Prep
It seemed like I was packing for a week to get ready for this trip! I took more than a month to prep and make sure I had everything I needed and then 4 days of packing stuff up into 7 different suitcases mostly filled with gear, and oh by the way, I should probably take some clothes as well!
Nine weeks is a long time to be gone from home so you have to factor all those things into your prep as well.
The Journey
Finally the day arrived and I woke up on Friday and it was finally time to go. I also woke up to the news of a nationwide IT failure by the Crowdstrike people involving security with large enterprise scale, Microsoft software that ultimately ended up canceling mine and thousands of other peoples flights that day along with taking down banks and medical records all over the country. There was no possible way to get to Newark to pick up my flight to Cape Town on Friday so I had to cool my jets and hang out one extra day and frantically try and rebook something for Saturday.
It was pretty sketchy but I did finally end up getting something from Charleston airport instead of Savannah to Washington DC with a relatively short layover to Cape Town South Africa getting there at about 4 PM on Sunday. This also means that the two days I had to spend in Cape Town has now shrunk to one and I'm paying for a night of hotel that I can't use–thank you Microsoft!
I had a friend drive me to the airport in my car with 7 suitcases full of gear which in the end cost me $900 in baggage fees. Usury! And if you are even one pound over 50 pounds on any individual bag and it's an additional $200!
Two of my bags were 51 and a half on their scale so I had to bust in there and pull a pair of pants and a couple shirts or whatever out and shuffle them into the bag that was 47.8 pounds! I think they cut me a break on .2 pounds when it was all said and done.
I put Apple AirTags in every bag and while I was munching on a Cinnabon Mini (airport tradition for me) I pulled up the FindMe app and made sure they were tracking.... The line for Chick-fil-A was insane!
Then it was off to gate B1 to wait two hours for the plane to DC.
Layover
Still not recovered…
I had almost 3 hours in DC before getting on Flight 2222 to Cape Town flying overnight 14.75 hours, arriving Sunday at 3:15 in the afternoon. The west coast of Africa is 6 hours ahead of the East Coast of the USA while we are on DST.
The trick will be to stay up as late as possible to get in some kind of sync with local time zone; we'll see how conducive the plane is to sleep. It sure is cold on the plane! I had a whole row of 3 seats to myself; I think I'll take all "their" blankets!
We had a hell of a tail wind, and once we got into the Southern Hemidphere it just kept getting stronger until, about an hour before landing it was up to 170mph! That's like a Category 4 hurricane without all the swirling! Even after circling a couple times we still got there a half hour early!
There was no jetway for our plane (guess a triple 7 doesn't “rate in the Cape”) so we lugged our stuff down some stairs and got bussed to the customs terminal.
Baggage Excesses
The whole passport thing was uneventful but I'm traveling with a lot of stuff and was initially confused when the telescope in its road case did not appear with the rest of the bags but was discovered later by one off the baggage assistants on the "oversized bags" area even though it was smaller and lighter than everything except my carry-ons.
I almost got through the duty/declare area unscathed but was stopped by an agent who started asking questions apparently because the scope in its road case looked a lot like "gear" and not just 'luggage'.
He wanted to know what all I had and how much it was worth and said that to avoid paying a duty there was a form I should have had filled out back in the USA listing everything and it's value if I wanted to just waltz through. I tried explaining that my final destination was a different country and was only going to be there a day and a half but they have their “rules” about "importing" stuff to South Africa.
But since I didn't have that form now we were talking options like me leaving all my stuff, taking my now only day in Cape Town to find a local equipment broker to fill out the form (if I could find one; they're not allowed to recommend) pay him $130 and get the form or I could pay the standard duty (20% of declared value) which in my case, even lowballed, was going to be $2500!!!
We talked about it more and eventually settled on me paying them what it would have cost to pay that broker so I ended up paying them $126.40 and was on my way...
The ride to the hotel was uneventful other than that it was my first time riding in a right-hand drive vehicle!
I got up to my room and got some things charging and let Mom know I'd made it safely and then went to the restaurant in the lobby for a chicken sandwich and a beer which was less than $13 including tip!
First Sky
After dinner I ventured outside for my first look at southern skies, even though it was from the city; I was hoping for 'not too bad' light pollution! Well, it was very light polluted but the Southern Cross was straight overhead with the super bright stars Rigil Kentaurus and Hadar (yellow and blue respectively) beaming overhead to the left of the Cross; I can only imagine what this will look like from the desert!
Cape Town Sightseeing
I only had one day in Cape Town to sightsee instead of two so after an early breakfast at the hotel (excellent!) I decided to take a driving city tour from a local tour operator which turned out to be a lady named Leticia and we just drove around in her car since I was the only customer.
The tour started at 9am at the famous Aquarium in downtown Cape Town but first I had to get there. Uber is a great way to get around here but since this was at rush hour I was advised to allow 1.5 hours to go the 16 miles from the hotel to the aquarium; "welcome to Cape Town"!!!
Well the traffic was absolutely insane and it seemed like every other vehicle on the road was one of these 18-seat passenger vans which they refer to as "taxis" although they operate as public transportation in the manner that busses do. They were all packed.
I didn't mind though as the Uber driver was very chatty and I peppered him with questions about South Africa and Cape Town and we had great conversation.
Leticia was a fountain of good information and I learned that South Africa, because of its position on the planet and all the people that have come here over the years that it is one of the most genetically diverse cultures in the world. The Dutch and the British haggled over this place for hundreds of years and intermingled with the locals and people from all over the Middle East and Europe (especially Germany and France), along with some slaves up until the 1850s creating a unique genetic soup here.
One of the most impressive sights here is the high mountains that go right up to the ocean, creating a sloping terrain that's fantastic for building expensive houses with amazing ocean views.
Apparently there is a tectonic plate subduction zone here that drives those mountains up as another plate is sliding below, so the bulk of the city of Cape Town exists in this "bowl" between the mountain ranges. The most famous of the mountains is Table Mountain (no, not the star party in Washington State) and as you might guess, it's very flat on top. Ordinarily you can take a tram up to the top for a breathtaking view of the city in all directions but they're doing some repairs and it's closed until September.
We stopped at Signal Hill overlook that is famous for tandem paragliding where you can strap on to the pilot (like tandem parachute jumping) and go running down an embankment into the air for a nice 'float' down to the sea where there are some suitable landing zones.
After this we went through the city center, we stopped at a diamond and tanzanite factory and took a tour there (they must've had 50 people working there!) and to a crafts market with hundreds of local artisans' booths displaying everything from wood carvings to clothing, handbags, etc. all with that African 'flavor' you get from the colors and the style of production.
There was also an artists area with brightly colored houses/shops that kinda looks like the African version of Miami's South Beach. Apparently this area was once a mostly slave living area and slaves were forbidden by law from openly 'trading' but they could get away with some stuff so the color of the houses started to have some correlation to what commodity you could get there, under the table of course!
We stopped by the big public square where Mandela gave his famous speech after being released from prison, which was on an offshore island that has now been turned into a museum.
The rest of the things on the tour really didn't interest me so we finished a little early and since I'm still jet lagged I took a nice afternoon nap!
Tomorrow is the plane flight to Namibia and then five hours in a Jeep to get out into the desert to the resort. Then I will start to have my dark sky experience of a lifetime!
Bill the Sky Guy
July 22nd, 2024