Cape Town, South Africa 12/19/09

Cape Town, South Africa 12/19/09
Cliffton Beach (#2)

It’s a beautiful day here at/on the beach. It’s a sunny 28 c but with the ever present breeze, sometimes gusty, you don’t seem to break a sweat. In the shade it even feels cool.

I just got back from a chilly, always refreshing, dive into the surf. The water is cold here, as promised. It’s much colder than my pool at home which I have recently boasted is the perfect temp. My pool is currently about 23. The South Atlantic that I just got out of is estimated at 18. Funny, it seemed perfect at that temp too; proving once again that you can’t put a numerical value on feelings. The moment is all powerful and right now diving into the ocean, off a beach in Africa, is a moment that has me fired up on life. It would feel great probably no matter the actual temperature.

The surf is powerful here also. The kind of rolling, crashing, waves that make me regret my geographic upbringing in the Illinois. Sure I’ve lived on the coast for over 13 years now, more than enough time to take up surfing. However I still wish that surfing was second nature to me. Like riding a bike or climbing a tree; my childhood pastimes in Illinois. I’d love to be able to make the time for surfing these days but unfortunately it’s still to far down my own priority list to fit into the limited hours in a day, week, etc. Hell, I can’t even recall the last time I rode a bike let alone climbed a tree so maybe I wouldn’t be surfing much now no matter where I grew up. Either way, I’m confident that I’ll be able to dedicate some hours to surfing one day though. Maybe I’ll have some kids to “teach” eventually.

I’ll leave the rest of my surfing daydreams to myself when I’m staring at the waves without this pen and book in hand. Right now I should probably explain how I now find myself sitting on the far south west cape of the great “dark continent”.

The Honeymoon! A trip with a name, I love it! Sitting beside me, appearing for her first time in this journal as my wife, is Jillian. We were officially married back on October 4 but both of our lives were crazy busy, even by my warped standards, so we delayed our honeymoon until now. The delay didn’t bother me much, not to say I haven’t been counting the days down until this trip. No, the delayed honeymoon didn’t seem that bad because I think of the actual wedding as just a formality or rather an added bonus. I get to spend the rest of my life with this great person AND we get to have a big party too! Score! My life has been intertwined with Jillian’s for a few years now. The Wedding was far from the start of something. So putting off the ceremonial Honeymoon a few months was fine.

Don’t get me wrong. The wedding weekend was a blast and one of the highlights of my life. A 4 day celebration of both of our worlds and more rare moments packed into a few hours than you get in most of the years of your lifetime. Unfortunately there are few occasions when you are able to gather 99% of your family and friends into the same spot. This is the first time I’ve sat down to write since the wedding but I will save the re-cap for another entry….“yet knowing how way leads on to way I doubted if I should ever come back.” I suppose I can also just rely on the 1000+ pictures and countless stories from everyone that attended. Well see, now, back to Africa!

We left town, WPB, on the 16th and after 3 flights totaling almost 20 dedicated hours of fly time, we arrived in Cape Town. The flights were relatively uneventful. Well other than almost not being allowed to leave the country. That was definitely an event.

We arrived in Atlanta from West Palm with only a 50 minute layover before boarding the trans-Atlantic flight to Johannesburg. So after grabbing a slice of pizza on the way to our new concourse, they were already boarding our zone when we walked up to the gate.

We zipped right up to the ticket counter to get our boarding passes stamped and our passports checked. One of several staff they had behind the counter to check in the large, fully sold flight grabbed my passport and started to flip through it. She gave me the standard “Your passports pretty full.” that I have heard before. I replied with a smile, “Ya, there are a few pages open in the back though.”

I thought we were just making small talk but next she said, “No, those pages are for amendments only. You have to have a completely clean visa page in order to board the plane. You don’t have one. I’m sorry but I can not let you on the flight.”

I’m sure the look of confusion on my face was priceless. As Jillian later said “It seemed so outrageous I thought we were being punked!”

Well we weren’t. After a few rounds of my saying, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, what are you saying?!” and two Delta gate agents giving me options like book flights to New Orleans, visit the passport office, get more pages, and then re-book your flight to Africa; seriously THAT was there solution.

When she explained it wasn’t her rule, it was the South African’s I remembered I had heard of this issue before. I recalled reading or being told about this before entering Cambodia; that they want a completely empty page so they can put their giant visa stamp in without covering up other stamps. I had heard though that for an extra fee you could get around this.

