Category Archives: Travel

Durban. September. Rain.

Adventures, Airports, South Africa

It’s raining in Durban. It’s September, of course it’s raining in Durban. This is my lasting memory of the town. Durban, which for everyone else is summer holidays and December sunshine, is September rain to me. Not that I mind. September rain in Durban is inextricably tangled in my mind with the reason for all of those visits – huge, unwieldy, intense events.

We fly into King Shaka International Airport. This is the new airport. What it lacks in convenient proximity (it’s about 40 minutes from town), it makes up for in atmosphere and practical design. It feels a lot like OR Tambo, but set in beautiful, rolling hills of sugar cane. We travel into town and check into the hotel. It occurs to me that it’s an awfully long time since I spent time in a South African hotel. Once upon a time, hotel rooms were as familiar to me as my own bedroom. Somehow I have travelled back to a point where hotels are a novel experience.

I won’t see much of the inside of the hotel this time around. Not unlike the last time around. Then, as now, I was here for an event. I have such clear memories from that time. I think the memories from those few weeks are clearer than any others from that phase of my life. It is amazing what the intensity of an event can do to my sense of time and space. I learnt so much. The learning curve was steep and I spent a lot of time feeling terrified and insecure. I think the confidence and strength I learnt during that event carried me through the next few years. So reassuring to be back in that eventing space, in Durban in September in the rain, all these years later.

We visit the same places: Suncoast for dinner, Wilson’s Wharf for drinks. Travelling back to the airport on the last day, past silver-sun-washed sea and the new Durban stadium, I am struck by the strange synchronicity of it all. After all these years and all I have seen, it is still Durban in September in the rain that reminds me what I’m capable of and pushes me to think seriously about the next step, the next option and all I’ve learnt from the amazing people I’ve worked with in this town.

The dreaded scale

bus, Travel

The bus left Somerset West at 8:10 on Friday evening. I settled into my window seat and disappeared into an mp3 playlist, dozing every now and then. All went well until, somewhere near Swellendam, sometime around midnight, the bus pulled off the road.

We had no idea what was going on. The lights were turned on, the bus stopped and we sat idling for ages. After about half an hour of waiting, the bus pulled back around and then returned to where it had originally stopped. Another delay, another trip around the circle. After a third trip around, the stewardess finally informed us that the bus was overweight. The reason for the going around and around was that they had been attempting to redistribute the luggage to balance things out – the weighbridge measures the weight on each axle – but to no avail. The only solution was for some passengers to get off the bus.

They weren’t, it turned out, planning to leave people there. Someone had called someone who knew someone who was organising a mini-bus taxi to take some people through to the next stop, where passengers would get off, so we would no longer be overloaded. ‘n Boer maak ‘n plan.

The stewardess found 13 volunteers who were loaded into the taxi when it arrived. The bus returned to the weighbridge. Still too heavy. Two more people moved to the taxi. The bus moved back to the scales. We got half way and it looked like we were going to run into problems. We couldn’t unload anyone else because the taxi could not legally carry more than 15 people. This is not normally a problem in taxis but this was at the actual traffic department stop with traffic cops running the place so they would have complained. That said, they didn’t seem to notice when the stewardess asked the passengers from the front to move to the middle and crouch down so that we could get through the weighing and get out of there.

It worked and the bus was on the road again, much to everyone’s relief. As we headed off into the night, it occurred to me that all of this had taken place in a country where most people strongly belief that traffic cops do nothing, in the middle of a Friday night and in the midst of a massive labour dispute between public service workers and government.

Cape Town fake day

Adventures, Cape Town, Friends, trains and train stations, ,

On Tuesday I got up early and headed to the station. I had planned to take the Premium Express train – a “business-class” train that runs between Strand and Cape Town each week-day, complete with complimentary coffee, tea, newspapers and SAPS-on-board. Sadly, it appears to be impossible to buy a single-journey/one-day ticket for this train.

