Cape Town - Day One

Thursday, February 14, 2019

Cape Grace Hotel

Cape Town, South Africa

Yesterday and today have been “interesting.” In yesterday’s blog I talked about angels. The first part of the trip had two.

You’re going to hear a lot about the people I meet because that’s the majority of “events” that will happen on this trip. You’ll hear more about this a little later on in the blog as I share about the interesting (no quotes this time) young man I met at the hotel in Cape Town.

But back to the departure from Frankfurt…

The Hilton is a wonderful place to stay, and the concierge (bell hop? I don’t know what his title is) and I struck up a special friendship. He had moved from Czechoslovakia to Frankfurt about three years ago and has been working at the hotel the whole time. Every time I saw him he would stop and chat. He was concerned about my checking out and getting to the airport so he arranged for someone from the hotel to walk my bags to the Lufthanza check-in counters, about a 5 minute walk for most people, which means about 15 for me. He was leaving the day after I left to go home for a holiday, but was going to be back the same day I returned. As I write this it doesn’t sound like much, but he was a tremendous help in keeping me ‘on-the-go.’

The second angel was the young lady who came to pick me up at the hotel and took me through customs and to the Lufthansa lounge to wait Once again, her presence made the security check so much easier. Speaking of which, this time as I went through the scanner it tagged me again. It picked up my Apple Watch (which surprised me...won’t happen again) and my reading glasses which I had forgotten were in a shirt pocket. But it also hit on the “Back the Blue” paracord bracelet I wear! No metal of any kind, but I still had to unbutton my cuff to show him. Then they decided to scan my CPAP. Walk around the conveyor belt to a special booth where they scanned the bag, opened it, wiped it (for explosives I guess) and handed it back to me to pack.

In the lounge, more interesting people. A young man from South Africa sat across from me, and when he found out I was going to Cape Town immediately began to share with me about the city. He was from up the coast about 60 or 70 miles, and really wanted me to make the drive because it was so beautiful. He, too, was flying to Cape Town after a four month deployment by his company. About 20 minutes before the flight left he got up and left the lounge. I never saw him again. Had to have been in business class. The flight didn’t have first class seating, and I searched the small business class seating, but, as I said, never saw him again. Missed the flight? Was really angel??

Flight departed at 10:10 pm. An 11 hour flight. Flight attendants were “mature” this time, but took unbelievably good care of us. I had been up since about 8:00 that morning (tried to nap but couldn’t get to sleep) so I tried to sleep on the flight. No luck. The seats would go flat, but my shoulders were too wide to fit between the center console and the arm rest. Propped up at an angle like I was in my recliner, but…..no luck. So I contented myself with responding to the prompt from my watch and walked up and down the aisle every hours.

The next angel was my son Chris who loaned me his noise cancelling headphones. I couldn’t believe what a difference they made! As the flight ended I might normally would have been exhausted, because I just don’t sleep on airplanes. Don’t ask me why. I don’t know. I might cat nap, but I never really sleep. At any rate, I didn’t have any of the exhaustion that usually comes from the roar of the ambient aircraft noise.

Cape Town airport is beautiful. It was built because the World Soccer Tournaments were held there a few years back. My driver’s comment, “No I can be proud to say I’m from Cape Town.”

The drive to the Hotel took about 25 minutes. Over half of the way was through slums as bad as any I saw in India. Here, as there, any material that would make four walls was thrown together to create a hovel. They stretched for miles on both sides of the highway. Ikie, my driver, explained they were refugees who came to Cape Town to escape the warfare elsewhere in Africa.

Suddenly the scene changed. New, small but well built apartments amidst the hovels. Ikie explain the government was tearing down the slums and replacing them with rent free apartments, complete with free electricity and solar panels on the roof to heat the free water. Ikie, with disgust in his voice, commented, “The government now in power promised them if the people would vote for them.”

The irony? Virtually every house had a TV dish. No, the government didn’t provide those.

Just before we reached downtown, Ikie pointed to an area on the left side of the highway and said, “That’s were I was born and raised.” The housing looked like expensive mulit-story apartment buildings. He continued, “You know we had apartheid in South Africa? Well, in 1960 the whites decided they wanted to live in that area, so the people were supposed to move out so the area would be “whites only.” The people refused, so the government came in with bulldozers and demolished all the homes.” He had said earlier he was 70 so he would have been about 11. He didn’t volunteer what his family did, and I didn’t ask.

Cape Grace is on the quay with docks on both sides, including dry docks and container ships. My room looks out over a marina, with table mountain in the background. I’ll take more pictures tomorrow.

I took a hot shower (the drought has ended but there are still water restrictions) and lay down to try to sleep after now being awake some 30 hours. After lying there in the dark for over an hour I finally gave up, go dressed and went down to “the Library” for some lunch. It was about 4:00pm and the room was packed. No tables. Then a young man sitting on one of the tables surrounded by couches hailed us. “I’m taking up way too much room. Please join me.”

Thence ensued one of the delightful moments that are increasingly common in my life now. He as absolutely fascinating. A Cape Town resident (originally from Johannesburg) for 15 years he was a media consultant who had just finished a business meeting with clients who were staying in the hotel. He was finishing up his paperwork on his laptop and I don’t want to disturb him, but shortly we were deeply involved in sharing stories about our lives and travels. He was probably late 30’s, early 40’s, had been married for 13 years to someone in the same field. He shared experience after experience of the trips he and his wife had made. “The best of both possible worlds...business with pleasure thrown in on the side.” Greece, India, Thialand, France (week long chef’s course for he and his wife at a culinary institute.)

Me: “Do you still use what you learned?” He: “No. I’m a terrible cook.” And then the connections started.

His wife works as a consultant for a company for whom she had ghost written a book on the Enneagram. I commented I was going to mention the Enneagram in the retreat I was leading (which we had already discussed.) I said I was “a Five.” He immediately lit up and said, “I knew there was a reason we were so compatible and I like you instantly. I’m a Five, too.” Turns out he doesn’t know a thing about it. He knew his score because he got a free assessment for the work his wife was doing.

My lunch came (chicken and shrimp curry) and a table had opened up so I excused myself so he could work and went out on the porch overlooking the marina to eat. In a few minutes, he came out. I offered to buy him something to eat, but he declined, but “would really like to continue our conversation if I’m not intruding.” Definitely not! So we talked for another half hour before his wife came to pick him up.

EPILOGUE

Here’s the fascinating part to me. On this trip I’ve had at least six conversations, some more in-depth than others, with some absolutely fascinating people. Unlike my previous trips, none of them have turned to spiritual discussions. In each of them I’ve shared I’m a clergyman leading a retreat for missionaries, which was discussed briefly, but never led beyond that. I have been able to end our time with “God bless you,” for which I was thanked...no reluctance and two or three returned the blessing. What seems to be the common thread is disbelief that I’m 81 and disbelief that I’m traveling solo.

How is God using me? I seem to attract conversations that go way beyond “how’s the weather.” But none, so far, have been like the previous trips. I’m just trusting God that this “presence” thing is His work and I’m just trying for each encounter to be a “sacrament of the present moment.”

It will be fascinating to see how the retreat goes. Now that I’m ‘in-country’ I’m very much at peace with the decision to come.

Pictures: maps of the route, the marina