Bridget is another example of ‘it’s a small world after all,’ she lives in Springdale Estates which connects to Bartlett Manor, which is where I live- in Brookfield, Wisconsin. She graduated from Catholic Memorial in ’05 with Jane’s sister Carly. Bridget is spunky, I was excited to travel with her. Jackie is from New York, has things done for her, bought for her, and is the type of person who forgets her passport.
We plan to meet at 0615 for breakfast on the ship. At 0616 the three of us are together, groggy but present, we are off to a good start.
At 0625 we are in a taxi. The driver says that it takes 25 minutes to get to the airport and we must be checked in an hour before our flight. Our flight is at eight, STEP ON IT! Bridget rhetorically asks, “Everyone have their passports!” Jackie doesn’t.
By the time we are on the road I bargain with the driver: if he gets a ticket for speeding we’ll pay double the fair; if he doesn’t get us to the airport in time we pay nothing.
He gets us to the door with five minutes to spare. We are relieved to find out that we have to be checked in a Half hour before the flight. The security procedure included putting my bag (with things that wouldn’t pass TSA standards) on the belt and walking through a detector- we wonder if it was even plugged in.
When the rest of the flight starts lining up we realize that we do not have the connecting flight ticket. The man at the desk says if we run we can get it from the counter. Cutting off angered passengers, we explain the situation and our rush. Things moved in slow motion has he processed our request and people behind us yelled.
We ran through security, grabbed our backpacks, and got onto the bus that took us to our South African Airways flight.
The man I sat next to let me have the window seat so that I could see the mountains poking through the clouds below us and the expansive, beautiful terrain. His name was Gary. He’s a native, a hippie, and lives a nomadic life that takes him around the world doing various jobs. He told me of his adventures in places that I have never heard of, places familiar to me in the United States, and of places that I was going to be heading on my voyage.
Our flight had a layover in Johannesburg. Whenever I told someone this they would A. give me a pained look B. say, “A bomb threat inside the airport is safer than taking a step outside.” C. Tell me a story about someone that knew someone that knew someone that was shot or mugged or raped in Joburg, as the locals call it.
My thought: adventure. My conscience: mom and dad wouldn’t be happy to know I was traveling by myself with two girls here. My guard: high. My mind: open.
Somewhat to my dismay, we boarded our next flight without harm or misadventure. As we took off I could see the obvious poverty from the sprawling multitude of shacks below us. I sat next to a couple that had moved from Texas to Mozambique four years ago. They had just opened a transition house with the mission to help young boys become productive young men by giving them the structure of a home and family. They had seven boys.
Kruger International Airport looks like a lake cabin. It’s about as big as one too. When we unboarded our plane we laughed and jumped in excitement- the scene around us was incredible: mountains, this funny little airport, a township, and so so much green! No security men really cared when we just hung out on the air strip terminal and waited for our friend’s plane to appear. Only a few minutes later it landed. The ten of us were together ready to embark on our safari!
No comments:
Post a Comment