Monday 1 February 2010

From Limpopo to the Western Cape

I arrived at the Cape Town International Airport on Wednesday evening last week. The journey itself was quite interesting. I had to take a seven hour bus trip from Tzaneen to Johannesburg. There my brother T picked me up at the Central Station from where we headed off to Johannesburg International Airport during high traffic. It cost me less to pay my brother to come from his home town (about 100 km away) to come pick me up at the bus station and take me to the airport, than to make use of a shuttle or a taxi. A shuttle -- which you have to book a day or two in advance -- costs around R300 from the Central Station to the Airport. It cost me about R100-R150 for my brother to take me.

What ought to be a 30-45 minute drive from the Station to the Airport ended up being a two hour drive due to the heavy traffic and all the activity on the roads as South Africa is busy preparing its transportation infrastructure for the coming Soccer World Cup later this year.

As one cannot rely on the cross-country busses to be on time (I have lots of experience in this), I decided not to buy an airplane ticket in advance. So when I eventually arrived at the airport I had to search for an available seat. It cost me around R1300 from Johannesburg to Cape Town. The flight with South African Airlines was quite pleasant, unlike my previous flight with the airlines from Hong Kong to South Africa. There also seemed to be an unusual amount of beautiful people on the plane.

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