Alone, alone, all all alone.......

21/9

I cannot believe I had a good airport experience at Sydney going through customs. Last time was a nightmare and I was not looking forward to it this time. I have had nightmares every time I think about traveling on my own.  But seemed less busy this time and there was an airport person close by and I asked for help. She grabbed my passport, put it on the thing and told me to take off my glasses. I didn't know where to stand so I put my glasses back on and she pointed to yellow steps painted on the floor. Derrr..   Not the friendliest manner but at least that is her  job. From there it was easy. 

However I have yet to successfully do the passport thingy on my own.

Once on board the plane in my favorite aisle seat, my immediate neighbor advised that he would need to go to the bathroom a lot. I said so do I. I didn't say, that's why I have an aisle seat, stupid.  We had limited conversation thereafter though I am not entirely sure he didn't talk to me as he was on my left deaf side so who knows. 

The long 13.5 hour flight was made much worse by arriving in Johannesburg  and then having  to get a connecting flight to Cape Town . Luggage was not booked through so we had to get off , go through customs at jo'berg  which took 50 minutes at least,  and then re check in after picking up luggage.  None of these places were close or easily found.  I wandered around the airport and asked for help at least 5 times to find the right places.    Pretty stressy with not much time  to boarding.  A fellow passenger also similarly concerned about missing the plane, was accosted by someone in the airport who then wanted a tip for his services.    Much safer to ask the people In uniform. 

After the rush to try to get there on time, the plane was delayed an hour.  Great.

We all kind of found the right place in the end.   (And after being on a plane for 14 hours, I actually met my steps target just by walking around the airport. So is good for me after all.)

After all the running around and then having to wait, I was ready to board the plane to Cape Town,   disaster struck.

All bets are off in our competition for the most stupid travel related error. Forget leaving the passports in Florence, forget booking Paul into a backpackers, forget missing days in hotel bookings, forget booking the wrong tour,  forget it all because last night  I made the stupid error to beat them all, I missed my connecting flight to Cape Town.  By 2 minutes. I thought I was early but had misread the boarding time confusing it for departure time as plane had been delayed.   Whatever.  There is no excuse.

But it gets worse.

I tried to book a later flight but all booked out and in fact South African airlines was booked out till Monday due to public holiday long weekend.  They had big signs saying no seats left on any flights to Cape Town  till Monday.  I had to trudge out of the gate area back to the checkin and General area of the airport and it was getting late with fewer people around. Quite scary as I had been told that Johannesburg is the most dangerous city in the world,  really?   We were told not to walk the streets in the day even in groups. And I was in the airport on my own and it was getting later and later. Every airline said they had nothing and directed me to various people and places around the airport. Eventually I found someone who said British airlines might have a seat the next day!!!!!   And reminded me that my luggage had been on board the plane I missed but he directed me somewhere to enquire as to its whereabouts.  Wrong place but a nice taxi driver had taken me there outside the airport and all over the place and asked for a tip. Of course.  I did go to the right baggage place eventually and they had my bag thank god.    Later when I was trying to find the hotel in the airport as I had to stay the night, a man in a suit walked over to me and took my big bag and asked me where I wanted to go. I asked what his role was and he said porter. At that point two of the many friendly policemen who patrol the airport told him to move away and they gave me directions to the hotel. Scary......

The walk to the hotel was quite long on my own around the back of the airport backing onto parking and open access to outside. Creepy but I found it and got in.thank god.

You should have seen the step count....

All a little stressful. I blame the jet lag, malaria tablets making me ill and my age and deteriorating memory.  Luckily  Paul who was in Cape Town (and pretty calm about it all)   was able to find the BA flight and they did have a seat and booked me in thank god. Or I would have been stuck in Johannesburg on my own unable to leave the hotel and airport for  3 days.  It was the scariest night of my life  in the hotel alone with all manner of noise and voices around me. At one point, I thought there was knocking on my door. I decided that I would not open the door no matter who was there or what was happening. Not fIre, flood nor famine would move me from that room.

Paul and I agreed I will never travel on my own overseas again.