Johannesburg-Livingstone

RANEE'S SOUTH AFRICA DIARIES: JOURNAL 2

May 21

Anthony was in early, to make our breakfast, wearing 5 layers and shivering. The cold front could come in from Cape Town once in a while, he said, and stay for a few days. But this was highly unusual weather for May. In fact, according to Anthony, it may even have been record lows for the time of year. That did not help us as we froze in the chilling morning breeze, getting ready to leave for Livingstone, Zambia.

Anthony had brought his breakfast provisions in a red, soft-backed suitcase of all things! Out of the suitcase came cereals and eggs and cheese and bread—the 5 grain variety that I don’t quite like—and fruits and yoghurt. He went about his business cooking and laying the table as we went about ours, packing and making use of the 3G card to check e-mail.

At exactly 8.20, we were out and on our way to the airport again. It was Monday morning and we got a taste of the traffic as we crawled our way out of Sandton and into the highway. People generally leave home as early as 5.30 or 6am to get to work in time and until about 9am, the traffic didn’t seem to move. Once on the highway,though, things were much faster and to our surprise, we reached the airport well in time.

As we got out of the white van and waved goodbye, Anthony was distracted by an old man in the driver’s seat of another white van parked next to ours. The old man was obviously very sick. We couldn’t wait, so we went on. Anthony told us later, on the 23rd, that the old man was having a heart-attack and Anthony stayed at the airport for about an hour while he was given emergency medical attention, stabilized and taken to the hospital.


At the Terminal A Nationwide counter everything went smoothly and soon we were hanging around our gate no. 24, watching planes and waiting to board our CE202 flight to Livingstone. Things took their time, as they do in airports, and in due course, we were on a little bus taking a long journey to our aircraft, a 777-200.

The flight was all of 1 hour and 25 minutes and during this time—almost from the moment we took-off to the moment we landed—we were served a juice, then a full meal, then drinks. In between, we stared out of the window at the African landscape below.