Two One Way Tickets to Cape Town

And only after 2 months, here is the second installment of the World Cup Odyssey. Don’t even ask why it took so long…

Christy and I headed in to Cape Town just after lunch ahead of the England-Algeria match at Green Point Stadium. The train we were on from Kalk Bay must have been on it’s last legs as it took us over an hour to get into town, by which time we were starving. Stopping along the route to the stadium we had a pizza and then hustled past the apartments, restaurants and bars covered in British flags opposite the stadium, to find a place to settle in for the US-Slovenia match. We found a little Asian place just across the street from the stadium and prepared ourselves for the ulcer-inducing match ahead. Wow! What heart. As we all know, the US should have won that game instead of drawing, but throughout the World Cup, the majority of the refs have been less than impressive. Nothing as egregious as what happened to England and Mexico in the Round of 16, but still, bad reversal of a clear goal. It was during this ridiculous come from behind draw that we made friends with the two South Africans sitting next to us. After a few rounds of Jagermeister , we discovered that Glyn owned a chain of hotels around South Africa. He had been given the tickets from some guests and was there to have a good time, and to bring Christy and I along for the ride. About 1 hour before the first whistle, we headed to the stadium with our new friends and agreed to meet up afterwards for some more drinks. What a dismal match. England played uninspired and the Algerians almost stole one.

While I was exhausted and ready to get on a train back to Kalk Bay, Christy convinced me to head back to the pub to meet up with our friends for a few more drinks. We also wanted to follow up on an offer that Glyn had made to put us up one night in Durban in one of his hotels. Since we already had accommodation in Durban and we did not have anything in Jo’Burg confirmed ahead of the Brazil-Cote d’Ivore match in two days, we wanted to see if Glyn could help us out there in instead.  We were then introduced to their two British friends and we proceeded to have an amazing night. For some strange reason, everyone (with the exception of Christy for some reason) around the table resembled somebody famous. We had a Richard Gere look-alike, a chubby Bruce Willis, me in the role of Robert Dinero, and Mini-Me from Austin Powers. More shots of Jagermeister, with a few Tequila thrown in for good measure, and Glyn was not only agreeable to putting us up in Jo’Burg, he was insistent that we not return to Brad’s, but accompany him back to Franschhook in the vineyards to stay the night in one of his villas. So…at 2:45 in the morning, we finally left the pub and drove the 45 minutes out to Franschook. All I can say is wow. We drunkenly slept for 5 hours in a beautiful villa before beginning our odyssey back to Kalk Bay where our car awaited us for another 1,400km drive.

Yes, I forgot to mention that we had planned to get on the road around 6am for the 14+ hour drive to Jo’Burg. That plan went out the window the minute we decided to return to the pub after the England match. A taxi picked us at the villa and raced us to the Paarl train station, which we missed so we headed down the tracks to the next stop. We got there just before the train and somehow stayed awake for the 2 hour ride into Cape Town and then back out on another train to Kalk Bay. Luckily we were not dressed up for the game the previous night like the Livingston’s we saw or else that would have been the longest walk of shame ever. We arrived back to Brad’s around noon and promptly took a nap, agreeing to leave around 4pm and drive through the night. We really couldn’t put it off later because our next game was at Soccer City that next day and really did not want go directly to the game.

World Cup Odyssey: Part I

What a trip. Two weeks straight of football and more football. Good friends, welcoming strangers and few (ok, a bit more than a few) asshole Pommies. Oh yeah, I shouldn’t forget the cumulative 5,000 km we put on our little Hyundai. While it would have been more efficient for me to have continuously blogged throughout our time in South Africa, I honestly could not bring myself to open my computer during the past two weeks. So, here is my attempt to condense two weeks of hectic travel and amazing sport into one, maybe two, entries. Before I begin though, can I respectfully request a moment of silence for the pained Black Stars who, if the World Cup gods had seen fit , should have been preparing for their match against the Dutch instead of flying home to Ghana…

