available. Travelers were advised not to leave, but if they insisted, they would get any bags off the plane. Hotel room reimbursement was not promised; it would have to be pursued through Air France.

We got busy on the phone with both Alaska Airline (we’d booked the trip on miles through them) and Air France. By midnight it was clear that we would miss our connection to Houston and we wanted to get rebooked as soon as possible (and not have to wait in line among several hundred travelers with similar problems). Alaska said that Air France needed to rebook us since they were the delayed flight. Air France said that Alaska had to rebook us since they had booked the trip. Nice.

I finally found an Air France agent at the gate who was willing and able to help. She found a flight from Paris to Atlanta and a connection on to Portland that would get in at 9:30p – 44 minutes earlier than the original itinerary. She secured seats but could not officially book it until our flight was in the air and scheduled to get in with enough time for the connection.

Finally we got word that we would be boarding a bit after 1a. They must have gotten a replacement crew. The agent confirmed that she would book our seats once we were in the air and that we would just need to pick up boarding passes at the Transfer desk in Paris. We sat on the tarmac for a while and didn’t take off until a bit after 2a. We weren’t sure if that left enough time for the connection.

We landed in Paris and rushed to get to the Transfer desk to try and get as near to the front of the line as possible. There were three agents working with five open stations. Air France, if you have an Airbus380 with a capacity of 530 (!) passengers that’s 7 hours late, and because it’s an 10+ hour flight you have almost HALF A DAY to know that hundreds of passengers with ruined itineraries will be at your desk when it lands, WHY DON’T YOU HAVE EVERY STATION COVERED? The flight to Atlanta was scheduled out at 1:35p. It was about 12:40p when we got in line and there were about 10 groups in front of us. Progress was s l o w. I jumped out of line to try a self service kiosk. Leena stayed in line.

The first machine was super slow. But, it found us and confirmed we had seats on the flight to Atlanta. I need to print boarding passes. Because it’s an international flight, you have to scan your passport at the kiosk. I scan mine. It then says, sorry, you’ll have to go to the transfer desk.

I try another machine. This one’s working fast, so that’s better. I go through the same steps. One of the screens says to proceed to the gate for a boarding pass. I’m skeptical that I can get through security without a boarding pass. I get through the passport check successfully, but I need Leena’s passport. I wave her out of line, but then realize this is a bad idea so I wave her back in. I run over and get her passport. I scan hers, but it kicks me out as before.

I try again. And again. Now it’s not even letting me to the passport scanning step. I stop an Air France agent. She says I have to start by putting in my e-ticket number (instead of scanning my passport). She leaves before the kiosk comes back that it can’t find my ticket number. (I’d guess this is because we’ve been rebooked and therefore have a new number.) It’s now 12:55p. The line Leena is in has literally moved up by one person (NICE JOB AIR FRANCE). There are probably 100 people in line behind us. What a mess.

I’m not even sure why, but I try a third machine. I take a picture on my phone of the screen that says to proceed to the gate for a boarding pass. Perhaps security will let us through with that? And then… it takes my passport scan. It takes Leena’s. I think I have it, but I get an error: they can’t print our boarding passes from Atlanta to Portland. Ah!!! I don’t care! I’ll do that in Atlanta! But on this screen there’s a back button. I hit it. And instead of going back to the previous screen, it goes to a screen with an option to print boarding passes. It’s too good to be true. I hit the button. They print. Amazing. It’s a bit after 1p. I scurry back over to Leena waving the boarding passes and she jumps out of line (that still has not moved). Other travelers are amazed (or, I want to think that they must have been).

We get through security and get to the gate just as the end of the boarding line is going through. Leena notices that the boarding passes say “Premium Economy”. I dismiss this as propaganda: they’re trying to make us feel better about their economy class by calling it premium. The gate agent scans our boarding passes and tells us that they’re not right. I have no idea what was wrong with them, but they were good enough to get us to the gate. (And I highly doubt we could have gotten through security without them.) They then print new boarding passes on the spot, including a pair for Atlanta to Portland.

As we board the plane, we learn that Premium Economy is a real thing. Wider seat. More recline. More legroom. Economy was full so they had to upgrade us. Totally awesome.

In Atlanta, we have to retrieve my bag, clear customs, and recheck the bag. The bag doesn’t come. It missed the connection in Paris. No worries though, it’s really just laundry waiting to happen. The flight to Portland is brutal: we’re 30+ hours in, we’re in the second to last row, and for some reason I think everyone on the flight had to visit the bathroom twice and bump me on the way by. Most of the time I had people crowding me from the aisle as they waited for the bathroom. But we make it.

Milo was so awesome when we got home. He went from asleep to bewildered to super excited in about a minute. So much fun. The bag was delivered a day later with more tags on it than you can imagine. Hopefully the long post on the air travel roller coaster wasn’t too boring!

