Sunday 23 April 2006
Highlights: Accommodation upgrade, almost missing my flight out of South Africa

The final day in South Africa turned out to be very rainy so a good day to leave.   I stayed in different accommodation last night as Drifters had overbooked and I got a better place.

My impressions on South Africa are that it is an amazing country with a deep recent history.   It is hard to believe that power was transferred without major loss of life.   There are still very real challenges ahead.   The white minority are still not certain there will not be payback especially after Nelson Mandela is no longer alive. The black majority still do not have access to all the necessary services (like the shanty towns), however you can see great progress has been made.

I caught a domestic flight from Cape Town that left at 5 pm to Johannesburg a roughly 2 hour flight.  While on my 2 hour stopover in Johannesburg for the flight leaving at 9.25 pm local time I went to the wrong part of the airport and didn’t realise for an hour, once I did I had to sprint to make my flight to Paris and I only just made it.  That would have been both embarrassing and inconvenient and meant at least one more night in Johannesburg.