Made it to South Africa

see all photos »

I made it safe and sound to South Africa ...

More is coming soon ... now I have to find something to drink first!

What a trip ... over 7 hours later than scheduled we left Sao Paulo. At least South African Airways gave us a dinner voucher for a very nice and fancy restaurant immediately. That is how I killed one hour of my 10 hours at the airport. Shortly before we were able to check in our pilot walked towards the plane ... I couldn`t make up my mind if I should have laughed or just ran out of the building and never ever fly with that pilot ... why? Well, he passed us and stumbled ... that was still kind of funny, but when it happened three times in a row I was seriously worried, that he was drunk or on drugs or something ... I mean, three time in a row!!! The fancifulness of mine had no end ;-)

Shortly after we took off I felt a cold coming its way ... or was it malaria??!!?? Accordingly of what I heard malaria starts like a flu or cold and if you don't treat it within a couple of hours it becomes serious ... great, here I am sitting in the plane and can't do anything for at least 8 hours ....

Oh well, at the end we made it safe and sound to Johannesburg. Maybe the pilot wasn't drunk after all ;-). And surprisingly, we arrived only 6 hours later than planned. The immigration was straight forward and it didn`t take long to get the sticker and a stamp into my passport. My backpack made it to Joburg (that's what the locals call it) as well.

My cold (hopefully) got worth and it took me another hour to find the guy from the hostel who was suppose to pick me up at the airport ... when we ran into each other by accident (I noticed his sign in his hand with the name of my hostel) I found out that he spent the time waiting for me in a bar ... he ran into a cousin or something like that and since they hadn't seen each other for months they had a couple of beers (I guess it was more than that ...). He was drunk! But he told me that he can't drive anymore (really???), but that he will call his brother ... and this brother showed up after one hour and we finally could leave after getting the original driver out of the pub again and finding another guy who came from Angola to visit a healing school here in Johannesburg. He also wanted to stay in the hostel.

I mentioned my concerns about having malaria and the brother was really nice. He just drove me to he next hospital where they checked my blood ... and it was negative!!!! YEAH!!!! I just was getting an ordinary cold ... and I think I was never so happy to hear that I just have developed a cold :-). So another hour later we continued our trip (everybody was waiting for the results - very nice - I guess the pub around the corner was very happy as well - good business times for them ;-) ...) and arrived at the hostel around 9 PM ... it was a very long day for me (20 hours) and so I just took a shower and went to bed ...

Next morning my cold really kicked in :-( ... when I asked the staff how to get to the center of Joburg so I could find out about buses and so on, they where really shocked. Nobody and especially white people don't go to the center if they can avoid it. But it would be OK, if I would go to a nearby mall ... but even there they gave me a very long instruction of safety behaviors ...

So I made it to the mall and could sense the tension immediately ... the only white person and hardly any smiles or friendly words ... I didn't know what to thing of this country ... also the hostel was weird. Next to me was a Canadian girl, but the rest of the guests were all locals who needed a cheap place to stay.

So after changing my plans at least 1000 times I finally made up my mind. I wanted to head towards Lesotho ... a country surrounded by South Africa, but it was suppose to be different compare to South Africa and I somehow liked that idea ;-)