The first couple of days in South Africa

Road Trip South Africa 2012

07.04.2012 | Travel Photography | South Africa | Road Trip

Welcome home to Johannesburg

After living in South Africa for nine months, I eventually had to leave in April 2008 – with tears in my eyes, because I had the most awesome time and found many friends. Before leaving I promised to come back as soon as possible – but I never imagined that it would take me four years! But nonetheless, it didn’t feel like four years at all once I arrived in Jozi.

After a pleasant flight with Lufthansa (LH572), the A380 landed at O.R. Tambo International Airport. Sitting in the very last row of the Airbus certainly has a disadvantage: you are the last person to deboard the plane and you have to queue for more than an hour at the immigration post. The luggage carousel had already stopped when I finally got there. Fortunately Heidi had enough patience to wait for me outside. Thanks Heidi!

Driving to Midrand via R21 and Olifantsfontein Road felt like I’ve been there yesterday. Heidi’s new house, and especially the garden and pool, is quite a bit smaller than the old property in Visser street, where I stayed four years ago. But nonetheless, it felt like coming home. Apart from that, the new place just has that holiday house touch to it. We spent all day catching up on things – four years are quite a long time after all.

A short drive to Laezonia and the Hartbeespoort Dam on Easter Sunday

After collecting my rental car from AVIS at Grand Central Airport and purchasing a couple of things in Woodmead, I went to fetch Heidi in Vorna Valley. We decided to take a short afternoon drive to the Hartbeespoort Dam. Taking the route through Hennops River valley, I also wanted to show Heidi where BASE4, the FWDCSA club grounds, are located. Unfortunately the gate was closed, so we decided to drive around it. This led us to an area we didn’t really expect that close to Midrand. Just 15 minutes out of town it felt like being in the middle of Africa. We even found strip roads as you would in Zimbabwe or Zambia. We literally reached THE END in the middle of the veld and had to turn around. On to Hartbeespoort and around the dam. We watched the sun set near NECSA, the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation. We parked on a bridge that crosses the N4 Magalies Freeway, which just ends all of a sudden for no apparent reason. Back in Midrand we enjoyed tasty fillet steaks with Madagascan pepper sauce at the Dros. Baie lekker!

Meeting Friends on Easter Sunday

Daniel invited me to go to church with him on Sunday. I never go to church at home, but given the opportunity, I wanted to see what church is like in South Africa. We went to the Corpus Christi AFM church in Midrand. It was very interesting and the band really rocked the stage. The preacher, Kwasi, spoke about Easter and hope. Very thoughtful and intelligent.

Back home, Heidi had already set up the braai and prepared the dronk hoender. Check the pictures if you’ve never heard of it. Even though a chicken sitting on a beer can looks rather odd, it definitely tastes really good! Tracey, Jocelyn, Michael and their two grand-sons came over for lunch. We had a lot of fun chatting and playing a card game called Quiddler. It is similar to Scrabble – and a very strange coincidence that the non-native English speakers won 😉