Tuna
Sunday 06 August 2023 – Monday 07 August 2023
I knew it was going to take 2 days to get to Cape Town, but ……… I got sick of sitting in aeroplane seats, breathing aeroplane dry air and waiting at airports. However, it was made a bit better as The Albatross booked us business class all the way, which included the lounges.
The first flight was Perth to Mauritius. There are no direct flights to South Africa from Perth anymore, so we had to overnight in Mauritius as there were no connecting flights. A g&t in the lounge helped to pass the time until boarding.
Air Mauritius had upgraded their fleet since the last time we flew with them, so the seats were much more comfortable and could go flat. A glass of nice French champagne helped us setting into our seats. The first 10 minutes were fending off The Albatross who wanted to annoy the crap out of me by playing with the reclining controls to my seat. Unfortunately, it wasn’t something he got sick of so it was a battle on every single f’n flight.
So over eight hours later we touched down in Mauritius and had to go through immigration as we had to overnight. I filled out two pointless forms for each of us and then we stood in line for an hour and a half because they only had two people on to process at least two plane loads. Aarrgghh!!! So, by the time we eventually made it to our accommodation it was 8pm. One good thing was we could check out luggage right through to Johannesburg so we didn’t need to lug that around, just a clean t-shirt and knickers. There was a small bar beside the guest house, but was out of most things or they didn’t want to cook some stuff as they’d mostly finished serving food. However, they did have beer, which was most delicious, and a few food items, and we could sit outside for some fresh air. The accommodation didn’t quite meet expectations so was a bit crap. The bed was rock hard, the room stuff and extremely basic.
Monday morning was an early start and it didn’t help that we hadn’t sleep well the night before, had a bit of jet lag and the hot water was lukewarm at best. We breakfasted at the airport and the view was …. medicore!
Then we waited around for the flight from Mauritius to Johannesburg. This was a shorter flight, only about 4 hours. Again, they welcome you onboard with a glass on French champagne, regardless of the time of day. Not a bad way to start a flight really.
We had a connecting flight in Jo’burg to Cape Town and had about 2 hours to do it. The views out the window were quite lovely.
I was a bit worried it was going to take a while to get through immigrations (sightly scared by the recent Mauritius experience), but we whizzed through in no time. One to airport porters latched on to us and took us to the right counter to check in (yes, he did get a tip for doing that). A light lunch and a g&t in the lounge helped pass the time until boarding.
The taxi bus drivers here in Cape Town have been demonstration and rioting, and it involved some violence and deaths. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Western_Cape_taxi_strike). We were advised by our accommodation host to check with the car rental company when we picked up our car to check what the status was and which roads were best to avoid. The N2 was the one to avoid that day, but it was also the main road from the airport to the city centre. However, as it was late afternoon the confrontations had ended so it as safe to go on the N2. We had planned to stop at a supermarket close to the airport and stock up on provisions. However, upon arriving at said shopping centre we found it to not only be closed but also barricaded by high gates and security guard in attendance. We chose to abandon shopping and headed off to get booked into our accommodation. Our accommodation host didn’t get the text message to say we were on our way so we had to wait about 20 mins for her to turn up. Despite all that our apartment is very clean and comfortable. She did go tell us, at length, about making sure we turn off everything, especially the heating, when we leave the apartment. South Africa is implementing load shedding as the government is apparently too broke to fix the power stations that have broken down. We dumped out stuff and walked over to V&A Waterfront to visit a supermarket and have dinner. The supermarket was closed, despite the tinternet saying it should be open. So, we had dinner, burger and a beer. Actually, a beer first, downed in record time, followed by a burger and some wine with a nice view of the waterfront.
Staggered home exhausted and collapsed into bed.