I told her I understood, “Let me on the flight and I’ll work it out when I get to South Africa.”
She said, “They’ll throw you in jail.” I found this real hard to believe and told her I was fully prepared to take the chance. She still said no. Somehow I don’t think my possible incarceration for an overused passport was her big worry. Probably more like a chance to free up two seats on an oversold flight.

They tried to direct me to leave the desk several times. “I’m sorry sir. There is nothing we can do for you here!” I wouldn’t walk away. I just couldn’t believe as we quickly approach 2010, a little piece of paper stapled into a little paper book with little stamps on it, was the only thing standing between a flight to Africa OR spending thousands of Dollars and at least 2 more days trying to get more little pieces of paper.

I said, “Seriously?! Just change the title of the “Amendment” page to “Visas”! It’s just a blank piece of paper!” Of course she wouldn't allow it. Any change to a little, 12 point font word would surely spread anarchy around the world! What makes me even more mad now is that after further examination two of my precious amendment pages have been used by other countries so obviously these pages are only sacred to Delta gate agents.

I took my passport back and said, “There’s got to be a page that’s barely used. They aren’t ALL full!”

The agent was holding her line. Jillian was crying. The agent’s supervisor was asking me to please leave the desk so they could help the next person. I frantically flipped through my legal hall pass to the World…and there it was. PAGE 19!

“Hey, what’s wrong with page 19?!” I asked as I handed her the weathered but unstamped page.
Two other agents were looking over her shoulder and before “my” agent could say a word one of them said, “Ya, that page is fine. What’s wrong with that one?”

“I must have missed it.” was the only explanation the agent gave for the undeserved emotional kick in the nuts. She quickly stamped our boarding passes and handed us back our precious paperwork so we could board the plane. It was 5 minutes of agony but we were soon on the plane and Jillian’s tears had turned to tears of joy.

In hindsight I should have taken down all of the agent’s names and contact info so I could give this report back to them: When we cleared immigration in Johannesburg the agent didn’t say a word to me. He found the first page with an open corner and placed his stamp among the others. It was the quickest and easiest country I have ever entered. Not a single question, not even a hello. Page 19 of my passport is still untouched and ready for the next adventure!

It’s been pretty relaxing since we arrived and we have not done much to write about yet. Cape Town is beautiful and the iconic Table Mountain that sits in the middle of it looks very enticing to me. I can’t wait to hike up, down and around on it.

We overslept a little the first day, and Jillian is sleeping next to me right now, so I hope "we" won’t be fighting some jet lag issue for a week. We checked out the marina and some shops but mostly it’s been nice to just have long meals and slow drinks. I feel like Jillian and I have not sat around together in months….and that’s probably true.

I remember when we finally reached our hotel room in Cape Town at 11 p.m., the day after we started our journey from South Florida, I had the biggest feeling of relief come over me. It wasn’t just from the long travel days or the scare from Delta. It was a sense of accomplishment from six months of literally planning our lives down to the minute; of clearing one life opportunity (buying a house, planning a wedding, starting new jobs) after another; of counting pennies and planning deposits before writing checks; of meetings, schedules, and spreadsheets…lots and lots of spreadsheets; of signing our names on more and more contracts each week; of confirmations and “triple checks”; and even 7,000+ runners cooperating.

Even the planning, if you could even call it that, of this honey moon I suppose deserves a mention. One night at about midnight a few months ago, when I was just wrapping up work in the home office, Jillian brought up the honey moon that we had talked about in passing. We had talked about destinations in between the more pressing issues and Africa seemed to be the place that held the most allure for both of us. Finally that night I said, "Let's just do it." So I got on-line, cashed in miles, and booked us two tickets to Johannesburg. (A few weeks later I booked us a local flight from Johannesburg to Cape Town and Jillian found us a hotel for the first few nights....and now as we actually sit here that is still all we have planned. I love it! We'll figure it out....)

So it’s been a busy 6 months to say the least and after all this…we are finally in Africa!
When we reached our room that night I felt like there should be a finish line and people cheering for us and not just a quiet hotel room in a dark city. But then I remembered this isn’t the finish line. It’s just the last .2 miles of our marathon. The .2 when you are tired but overjoyed. The finish line is inevitable which puts a smile on your face even though your body and mind are hurting.

Our finish line is December 31, 2009 at 11:59 p.m. in front of a falling conch shell in Key West, Florida…and I can hear the people cheering already!

MJF