Departure

This trip is going to be quite unlike any other that I have blogged. Most of my travel has been solo, occasionally overlapped with friends or family. Then I met Mel, and our travel became a shared experience, but usually just as a couple. On this trip we would be introducing her family to Africa. Philip and Judith had been hearing of our adventures for years, and always dreamed of visiting Africa. Now an opportunity had come up, and they didn't want to miss it.

Thanks to our new travel partners, the trip also started quite unlike any of our other journeys. P&J do a lot of travelling for work, and this has helped them accumulate a war chest of frequent flyer points and airline status credits. A fringe benefit of this is access to Qantas' First Class Lounge and, to our joy, that includes travel companions. So, we celebrated the start of our adventure with champagne and table service, which was nice. It might end up being the last time we see that level of luxury for a while because our plan is to spend the next 5 weeks on a self-drive safari, camping through some of Southern Africa's wildlife hotspots. But firstly, we needed to fly to Johannesburg.

The flight was actually quite pleasant, which was partly helped by the legroom of our bulkhead seating, but mostly by the whopping 100 minutes that the pilots saved from our intended flight time! When we did land, we seemed to be the only plane at OR Tambo Airport, and we breezed through security in record time. I'd been telling P&J stories of African adventures for years, but this trip was actually turning out to be quite uneventful. They were probably starting to think that I'd been lending a bit of poetic licence in the past. But then the "adventure" returned.

P&J had been kind enough to arrange for our airport transfers on arrival. They had chosen a renowned international limo service that they had used over the years to streamline their business travel in all sorts of places across the globe. We were very early, so we were hoping that such a professional outfit was watching the arrival time, and making the necessary adjustments to their pick up. As we exited the typically unmanned customs area, we cast our eyes for the limo driver who, in my mind at least, would be wearing a suit, tie, sunglasses, gloves and a chauffeurs hat. But the company had not sent my stereotypical Hollywood limo driver...or a sign with our names on...or anyone at all, as it turns out. We connected to the airport wifi to see if we could contact the company and notify them of our early arrival, but instead we were met with an email from them advising that it had become too hard, and that they wouldn't be coming at all! We needed to make a Plan B.

I'll be honest, getting transport from an airport is not difficult, even in Africa. But we had a lot of baggage, and I also didn't fancy P&J's first impression of Africa being a sea of touts, and then a psychotic minivan driver. So, we tried our hand at Uber, and, sure enough, a van was nearby. But, now we had to find the pick-up area, and this is where Africa returned to form. The Uber app clarified that we needed to meet at "Pillar 2E of the Level 2 Parkade", and airport staff did their best to refine our search as we pushed our luggage trolleys in vague circles around the airport. Like some secret entrance to the African chapter of the Illuminati, we eventually found the passageway to the Level 2 Parkade...on Level 1! It was good to be back.Read more