The Road to Africa

I left New York's JFK International Airport in the middle of last Friday afternoon, knowing well that I'd not be getting to my final destination of Gaborone, Botswana until late on Sunday night. The journey entailed a flight and lengthy layover in Amsterdam, followed by an 11 hour flight to Johannesburg, South Africa. Once in Jo'Berg, I'd spend the night and then catch a 7 hour regional bus north to Gaborone the following afternoon.

Unable to sleep on the flight to Europe, I found myself wide awake at 6 am and leaving Amsterdam's airport through the 'Cabin and Crew' area of customs, hoping to avoid lengthy lines and relying on the assumption that the workers would be too tired to care.  I had 5 or 6 hours until my next flight, so rather than spend the next several hours downing Bloody Mary's at the finest Applebee's in the Netherlands, I'd stash my one, medium-sized bag in a train station locker and kick around Amsterdam for a few hours. 

I met an amiable Frenchman in the train station who had the same idea, and we decided to combine forces and explore the city for a few hours. We caught a 6:45 train to the City Center, but found ourselves somewhere surrounded by dykes and cow pastures thirty minutes later, and realized that we had taken the proper train, but in the wrong direction. After correcting our error, we got into Amsterdam by 8 am, which left me exactly 2 hours and twenty minutes for me to explore the city, get back to the station, find my bag, get through customs, and catch my flight before it left. 

John-Pierre and I began to search the city center for an open cafe to grab a cup of coffee and a bite to eat. Sadly, neither of us expected everything that everything would be shut down at that hour, so we decided to give ourselves a walking tour. It really is a beautiful city - full of small, winding streets and canals, that couldn't help but to remind me of Venice. Except for night walkers, which I don't remember being accosted by in Venice. It must be noted that, at such an hour on a Saturday morning, those still remaining "unselected" are of a decidedly unique breed. As John-Pierre astutely put it, "Zose remaning are zee beasts of zee night...", and with a lengthy pause, added "...you must not let zem catch you"  in his thick Parisian accent. We spent some more time in search of a coffee shop whose products were of the more standard blend (the last thing I wanted was to be locked in a tin can at 30,000 feet for the next 11 hours, battling a hallucinogenic nightmare), and I made it back to the airport and boarded the plane with roughly five minutes to spare. 

That night, I landed in Jo'Berg and got a place to stay outside the city. Exhausted, I slept for the next five hours and then spent the morning wandering the outskirts of the city before making my way to the bus station. I was warned by multiple independent sources that, under no circumstances, was I to walk around the city in the immediate vicinity of the bus station. Generally speaking, the surrounding blocks of a bus station in any city are dodgy at best, but the area surrounding the Johannesburg bus station has a rather high concentration of the city's already impressively high violent crime rates. Rather than take my chances, I opted to spend some time reading in the station and listening to the impressive selection of Genesis songs which blared from the speakers throughout. 

The bus ride to Gaborone was uneventful, with the exception of Kietumetsi, the 40-year old mother of two who touched my leg enough times that I am still unsure as to whether or not we are now dating. The bus trip ended at a gas station in the center of the city, and I was able to find my way to the flats which I'd call home for the next several weeks, but only after I exchanged my new girlfriend 9 Euro for equivalent Pula, since she currently lives in Ireland and was visiting her family for the next two weeks (and all the ATMs were closed).