We flew from Cape Town to Johannesburg on Tuesday. Our flight home was scheduled for a 7p departure on Wednesday. We did a half-day tour of Soweto.

I knew Soweto was short for South Western Townships, but learned that it was also shorthand for “So Where to Go?” since many of its inhabitants moved there after being evicted from their homes by the apartheid government starting in the late 40s. Many came from Sophiatown.

There’s lot of history in Soweto. The African National Congress (ANC) drafted the Freedom Charter there in 1955. In brief:

1. The People Shall Govern!
2. All National Groups Shall have Equal Rights!
3. The People Shall Share in the Country’s Wealth!
4. The Land Shall be Shared Among Those Who Work It!
5. All Shall be Equal Before the Law!
6. All Shall Enjoy Equal Human Rights!
7. The Shall be Work and Security!
8. The Doors of Learning and Culture Shall be Opened!
9. There Shall be Houses, Security and Comfort!
10. There Shall be Peace and Friendship!

The charter is commemorated with a monument with the text inside etched in concrete.

We had half an hour (not nearly enough time) at the Hector Pieterson museum. Pieterson was one of the first youth killed in the Soweto uprising in 1976 and was captured in an iconic photo.

We also toured one of the slums. It’s difficult to express all the thoughts and feelings that you go through. You learn that even though the government has built housing nearby with electricity and water, residents can’t afford to move there because they would have to pay for the utilities. Is crime a problem? No. They have mob rule, which is to say they collectively enforce their own security. Drugs are a problem. Education is a problem. The biggest problem is opportunity. Unemployment is around 75%. Our tour guide was probably in his early 20s and spent his time (outside of tours) running a center for youth focused on education. Someone in the group asked a brave question: Did the residents mind groups of “rich white people” like ours touring their slum? (We weren’t all white, but predominantly so.) He replied no. He said that the people that go on tours help raise awareness and are all very generous to them. He then asked a great question back to the group: What motivated you to see this?

Our guide outside his home.

We got a taste of the local beer at a shabeen. It’s a bit different – something like a combination of milk and beer. It has a sour taste like beer combined with plain yogurt. You can see the milky consistency in the second shot.

We closed the tour with a brief stop at Soccer City Stadium, the main stadium for the recent World Cup and the largest stadium in Africa. The design is based on a calabash, which is the style of pot that we drank beer from.

We’ve been poking around Cape Town the last few days. On Sunday we headed to Kalk Bay, a cute little town on False Bay a bit south of the city. We had fish and chips for lunch and poked around shops and galleries. We drove around the peninsula a bit enjoying the sights.

We went to the District Six museum on Monday. District Six is a section of Cape Town where the apartheid government forcibly removed residents to rebuild it – “clean it up” if you will. More very somber stuff.

Last evening was our last in Cape Town. We took the super touristy sunset sail.

We took another peek outside on Saturday morning and saw nothing but blue skies. We headed off to Table Mountain. Leena decided to take the cable car up (steep trails aren’t kind to her left knee due to an old soccer injury) while I took the Platteklip Gorge trail. It’s about a 2000 foot ascent from the trail head. A look up just after the trail head. Definitely steep.

A peek over at Lions Head and Signal Hill (left to right) from early on the trail.

Another look up from the midpoint.

A look back down from the top. The trail ends by coming up through a crevice in the face of Table Mountain (and good that it does because I’m no rock climber).

Once at the top, I had a 1.5k hike over to the top of the cable car to meet Leena. I got there right as she walked off. There was enough of a line at the bottom to make the timing perfect. Lions Head, Signal Hill and Robben Island from the top – note that Table Mountain is quite a bit higher.

More from the top.

After putting in our “work” in for the day, we hit the beach at Camps Bay. Today was the warmest weather yet in Cape Town – sunny and mid-70s. But the Atlantic Ocean here is still really cold.

We awoke Friday and planned to hike up Table mountain. However, a peek out our door revealed the “tablecloth,” a cloud that forms with a southeast wind and covers the mountain top.

We called an audible and decided to hike Lions Head instead. We could see Table mountain and the tablecloth through most of the ascent. The trail winds around Lions Head like a spiral staircase affording great views of the city from every angle.

A couple from the top. You can see Robben Island in the first.

We headed to the V & A Waterfront in the afternoon and checked out the aquarium. The tablecloth never let up, so we made the right call hiking Lions Head instead. Leena really enjoyed getting close to the clown fish.

We visited Robben Island on Wednesday. It’s a small island about 12k from the Cape Town waterfront (about 7k from the nearest land) that was used for several hundred years as a prison. It had a leper colony for a time. Nelson Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years in prison here.

We took a ferry over, and despite the sobering nature of the trip and what the island represents, the views were fantastic. The second shot is from Robben Island.

