Into Africa
Thursday, October 30th, 2008Day 215
We spent our last morning relaxing at the apartment before our flight. We watched some cheesy daytime movies and Jordana made fried rice before the lady came by to pick up the keys for the apartment. We walked down the street to a taxi stand and waited for our ride to Ezeiza Airport.
Sitting there watching traffic go by I couldn’t believe we were leaving South America. We’ve been travelling 7 months from Toronto through Mexico, Central America and finally South America. Its been an eventful year to say the least. How can life be so great yet so confusing and awful in such a short time?
Finally our driver appeared and we climbed in for the 35km drive to the airport. We sat in B.A.’s traffic as a Boca Junior match was been broadcast on the radio. When they scored we heard several cheers from other cars and from bars along the street. Eventually we reached the highway and blasted along at 130 km/ph. We checked in at the Malaysian Airways desk and went and sat in a restaurant. I had one more Quillmes beer as we looked over the now very familiar Argentinian menu. While food was of good quality in Argentina the menus were all the same. Funny thing was we worried about not eating meat here but the real challenge is variety. Here is an example of how each menu went. At least 5 kinds of ham sandwiches, all with the crust cut off and on plain thin white bread. Meat, steak and lamb of course. Pizza and pasta, but nothing to exciting. Pasta has always had a choice of only 3 sauces, tomato, cream or rose. That my friends is pretty much the menu at 75% of Argentinian restaurants. Yes Buenos Aires was a bit more varied but I do not exaggerate about the rest of the country. Oh and breakfast? Well just read my other entries on Argentina I’ve mentioned it several times. The good? Wine is good and cheap. We drank wine with dinner almost all the time, it was cheaper than water.
So as we sat there and talked about our time in Latin America ill miss certain things and Argentina has been maybe the highlight of the trip. Its natural beauty is incredible and we saw things here that we have never seen anywhere in the world before. That said the prospect of Africa has us both excited to get on this plane. Finally our boarding began and we filed onto the large 747. OK good start, in seat tv’s with on demand movies and shows. Oh and they even have games! I settled in and tee’d off on the first hole of the golf game. It was going to be a quick 8 hours.
Jordana and I peered out the window and then looked at each other with giddy smiles. The pilot had just announced we were descending to Cape Town. We were in Africa. This is actually our third time on the continent, however previously we’ve only been to Egypt and Morocco. This was going to be a very different Africa. Low cloud prevented us from seeing much of the city as we landed. Quickly we were off the plane and into customs. With no line and several booths open we moved through fast and just minutes later found our bags on the carousel. Cape Town Airport is modern and being expanded in time for the 2010 World Cup that will be held in South Africa.
We exited into the main hall of the airport and went looking for a bookstore. We didn’t have any info on South Africa, no guidebook, no map and no idea where to stay. I easily found a Roughguide South Africa published in July 2008 for only $25. Good start. We walked to tourist info and grabbed a city map and found a decent sounding place to stay in the guidebook. Next we walked over to a taxi stand and for 170 South African Rand ($17) we had a transfer to St. Pauls B & B in the centre of Cape Town.
We left the airport and quickly were on a highway into the city. The overcast conditions prevented a good view of the mountains around the city but they still looked spectacular. On the left side of us was a large shanty town and just down on the right a sign advertising luxury homes fenced in with security. We entered the centre of Cape Town and pulled up to our guesthouse. The centre was clean and beautiful, not what you thought eh? Cape Town is very european looking and feeling.
We walked up to the front door and hoped they had a room. A friendly lady let us in and explained they did have a room and that the B & B was actually run by the church next door, St. Pauls. The guesthouse was 150 years old and was originally the first maternity hospital in all of Africa. Pretty cool stuff. She led us up stair and opened the door to a huge, beautiful room with 15 foot ceilings and huge windows. Out the windows an amazing view of table mountain. “Perfect, we’ll take it!” We both said. What an easy and great start to Africa. I expect things will eventually get rougher but this was fantastic. We both collapsed in bed and slept till 3pm.
When we finally awoke we showered and went for some fabulous south Indian food. Ahhh it felt good to have some spice and flavour. We strolled Long St., Cape Town’s party street. With its beautiful dutch colonial style buildings, behind us the 1100 metre table mountain loomed over the city. Cape Town was as beautiful as advertised. We turned in early and read up on Cape Town and South Africa. The next few months promise to be our biggest adventure yet.
Michael Coroneos