We met the transfer our travel agency arranged. Since we are flying out of Zimbabwe we did not need to go through the border craziness. We arrived 3 hours before our flight. It looks like they have less than ten international flights all day. We were the first people to arrive. We even beat the check-in agents.
With three hours to kill before boarding, we entertained ourselves with a walk through the airport. They decorate this airport with taxidermy stuffed animals of the big five -- rhino, hippo, buffalo, lion and leopard. I've gotten to see all five in the wild.
In the women's restroom was a door marked Oriental. (Must not be politically incorrect here.)
I was glad the bathroom was deserted because I had to know why. I was sad I had already gone or I would have tried it out.
We received an email this morning from our travel agent saying she had learned there would be an evacuation drill at the Cape Town airport 50 minutes after our flight was scheduled to land there. Depending on whether our flight was on time and the customs process we could be caught in that drill. Our plane did leave just a little late. We were bound and determined to be out of the airport before the drill happened.
We hustled to passport control before there was a line. The person who met our plane grabbed our luggage. We didn't have anything to declare. We were out of the airport and into our transfer in record time. Our driver had WiFi in his vehicle. When we connected to it we learned that the evacuation drill had been cancelled. However, our hotel is just on the other side of the soccer stadium and there was a big game today so the traffic was bad. Our driver got off the highway and brought us by a more scenic route. It took him longer to get us to our hotel than it normally would.
We are on the third floor of a small boutique hotel on the V & A waterfront area of Cape Town. We have a view of the Atlantic Ocean. We can see Robben Island where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 18 of the 27 years he served before the fall of apartheid. We will visit it tomorrow.
Our travel agent booked us two seats at Reverie Social Table for dinner tonight. We had a hard time getting there due to the soccer game ending right near our hotel. Reverie is an experience. It was a five course meal with wine pairings. The food was locally sourced and delicious. Our travel agent had warned us to pace ourselves. We had quail, yellow tail, roasted cauliflower salad, Stanford cheese, a chocolate dessert I can't even begin to describe with a mulberry sorbet on the side and so much more.
What makes Reverie so wonderful is they only serve up to 18 people a night. We all sat at one long table. You spend 4 or more hours with complete strangers from around the world. There were people from Mauritius, Germany, Cape Town, Nairobi and New York. We ate delicious food and got to know each other. It really was delightful.
But we were the first to leave. We are being picked up at 8 am tomorrow for a tour of Cape Town.
Susan, fascinating.
ReplyDeleteHaving a travel agent was such a good idea. I don't see how you could have taken the trip without that help.
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