Arrived Safely

So, I made it safely to Cape Town. Getting to the airport was a bit of a debacle tho ... I had arranged earlier in the week for Varen's brother Zion to give me a lift to the airport, knowing just how crazy mental it would be at this time of year. Oh, and naturally to avoid the insane parking fees.

Things didn't work out quite as planned ... and I'm still not entirely sure what exactly went wrong. I had planned to meet Brother Zion at Brother Swoop's place at around 15h45, where I'd be leaving my car for the duration. I raced out of work at 15h00 and managed to get thru the surprisingly minimal traffic to arrive at Brother Swoop's place at around 15h30. I had tried earlier in the day to get hold of Brother Zion but it turned out I still had his old cellphone number - damn! So I waited around and read my book getting more and more paniced. I tried reaching Varen's mom in the hopes of getting hold of Brother Zion that way ... her phone constantly went to voice mail. I even ended up calling Varen's friend Koet, in the hopes that he had someone in Varen's family's phone number ... he didn't.

At around 15h50, I raced off to Varen's folks house (where Brother Zion lives) thinking that perhaps he forgot where we were meeting or something. After frantically harassing their useless security guard because he was delaying me further because he wanted me to fill in a form that he had left in the guard house, I eventually just left my car in the road and raced thru the gate to bang on their front door. There were no cars standing outside, but Brother Zion's bike was there. No answer. Well, maybe I had just missed him.

So I jumped back in my car and headed back to Brother Swoop's place (let me explain that he is currently down the South Coast on holiday so it is not as simple as knocking on his door). There was no sign of Brother Zion. But just in case, I banged frantically on Brother Swoop's door. No answer.

After all this manic driving around and probably 11 missed calls to Varen's mom I gave up and eventually drove myself to the airport at around 16h10.

I parked in the most far away parking (hopefully the cheapest) and raced to Domestic Departures. I arrived to the longest queue in the history of queues (although it may have gotten longer during the couse of the afternoon). But luckily I'd still arrived about 2 hours early for my flight. I made it thru the queue eventually, got my seat and breathed a sigh of relief as I passed thru security. There were no delays - thank you Kulula.

Oh, and this morning when I woke up to the toasty heat of Cape Town summer, I went for a swim in our pool :) Let me tell you, that is not a regular occurence. But it was fabulous!