February 16, 2008
End of the line now – back in the Johannesburg airport, waiting for my flight. It’s 3:15 PM and the flight leaves at 7:20 PM, but that’s how things worked out, and I seem to have become sufficiently Africanized that sitting for a few hours in the airport bothers me not at all.
To wrap up the chronicle: we departed our little time-share this AM, after an amusing African moment. I had traipsed down to the reception building to arrange to pay the bill, the hope being that they would give me a receipt for my part and let John pay separately for his. The lady at the desk said “unfortunately we must have it all as one payment…” I explained how helpful it would be if they could somehow manage to break it out. Eventually she said “I would have to charge you 720R instead of 700R to do that.” “Fine”, says I, “I don’t mind, because we really do need separate receipts.” “Unfortunately, we cannot do that; we must have it all as one payment.” Go figure. So I settled the bill with my Visa card, and John paid me his share in cash.
After saying goodbye to the Germans, who at 8:30 AM had still not gotten under way for the day (Cameron’s idea of a good time to leave in the AM is 6:30, though we did sort of wean him towards 7:30 when there was no good reason for really early departures; but we all usually woke up by 6 or 6:15 anyway), we trundled off, stopping a few times near the condos to collect Gladiolus papilio seed for Cameron (and I got to graze on blackberries, which have naturalized in SA and which were the cause of my literal downfall, onto my face and eyeglasses, in Tordoon), then on to Harrismith for me to mail off three fat packets of seed, and then we headed towards Johannesburg via the old road, the hope being that we would find a couple of different Nerines for seed collection, as well as view a site where Haemanthus montanus grows. The Free State was quite dry – its vast maize fields (REALLY vast) were showing signs of stress, the vleis were dry, and the nerines were largely not to be seen. We finally found one site with N. angustifolia dotted about, but only the earliest bloomers had ripened a few seeds – not much to be had. We stopped for Cameron to admire the foliage of the H. montanus – for some reason he finds that species quite interesting, whereas I think, having had several unsalable ones around for years and watched them bloom and fruit, that they have all the charms of dirty white shaving brushes.
Eventually we had to return to the main (toll) road, and even at 48km outside JB the air was foully sulfurous, to the point where we all had shallow irritable coughs. SA generates virtually all its electricity by burning coal, and this foul smog, on a still day, blankets a huge region. The road to the airport, which C had been fretting about for the entire trip (“I HATE the traffic on that road – it terrifies me!”), turned out to be exceedingly tame, a perfectly standard highway, very well-marked, and not particularly busy. C deposited us both at the international departures area, and J and I bid him farewell – difficult! He was headed next to visit his son, on the other side of Jo-burg, so didn’t have too much more urban driving to negotiate.
John and I then took turns changing into our travel clothes and guarding each other’s luggage, and then we hugged goodbye and headed off in our separate directions. The Swiss Army knife I reminded myself SO many times to pack away in my checked luggage was, alas, still in my knapsack; the guard indicated it would have to be discarded in the very large trash can with the very small hole in the top if I didn’t have anyone with me to take it away; he said this as he fondled it sadly, so I just apologized a few times for my stupidity and said “Please, give it a good home!”, and I noticed it did not go into the trash. That knife served us all well, in the field and in the kitchen at Sterkfontein, where its only competitor was a single large, somewhat dented kitchen knife; I feel badly about it. Gone now, though.
So all I have to do now is sit here and read, and go phone Doug when it’s between 5 and 6 here.
When I finish Freya Stark’s The Southern Gates of Arabia, I will start on Obama’s biography, which I bought here at the airport bookstore. The whole end of the terminal in which I’m sitting is very new, very clean, pleasantly cool, and virtually unpopulated. It’s an amazing sensation, after the places we’ve been over the last two weeks.
Previous page: February 15, 2008