So I found myself buying a perfectly ordinary Metro-plus return ticket on a perfectly ordinary (beautiful) Tuesday morning. I found a comfortable bench on the platform and waited. Other passengers drifted in and found their own benches. Some read books. Some stared into the distance. A community-safety volunteer in reflective vest wandered along the platform. A cleaning-lady was sweeping. The place was close to spotlessly clean already. She picked up a stray sweet paper. A delivery-man arrived with some pies and they chatted about her recent trip to the Transkei. It was so peaceful.

The train arrived and I climbed (well, stepped) aboard. I had a whole carriage to myself for a while, but then one or two others joined me. The trip was quiet and beautiful. I sat at the window and looked out at a beautiful world. Mountains rose in the distance. A dam sparkled in the morning sun. Arum lilies grew beside of the railway line, white on green.

We passed settlements – suburbs? townships? – where houses were being built and extensions done and walls painted. Everywhere building, growing, developing. But pretty rather than commercial. Attractive. Each house with a garden, some just lawn, some with beautiful flowers. Hibiscus flowered next to jasmine. It was so good to see built-up areas with space and light and gardens.

As we came into Cape Town, the mountain rose huge and magnificent above the city bowl. My sister has this concept of ‘fake days’ – days that are so beautiful if they were pictures they’d be rejected because they’d be unrealistic. This was a ‘fake day’ in Cape Town. Seriously, no one city should be allowed to be that pretty. It was exquisite.

I met a friend at the station. They’ve just redone Cape Town station. It’s huge and open with shiny tiles and brand new, easy-to-read signage. It looks good. Most South Africans – or at least those born into or who have now reached the ‘class’ where they can mortgage their lives to buy a car – never use public transport. It makes me a little sad because they miss out on so much. When you’re in a car, even if you’re not driving, you miss out simply because roads tend to have more houses beside them than railway tracks. I had a moment of wondering what would get South Africans back onto public transport. The whole experience from beginning to end was great for me.

Friend and I wandered off into Cape Town. We started at a super sandwich place and then took a wonderful, gentle stroll. We went down to the Artscape to look at the Zebras. The Zebras are part of an exhibition around the theme “not all is black and white”. They’re fascinating and add yet another reason to visit Cape Town city centre.

Later, after various stops around the city, we made our way to Company Gardens. The day was still ridiculously beautiful. The sun streamed into the lush, green gardens as we wandered along the shady paths and squirrels scuttled up trees and flocks of pigeons took off in a flutter of wings. Some seagulls have moved into the gardens and as we watched, muscled their way in on the crumbs people were throwing to the pigeons. I felt a little sorry for the pigeons. The seagulls, in turn, were displaced by a set of amorous Egyptian geese. I was lovely to sit in these quiet, beautiful gardens with the lunchtime crowds settled on the grass enjoying the beautiful weather.

Later, after that friend headed off back to work, I caught a cab to the Waterfront. I’d forgotten how much I enjoy the Waterfront. Ultimately, a mall is a mall but after a long stint in a country that doesn’t really have malls in the sense that we do, it’s pleasant and relaxing and just a little luxurious to wander around an upmarket mall full of brand-name stores, the gorgeously rich scents of chocolate and coffee, the glimmer of artificial light off perfectly polished tiles and freshly painted signs and walls. If feels safe, secure and familiar. I had coffee with a friend at a little chocolatier and coffee shop that served the most delicious chocolate eclairs. It was a delightful place. The whole mall was fairly empty on a random Tuesday afternoon. Here I think it was just us and perhaps one other table. We drank coffee with sugar lumps. Luxury comes in many forms; good coffee, delicious sweets and delightful conversation is one of my favourites.

Back at the station, I found my platform, thanks to the friendly and efficient info desk, and hopped onto my train. I travelled through the growing dusk towards Strand Station. There were far more people on the train this time – my carriage was full. It was still beautiful. I got back before dark and headed home to change before going off to have dinner with two more friends.

A beautiful day of sunshine in stupidly pretty city and lots of wonderful time with friends.