After a brief scare in Harare where South African Airways notified us that our flight to Jo’Burg no longer existed, we finagled our way onto a flight later that morning (June 12th) and arrived a few hours later than originally planned. As it was only the 2nd day of the tourney, the atmosphere in the airport was electric, with a dozen different languages being spoken within earshot and the excitement for the upcoming two weeks palpable. We waded through the crowds to pick up our rental car, which was surprisingly easy considering the long queues at the other rental companies. Soon we were on the road in our little Hyundai, heading south to Pietermeritzburg to link up with friends for the opening US match against England. While some other friends had offered us tickets to this match in Rustenberg (about 2 hours north-west of Jo’Burg), we decided (smartly so, as you will find out later) to opt for warmth and friends. We caught the second half of the match (long dinner) at a local pub and made it clear to all after the English goalkeeper’s gaffe which side we were supporting. What a match! While we did get lucky, we had ample opportunity to win that game outright and decidedly outplayed the dysfunctional Three Lions. What a joy to rub in the face of my British friends!

The next day we prepared for our first match of the World Cup, Germany vs Australia at Moses Mabidah Stadium in Durban. We arrived in Durban early and parked a 20 minute walk away from the stadium. After lunch, we headed down to the beach front to catch up with the other half of our group and caught a glimpse of the 15,000 Aussies who were apparently camping in another nearby stadium. What a sight to see this yellow mass of humanity move freely through the streets of Durban, which if you’ve read past blogs know can be a rough town. The police were thick and most of the road traffic was blocked and I have to say that the freedom of movement without worry was refreshing. We caught the second half of Ghana’s first match against Serbia at a fan zone across from the stadium. What a great place to watch the Black Stars pull of their first win of the tourney, setting the stage for the romp we were about to witness.

Moses Mabidah Stadium is, in my estimation, the best stadium out of the lot in South Africa. With the pitch sunk into the ground so that when you enter you are overlooking the field and the sails supporting the arch, the stadium is awe inspiring and is the most photogenic of South Africa’s stadiums. After making our way through the multiple levels of security and the swarms of Australia and Germany supporters, we found our seats behind the north goal. Great seats overlooking the entire pitch. When the game finally started, the stadium was filled with almost 63,000 people. The tide of yellow that was the Aussie support overwhelmed the south side of the stadium, while the Germans were clustered around the north. Well, you know the rest. Germany destroyed Australia 4-1.

The next day was my birthday, so Christy and I took the day off and roamed the Midlands Meander, a section of rural highway with lots of boutique shops, cafes, cheese farms, vineyards and a micro-brewery. We stopped off at one cheese farm and learned a bit more about how to make cheese (a bit of a new hobby of Christy’s). We then hit Kwa-Zulu Natal’s first vineyard (eeh, doesn’t compare to Cape Town) and then a Belgian Chocolate house. The next day and a half we spent with friends, before returning to Durban for our next match, Spain vs Switzerland. Before that match, we discovered that our favorite hamburger joint had not closed, but only moved to the area where we had parked, so we stopped in for a late lunch to catch the end of the Chile match. What should have been an easy game for Spain turned out to be a loss on a beautiful Swiss header. Spain just never got into rhythm during that match, but since then they have really come on and I think are serious contenders for the cup this year. Anyway, after that late afternoon match, we got into the car and drove the 1.5 hours to Ixopo to stay with friends for the night ahead of our full day drive to Cape Town the following day. We arrived in time to see South Africa lose to Paraguay. Shame. It all just kinda fell apart for them at the end.

4:30am: Wake up. 4:45am: Hit the road. Distance to be traveled: 1,600km. Ouch! Whose idea was this? While it was a beautiful drive for the first 4 hours or so in the shadow of the southern Drakensberg, which by chance was entirely covered in a white blanket of snow, and for a short time thereafter in the eastern Karoo, sections in the late afternoon were painfully straight, flat and barren. The Karoo is a high altitude area of scrub-brush and random cone-like mountains, at least in the nice areas. The rest of a barren flat wilderness of sheep, goats and the occasional small bush. We hit this section of the highway after about 10 hours in the car and were already starting to feel the exhaustion set in. Unfortunately relief was not in sight after the sun set as we hit a long section of construction that dropped us down to one lane with a lot of semi-trucks. We finally pulled into our friend Brad’s place in Kalk Bay, down the eastern side of Cape Peninsula (north of Simon’s Town) around 10pm. 15 hours in the car and my body vibrated to sleep.