Cape Town is a different country

I can almost introduce myself to you today, dear reader.

After almost a week in Cape Town I’m an entirely new person. The year 2021 was difficult, I deserved this holiday. When I left Joburg last Saturday, I was as tired as the five-year-old Egg when she is told to pick up her toys.

But I’m refreshed and beginning to look forward to new projects at work. Not that it was easy. I kicked my holiday off with a heated argument with the security at the Cape Town airport.

My brother-in-law came to the airport to pick us up but the security guards refused to let us out at the door where a dozen or so people were waiting for passengers – many of them international tourists.

We could all see our family members were there waiting for us, but the security guards’ sheepdog instincts got the better of them. “This is entrance only,” they insisted.

“You must be joking,” a middle-aged German gentleman said.

“We have just flown 6 000 miles to get here and you are blocking us on the last 10 metres of our journey?” By now, several other guards joined the original two and one threateningly displayed a canister of teargas.

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Some words which can’t be repeated in a good newspaper such as The Citizen followed, but eventually we opted to leave at a door on the other side of the airport.

Debating with bureaucracy is futile. We had to walk quite a distance and stroll through a parkade before we could meet my brother in-law after several phone calls, leaving a proud group of security staff behind. That will teach these pesky tourists a thing or two!

But when we saw the mountain and smelled the sea, we started to relax.

We’ve done the typical Vaalie stuff – we went to the beaches and cavorted in the shallow, cold waves, we went to the aquarium, gawked at Table Mountain, ate fish in Kalk Bay and rested well, thanks to the hospitable locals.

After almost a week, I’m convinced the airport security is the exception.

“It’s nice here,” the five-year-old Egg told me last night.

“When are we going back to South Africa?”

My sister laughed, but Egg is right. Cape Town is an entirely different country – a very pleasant one. We’ll be back in Jozi next week.

A luta continua…