Category Archives: Travel

If wishing made it so

Travel

Sometimes when all the big things seem unmanageable, the only option is to fixate on the little things that can be controlled. In that spirit, I’m ignoring the fact that there is a huge universe out there, apparently hell-bent on screwing me over. There is another option in the pipeline but I refuse to get excited. I’m not doing that again. I am holding on with grim determination to cynicism and skeptical smirks. Unfortunately, I’m not very good at it, so I’m also directing my energies to worrying about how I should travel up to Joburg. This all premised on the success of the current process requiring me to go up to Joburg, but as I cannot imagine a world in which I remain here without seriously contemplating slitting of wrists, I’m going with it.

This leaves me pondering the best way to travel from the Eastern Cape to Gauteng. Last week, I went up by plane. Which was fine. Rather uneventful, actually. I am a fan of flying. I love the freedom and the uninterrupted me-time of flying. I realise that I say this from the perspective of one who has flown within SA, and therefore flying a maximum of 2 hours at a time but still. In fact, I’m a little bit in love with flying. There are disadvantages, however. Perhaps foremost of these being that East London airport is a bit of a mess at the moment. It’s never been a great airport, although it was always bigger than Richard’s Bay, more professional than Kimberley and better thought-out than Durban – not that that’s hard. It also still has the original 1970s old SAA colours light fittings, a delightfully bit of living history. But the airport currently being upgraded. Which is taking a ridiculously long time and apparently not making all that much difference except to delay everything and cover the whole world in building-dust. This makes the flying experience distinctly less pleasant. Flying is also the most expensive way to travel and money which could probably be more productively spent settling in to a new country.

Bussing is probably the most reasonable option. It’s moderately priced. It’s not ridiculously uncomfortable and I know I can do it. I know for sure I can do it because I just got off a bus this morning. It was fine. I quite like to watch the world from the window of a dubbel-verdieping bus. It’s pretty. Yes, even in the dark. The pre-dawn landscape of the Eastern Cape this morning warmed my heart – the gentle outlines of the so-familiar mountains against the lighter dark of the sky, scattered with flickering stars and a crowned with a half-setting moon. But it is long. And you don’t necessarily feel fantastic at the end of it. I think it’s the middle-of-the-night stop in Bloem. The broken sleep is just too much. Or perhaps, this time, the waiting for an hour (the bus was stuck in traffic) in the cold of Park Station. Waiting outside because there was no indication if the bus would be 5 or 55 minutes late. And I really don’t want to get sick again. I suppose I’ll probably end up taking the bus, but I’d prefer not to.

And then there is the whimsical option. The option you know you really shouldn’t. Because everyone says it’s not safe. And it probably isn’t. And it’ll probably be a mission to take a whole suitcase. And it really takes longer than a bus. Trains. Clickety-clack, clickety-clack, clickety-clack, clickety-clack…I’ve always loved the idea of train travel. I have vague memories of travelling by train many, many years ago when I was a child. And loving it. There is no better way to see the world than from the window of a comfortable train carriage. At least, so my romantic perceptions of train-travel suggest. A friend is talking about doing a much longer train trip in the near future, so we’ve been waxing lyrical about train travel all week. It has affected me. I also have a feeling that it is probably the cheapest way to get to Joburg.

So, provided I can get around the safety concerns, and provided I can convince anyone at the Shosholoza Meyl to give me information, and assuming that the trip is not at all time-sensitive, I am searching for a way to explore, for one last time, the route from the Eastern Cape to the economic hub of Africa, from the window of a train. Wish me whimsical luck and the echo of the clickety-clack across the plains of central SA…

The tyranny of administrative bureaucracy

Admin, Travel

Admin terrifies me. Not that I’m disorganised. Actually, I can be very organised. And logical. I’m quite logical about organising things. Which may be the problem. I sometimes think that logic is an alien concept to administrative bureaucracy. At every step, they have another, different form that has to be filled in. Sometimes it is a form that asks for exactly the same information as the last form. Sometimes it is mostly identical information except for that one obscure question that you never thought anyone would ask and that you can see no reason for them to ask and that you never actually bothered to find out. And they can never tell you WHY they need the information. Or why the last form you filled out can’t suffice for this step, too.

