safari sistas

Le Bonheur is the name of the pleasant South African cab – and we are enjoying it on the terrasse outside our room, 5 meters from the pool. Yes, we have arrived!

The official start: a 3:30pm glass of Prosecco while throwing together the final packing (no wonder I forgot my lens cleaner). Taxi waiting at 4, as the sistas downed the final Prosecco while juggling 7 pieces of luggage out the door and down 3 flights of stairs.  Luggage-juggling became our favorite pasttime: house, into taxi, out of the taxi, entry and exit into first s-bahn…at which point, Jill helped throw 4 pieces out the door as Jaimi & Kevin disembarked. We all waved and shouted “see you in Africa!” as the doors closed and we went our respective routings.  20 hours later, we resumed luggage juggling at PE baggage claim where we re-united; J & J looking much worse for the wear, Kevin bouncing off the luggage carousels, having utilized his & 2 other peoples’ seats to get a good nights’ sleep.  Jill, on the other hand, was too thrilled to have ready on-demand movie access to seriously consider sleeping – despite having 3 seats to use!  The 4 movies, though, were apparently quite good.

The 22 hour trip culminated in an adventurous left-hand driving escapade: comprising left-hand stick shift, “wrong” side of the road, 18 traffic circles, radio blaring reggae (we are, after all, on vacation!), Jill proclaiming “I don’t think I can navigate from this side”, and Jaimi driving-while-sight-seeing while Kevin carried on a constant Mantra of either “we should live here; all 3 of us” or “They really drive on the wrong side of the road here!”.

BUT – we are here!  Made ourselves right at home, laying claim to the courtyard pool area all afternoon.  “south africa Kevin” stopped by to visit, little Kevin set up his own pool maintenance service (being enraptured with the hose floating around – I’m sure they appreciated the free labor), and Jill immediately started consulting on the house dog’s diarrhea situation.

After some R&R, we strolled from our hotel down to the beach and to the boardwalk shops and restaurants.  At one point, we were passed by a truck full of young locals (and I do mean full – the back was packed with at least 20 of them!), all catcalling in our direction.  We made a big effort to nonchalantly carry on our way without noticing, when Kevin stops in his tracks, does a full arm point at the truck, and proclaims loudly, “Look, Mama, Africans!!!”

As you’ve seen, it’s been an eventful, long, strenuous day.  We’re now enjoying our last heady whiffs of Pakistani flower filling the courtyard, finishing off the final drops of cab, and heading in to bed.  Oh, and did we mention that it’s all of 8 pm?!  Good night! 🙂

This entry was posted on Friday, March 31st, 2006 at 10:47 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.