Cape Town, South Africa
We should be landing in Berlin right about now, but – instead – we’re here, blogging from an airport lounge. Let’s talk about how this happened.
First of all, things started our really well. Our hotel in Cape Town gave us late check-out, so we had time to see a few more sights before heading to the airport for our 5:00 p.m. flight to Johannesburg. We got to visit the South African Museum of Slavery located in the the former Slave Lodge – the second oldest buildings in Cape Town – which housed over 9000 slaves, convicts and mentally ill people. It later became the South African Supreme Court. In 1966 it was reopened as a social history museum. The museum featured exhibits on the history of the slave trade in South Africa and worldwide, as well as, Apartheid era resistance and current human rights issues.
After that, we had an opportunity to view Saint George’s Cathedral – where Desmond Tutu served as Arch Bishop – and walk through the Company Gardens.
When it was time to leave for the airport, we called an uber. He arrived and pulled into a small alleyway next to our hotel that I think is only for pedestrians during the day. The driver got out of his car and left it running, left his door open, grabbed our bags and put them in the trunk. When we got in the car a parking guard/traffic cop (I’m not quite sure of his authority level, but he had a vest) was writing down our drivers license plate number in the front of the car.
The parking guard came around to our driver’s rolled down window and our driver started trying to drive away! The parking guard was hanging inside the car running next to the car, trying to take our driver’s cell phone (which was hooked to the dash, like most uber drivers do), I presume in an attempt to make him stay. Our driver was pulling the cell phone back, trying to drive through the alley without hitting all the people in front of us. The driver and the parking guard were yelling at each on other in Xhosa. People around were starring and booing the parking guard – who was still half-in/half out of our car.
Josh and I just were just sitting motionless in the back of the car. Do we get out? Do we stay? Is this guy a real officer? Are we going to get in trouble? Should we pay the ticket?
A crowd began to form around the car and booed the officer even louder. I think this distracted him and he looked away long enough for our driver to push him back and hit the gas. We floored it and drove on to the airport like nothing ever happened.
This was perhaps a bad omen of difficult things to come. We had no problems with the first leg of our trip (Cape Town to Johannesburg) until the very end. There was storm coming in and our descent for landing was extremely turbulent. Even with the bad landing, we still had a 1.5 hour layover in Johannesburg before our connecting flight back to Doha. Plenty of time – so we thought.
When we walked inside the Johannesburg airport we were stunned to see how long the security line was. We had to go through security and immigration in order to get to our next flight gate. Initially, there were three employees working security. By the time we got far enough up in the line to see what was going on, all but one security line had closed down and there was rumor going through the line that no one was working at the immigration desk and that line was at a complete stand still.
By the time we cleared security, we had 30 minutes until our gates closed and the rumor appeared to be true. No one was at the immigration desk.
We swapped stories with the people around us and a group of Spanish tourists also had a flight leaving at the same time. With the approval of a handful of people in front of us who had later flights, we pushed our way further up the line. Eventually, we got stuck behind others who were just as late for their flights and couldn’t move any further.
Our flight was a Qatar Airways flight and the only one they had for that day. If we missed our flight not only would there not be another one that day, there would be no Qatar Airways employee to talk to because they did not have a terminal at the airport because all the desk employees double as the flight attendants once on board.
We now had 15 minutes to boarding and 2 desks at Immigration finally opened. We did something we’ve never done before. Following behind the Spanish tourists, we jumped the rail and ran to the front of the line (in the US, I’m pretty sure this would have got us detained, but there weren’t enough employees here to notice or care). One immigration desk let two people through, then the lady just got up and walked away.
Luckily, we were next up in the line of the man who stayed and Josh went through first and I followed right behind. At this point, other people were cutting in line and jumping the rails.
The crowd was getting loud. There was booing and yelling and pushing. It was about to get bad, but we didn’t stay to see because we were sprinting through the airport to our terminal.
The gates were supposed to close at 8:15 and at we should have had 10 minutes. About half way to the terminal, an announcement came on the intercom saying the gates for our flight were closing. We ran up an escalator (Josh almost fell and took out an elderly woman), we pushed past several people and made it JUST in time to board the last bus out to the terminal.
While all this was happening the thunderstorm that had started earlier was going full force and there was lightening and pouring rain. We were basically the last people to get on the plane and sat down just in time for the captain to tell us we had been delayed 40 minutes. Forty minutes became an hour and then the plane had to refuel because it had idled so long on the runway.
By the time we took off for the 8 hour flight, what was once a 45 minute time frame to transfer from Doha to Berlin was cut to only 5-minutes. A lot of people were in the same boat and the flight attendants (as they always do) lied to everyone saying the planes would probably wait.
The flight we needed to be on was also the only flight directly to Berlin for the entire day. We landed just as our Berlin flight was taking off. A Qatar Airways agent was waiting for us at the gate with new tickets to 12:30 p.m. flight to Budapest with a 2.5 hour layover and another 1.5 hour flight to Berlin. This puts us arriving in Berlin around 11:00 p.m., when we should have been there at 11:00 a.m. We’ve lost an entire day of our 2-night stay in Berlin. The airline offered us a meal voucher as a consolation.
Josh and his love of all things free travel was not having it. I don’t know what magic he used, but we got fast-tracked through security and got full day passes to the ONYX lounge (super fancy with shower, video games, free wifi, free food, wifi and free secret alcohol that you have to make a special request for and they bring out discreetly). We were also told we would be upgraded to business class, but the man at check-in just told us the flight was fully booked and we would not be upgraded, after all.
When it’s all said and done we’ll have another 28+ hours in travel time and only a very short stay in Berlin until our flight home. If you need me, I’ll be looking at pictures of penguins and seals – thinking of happier times!
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