And just when you think you have it all sorted out, they announce that they’ve changed some of the regulations and you have to go back to the beginning. Or some muppet forgot to tell you that you needed to have photos. Or to fill out the form in triplicate. Or to stand on your head and click you heels together three times while singing Sarie Marais and smiling at the imaginary baby.

The worst part, the most terrifying part of administrative bureaucracy is that they have complete power over you. They can do whatever they want. On a whim, because he/she woke up in a bad mood, it is fully within the power of an admin person to lose/reject/terminate a crucial application or piece of paper with absolutely no explanation. And there is nothing you can do. You will be sent right back to the beginning of the queue. Months of admin and waiting and fighting with various government departments will dissolve into nothing – like a disprin ad – and you will have no choice but to start all over again. It’s like bad teachers and lecturers who spend all their time bemoaning the performance of their classes when the actual problem is that they don’t bother to set clear question papers.

And it’s not as if you can phone them and yell at them. There would be nothing quite as satisfying as going up to or calling an admin person who is messing you around or delaying you and yelling at them. But that would be counterproductive. Because upsetting them will simply make things take longer or get lost altogether. Assuming you could even get them on the phone. Answering phones (at any time in any manner, never mind  promptly and professionally) seems to be a section that was skipped in most admin people’s training. Especially if they work for government.

My admin journey seems now to be safely out of the hands of the South African bureaucracy, which I fervently hope is a good thing. A few things I’ve learned in the 5-month long process of obtaining all the documents required to apply for a visa:

1. Don’t, whatever you do, live in a small town on the other side of the country from the departments you need to fight with

2. The post office is actually a lot more efficient and effective than you’ve been told. Couriers not so much. Postnet is amazing!

3. The DFA will send back your documents and do what you ask but are incapable of answering their phones or email, so you’ll get your docs, you just won’t be able to track their progress

4. Never, ever, ever try and get admin out of any South African department in the same month that there is at least one public holiday ever week (April) and a national election. Just don’t. It will make you sad.

This afternoon, I am sending off all of the paperwork to another country, hopeful that I’ve filled out all the forms correctly, that there is nothing missing, that they will be a little quicker than my own country’s bureaucrats and that no-one loses, refuses or rejects any of the crucial bits of paper it’s taken 5 months to collect.

Packing

Travel

Still weeks away from leaving and a bureaucracy-ridden distance from confirmation, and at the risk of tempting “the wrath of the whatever from high atop the thing“, I’ve decided to be unusually optimistic and start the packing process. I almost had a magical packing moment this morning, when I thought I’d managed to fit all the things I’ve been considering taking into the suitcase at the first go. Until I realised I’d forgotten about shoes.

I am one of those odd creatures who enjoys buses, loves airports, doesn’t even mind delays and is willing to eat some airline food. Packing is probably my least favourite aspect of travelling. Not that I’m concerned about leaving something behind (mostly because I always overpack). Just because it’s tiresome. I’m not bad at packing, as such. I’ve reached the point, based on experience, where I can pack a suitcase for a business trip in Gauteng (ranging from 2 days to 2 weeks) in around 10 minutes. A trip overseas for a year is a little more complicated.

What I am discovering, however, is that there is a ceiling to how complicated packing can really be before it just becomes ridiculous. I have also been strangely affected by a brief trip to Moz earlier this year/late 2008. I’ve generally been a fairly economical packer – at least since travelling for work became a very regular part of my young life for a few insane years – but I’ve never been particularly good at that Zen-ish ‘travelling light’ and ‘relinquishing-obsessions-with-worldly-posessions’ approach.

Backpacking for a couple of weeks seems to have begun to change that. Which is not to suggest that I have suddenly become Zen – I’m far too OCD for that. But I am a lot less concerned about not having packed something I might need. I have a sense of what basics I will probably use and I’m taking just a very few other bits and pieces. I’ve even taken it further and thrown out years and years of accumulated junk so that most of my life will actually fit into one suitcase (except the 2 bookcases of books).

Ok, the real reason for this change (although facilitated by backpacking and one or two other experiences), is that I have to have space to take some of my precious books with me. And I may well arrive on the other side and wish I’d packed more stuff. But ass I pack and repack my bags, and toss out more and more, over the next couple of weeks, it’s a wonderfully superior feeling to pretend I really am Zen and am totally into ‘travelling light’.