We took a bus tour of the island with several stops. The tour guide shared that while the closing of Robben Island and the end of apartheid was clearly a major milestone for the country, he alluded to the fact that it did not magically solve every issue. He was very measured in his words.

The best part of the tour was a guided tour through the main prison area by a former prisoner. He gave his own story of how he ended up in the prison. He was part of a student protest in Soweto in 1976 that resulted in his arrest and imprisonment. I believe he said he was one of just 19 students arrested and sent to Robben Island though thousands of students participated in the protest. Perhaps he was an organizer; perhaps just unlucky.

He addressed how the government prosecuted the students: they labeled them terrorists. Not to get too political on our little travel blog, but there are parallels to what our own government does today. We have our own island prison for people labeled “terrorists”; we don’t even give them trials. Shame.

Mandela’s cell:

I did actually buy something in the gift store: Mandela’s memoir Long Walk to Freedom. I’m a third of the way through it – remarkable.

We drove south from Cape Town to the Cape of Good Hope (and Cape Point) on Tuesday. It’s only about 60k. We first stopped at Boulders Beach to see the penguin colony there.

We arrived at the Cape of Good Hope and took the obligatory sign pic PLUS a selfie just to make sure you knew we were there.

Point Cape, just east, has the lighthouse. At one point it was the brightest lighthouse in the world.

A look west to the Cape of Good Hope.

So, that was the tip of a continent. On the drive back up to Cape Town we stayed on the Atlantic side of the peninsula. (We drove along False Bay, the east side of the peninsula, on the way down.) The road along Chapman’s Peak is famous for its difficult construction including a section literally carved out of the rock. Leena got a great action photo (note: speed limit is 20k in this section; also, car is a right drive).

We headed up Signal Hill (~350m) for views of Table Rock and a sunset over the Atlantic.

We departed Franschhoek on Monday and drove over a mountain pass to leave the valley. The view from the top.

We took the scenic route to Cape Town. We headed south (and a bit east) to Hermanus. It’s a town famous for whale viewing and seems to exist pretty much just for that purpose. We did indeed see whales, but really, it’s not really something you can capture without more patience and a much better camera than ours. Anyway, here’s Leena with either the Indian or Atlantic Ocean behind. (It seems debatable where one stops and the other starts.)

We then followed the coast to Cape Town. Here’s the view from False Bay. The far side of False Bay – barely visible – is Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope.

We flew to Cape Town Friday, picked up the rental car at the airport, and drove to the winelands – Stellenbosch. It’s always a bit disorienting to drive on the left side of the road, but it will start to feel normal after a couple of more days (at least that was the case in Australia). We did fairly well navigating, but the maps we were given weren’t great. Just as we felt off course and decided to pull onto a side street to regroup, the guest house we were looking for was magically on the corner. They had one room left so we booked it.

We started Saturday at Lanzerac, an estate that’s been around since 1692. Old school. The formal entry:

Next up was Ernie Els. (He’s a golfer. A really good one.) Now, I might have spotted this among the many wineries here and given it a go, but it was actually recommended to us by the place we were staying. We got a cellar tour, and the wine was really quite good. And when given the chance to play some golf, of course I gave it a go. It’s a 30 yard pitch over a little water feature…

We finished at Guardian Peak with a late lunch. By the way, the wine here is really good and very reasonable. In fact, it’s cheap. We each grabbed a glass of wine before dinner yesterday, and the charge on my Visa translated to $4.12. For two decent glasses of wine.

On Sunday we drove about half an hour over to Franschhoek. It’s a gorgeous town set among mountain peaks. We started at Leopard’s Leap and continued to Moreson.

We’ll close with a nice evening shot from our walk to dinner.

We wrapped up the safari portion of the trip at Camp Okuti in Botswana. We shared our drives there with Tom and Valerie and had a great time getting to know one another even as we had a couple of vehicle breakdowns. I finally got a decent shot of an impala – they’re skittish and run away pretty quickly, so most of my shots were of them running away.

Our guide Captain estimated that this young zebra at no more than four days old.

We saw the same lions as well as antelope and of course elephants.

We saw a huge Baobab tree that elephants are trying to cut down. Check out the wedge they’re carved out in the lower right of the tree. They’re getting close.

A vervet monkey posed for us in a tree.

It’s getting late on the final drive, and though we’ve been hoping to find an elusive leopard or cheetah, it seems like we’re just heading to a nice spot for the sundowner glass of wine. Then we pull up to this guy, a leopard cub that’s ~18 months old. Mama has left him while she’s out on a hunt. He’s totally docile and basically spends his time grooming like any house cat and checking out the cars that have pulled up by him. What a finish to our safari time!

Finally, a shot of Tom, Valerie and Captain at the sundowner lining up a photo of some spotted hyenas that came by to check us out. Don’t worry, they stayed several hundred yards away as Captain said they would.