This was a picture (which I have since cropped) of the new South Africa flag of the post-apartheid era. I actually took this one at the apartheid museum, as this was the final display, if you will, of the museum, the symbol of the emergence of a "new South Africa."
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The flight from London to Johannesburg was the longest flight which I had taken in my life to that point (the flight back up being equally as long). It was not as bad as I feared, especially since I fell asleep for a decent bit of it. Also, I managed to finish watching Dune 2, which I had only gotten close to halfway through on the flight from JFK to London. Also, another movie called "French Girl." The reviews of those two movies are hopefully upcoming.
Anyway, it was a mostly uneventful flight. In my imagination, a flight to South Africa - again, this was a place which I had always intended to visit - was to be nice, if long. In my mind's eye, I could picture myself looking out the window, and seeing the Mediterranean, then the coastal cities along North Africa, followed by the yellow sands of the Sahara. Then, the jungles of central Africa, before finally approaching South Africa.
In reality, it was just beginning to get dark in London as we took off. It was fully dark by the time we were flying over France. So the Mediterranean was just darkness, an absence of light. This was indeed followed by city lights along the coast of northern Africa, and these went on for a surprisingly long time. But inevitably, there was another long absence of lights, another long stretch of darkness, as we flew over the Sahara, which is one of the very largest deserts in the world. Then, still more darkness as we flew over the jungles of Africa.
Again, at some point I slept.
When I awoke, we were flying over southern Africa. At some point, we had flown over the equator, which in my imagination, would have been announced.
No announcement. Nothing to really indicate when this may have happened. Inside of the cabin of the plane, it was dark. Almost everyone was sleeping, myself included. So while this had been a major landmark of the flight in my imagination, it passed - like almost everything else - without any fanfare, or even a brief mention.
I looked at the screen in front of me, and tried to measure our progress. We were flying maybe somewhere over Angola. It was maybe two or so hours before we were scheduled to land at Johannesburg when I saw the first lights since northern Africa.
There now were visible occasional lights. Some small cities, or at least towns, with lights on well into the night. Or rather, early morning, since we were fast approaching the dawn. Slowly but surely, there were traces of the daybreak to come.
By the time we were flying over Botswana, there were weak traces of light, but they grew stronger. It offered the first real glimpse of the African continent below. And the daylight grew stronger and stronger, as our destination approached. Soon, we could see daylight plainly. By the time we crossed into South African airspace proper, it was fully morning.
I was quite sure of when we more or less crossed into South Africa, because the land below suddenly looked developed. There were clearly paved roads and farms and obviously developed infrastructure. There was greenery in some of the farms, and not just the brown which most people generally associate with much of Africa.
Then, we were approaching Johannesburg. Suddenly, it was highly developed. There were modern towns and superhighways. We flew over the suburbs, and the extreme wealth of some of those suburbs which I had long heard of and read about were visible. Large, spacious mansions, lush green lawns, sparkling pools of an aqua color. Many trees and wide roads, and some properties even sporting a tennis court. They did not come out too well in the pictures, but they were there.
And soon, we began to make our approach. By now, we were flying at a lower altitude. It was sunny. We were close enough to the land to make out individual cars and trees. Then we were flying low over some of the suburbs, before touching down.
20 We were finally here, in Africa. It looked to be a beautiful, sunny morning.
Still, I had to get past customs. There was no way to know if that was going to be an easy or difficult prospect. Obviously, however, there was no way around it.
After landing, the passengers on the plane began to stand and stretch and grab their luggage. I also got up when I saw the line moving, and made my way off the plane. Stopped at the bathroom, and found one of the workers welcoming me to what he referred to as "my office." That became my first indicator that this was going to be a different experience. Someone expecting a tip. I had not even had a chance to convert any of the currency yet, but I gave him an American $1 bill.
Then, I walked for a decent length, until getting to where we were all expected to go through customs. It was not an especially long wait, but it was not ridiculously short, either. When my turn came, the guy looked at my passport, looked at the picture and then at me for verification, and then stamped the passport and handed it back to me.
Now, I was officially in South Africa and free to explore.
This was a country which had fascinated me since I was a kid, really. I had dreamed of coming here, and had heard about how beautiful it is.
35 Over the years, South Africa always seemed to have a hold over me anytime that I thought of it. This was the country which had often dominated the news cycle when I was growing up, right into early adulthood. This was the land that had produced Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Tutu, both of whom I had gone to see (at very different times in my life) back home in the United States. It also was the country that had produced some of my favorite writers, including Nobel recipient JM Coetzee, Bryce Courtenay (at least in part, along with Australia), Mark Mathabane, and Alan Paton. Many books and articles that I had read about this place had also captured my imagination, including "Move Your Shadow" by Joseph Lelyveld, "They Cannot Kill Us All" by Richard Manning, "The Mind of South Africa" by Alister Sparks, and a wonderful article by Michael Ryan which was published in the April 9th 1990 issue of People magazine titled "Hope Meets Hatred in South Africa," which was the first article which allowed me to feel like I could actually picture an actual town in South Africa called Ventersdorp (see the link below for my review of the article on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of it being published). Also, a few books about and by both Mandela and Tutu, of course.
48 Finally, I was now here. The plane ride was over, and I had gotten through customs. There was a guided tour of Johannesburg, Soweto, and Pretoria which I was scheduled to be part of later in the day. I was supposed to meet the guy at 8:30 or so that morning, which gave me a bit less than two hours after the plane had landed.
Of course, the first thing to do was exchange some currency. I know, I know, airports are notoriously not the ideal places to do that sort of thing, since they kind of rip you off. But given that I would be on a guided tour, and not necessarily free to go to a currency exchange place, and since I had felt it necessary to bring some cash with me after a debacle just a couple of years earlier, when my card kept getting red-flagged in Paris, and I had all of $23 cash on my, it felt like a must. So bad deal or not, it felt like a necessity.
58 Once that was done, I found a relatively isolated bathroom, and tried my best to freshen up, including brushing my teeth and changing my clothes. Then I went to the luggage storage place and dropped my bags off.
Finally, I stepped out into the bright African sunshine, and felt the fresh morning air. It was already quite warm for so early in the morning. I had finally gotten a hold of the guide via email, and he told me to meet him at the Continental Hotel, which was right across the road, basically, from the luggage storage place. There was still some time to go, so I decided to go to an oversized statue of Oliver Tambo, which the major Johannesburg Airport had now been named after (it used to be named after Jan Smuts).
The wait at the hotel proved longer than expected. Long enough, in fact, that I began to fear that I was about to be ripped off, that the guy would never show.
68 Eventually, he showed.
Meanwhile, an elderly woman who had somehow gotten a black eye, and who was waiting for her family to check out of the hotel and board a plane on an organized travel tour offered me a bad of goodies. Uncharacteristically, I went ahead and took it, and trusted that it was good, that her intentions were pure. It proved to be a good decision.
25th Anniversary of a Great Article! published on Thursday, April 9, 2015:
https://charbor74.blogspot.com/2015/04/25th-anniversary-of-great-article.html
One of the main places to see during a visit to Cape Town is Robben Island. This is where Mandela was imprisoned for 18 years. Of course, many other
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