Radiac's South African Adventure, Part 1

• 15th October 2004 at 15:47

African Adventure Parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

At some point in the next few months, I'll be re-jigging this website, and re-writing the diary to allow me to do posts like this a bit more sensibly. But for now, you will have to bear with the slightly odd layout and until I add time zones, you can take all entry times to be local (I'll fiddle them manually). I really should have planned my internet requirements a bit better before I left - but more about that in part 4 :)

I don't know when I'll be able to post my diary entries, but I'm writing them offline and just sticking them on whenever I get the chance. Because I'm writing them when there's nothing else to do does mean that they can be quite rambling.

For those who have no idea what I'm doing in South Africa, I'll give you a little introduction. I am friends with Paul, the head of music at my first school, and a few months ago I told him of my plans to have a year or so off and do some travelling after university. He told me that he was going to South Africa for a term and invited me to come over. He has swapped with Amke, a teacher from a school in the suburbs of Johannesburg, and as his half term starts halfway through this week, we thought now would be a good time for my South African Adventure.

Day One - Thursday 14th October

I finished packing just as my dad arrived, and after double checking I had my contact lenses and laptop (clearly the two most important things I'm bringing), we set off. I was told to check in about 3 hours before my flight, so leaving at 5 seemed like a good idea. And it was, because as soon as we were on the M23, a police car went flying past on the hard shoulder, and the traffic promptly ground to a halt. "Yay for traffic jams", I thought to myself. "Well, I can always run to the airport." But the traffic started crawling, and after a while we drove past a single car parked on the hard shoulder with no sign of damage. Then the traffic sped up, so I don't really know what was up with that. Still, arrived at Gatwick early, checked in on time, and got into duty free with plenty of time to spend (do you see what I did there?). Unfortunately, what I hadn't counted on was the fact that Dixons were a rip-off - even with duty taken off, their mp3 players were still far more expensive than their internet rivals, so I gave up on that idea and hoped for more luck in Dubai.

The flight to Dubai was pretty good. Although I had flown before, this was the first time that I had flown on my own, or at least without any supervision - the time I went to America I was under 16, so was escorted to and from the plane. I was therefore rather concerned with the procedures, not least the security checks, but they didn't even ask me to turn on my laptop to check my battery was not made from C4. I was almost disappointed. Once on the plane, I watched a couple of disappointing films, ate a couple of meals, and gave up on any thought of sleep. Although I should have had an aisle seat, I was asked to move so that a guy could sit next to his girlfriend, and being the nice person I am, I did so, and ended up in the middle of the 4 middle seats. We were fed a meal, I waited until we were over France before I went to the toilet to empty my bladder, and then the people in the seats either side of me promptly fell asleep purely so that I couldn't get up any more. So I spent the next few hours feeling rather cramped, and mildly concerned at how close to Baghdad we were going. Still, I shuffled around and emerged the other end mostly undamaged, apart from a slight general body ache.

Day One, Take Two - Friday 15th October

The first thing that struck me when I stepped off the plane in Dubai was how hot and humid it was. The next thing was someone's carry on luggage, quite hard, right in the back of my head. Being something ridiculous like 6am local time, it took me a while to remember that I had to walk down the steps, but I did eventually. Part of the reason I hung around at the top of the steps for so long was because I was looking at the airport. For those of you who haven't been there, Dubai has a massive airport, the tarmac goes on forever, and almost every plane belongs to Emirates. Not really a surprise I guess, it being the national airline, but it was all rather impressive, especially the hangers that stretched for literally as far as I could turn my head without turning my body. To be fair that wasn't very far, due to my now crippling neck and back ache, not to mention my headache, but the hangers were still pretty big.

Going through Dubai was mostly painless - after a quick scan of my bag, I was into duty free once again. This time everything was a bit cheaper, but amazingly they didn't have anything that I wanted. So I settled for a small bag of chocolates to keep my energy up (it was 6am), and 4 bottles of water because I was so thirsty, and then wandered off to the departure lounge for my flight to Johannesburg.

I am currently sitting on the plane. I've been a bit luckier this time - I have a window seat, right at the back (literally the last window). This is really good - due to the shape of the plane back here, I have lots of room for my hand luggage and stuff down next to my seat. Very handy. I have had a couple of hours snooze, but the lady woke me up to give me some food and I haven't been able to get back to sleep over the relentless chatter of the engines and the constant drone of my fellow passengers, so I watched 'Supersize Me' instead. According to the flight map, we're now over South Africa, but all I can see are lots of little fluffy clouds. Still, shouldn't be long now!

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