You join me traversing South Africa. Bottom left to top right. I’m on a teeny tiny plane, and there’s “lots of weather all over South Africa”, according to the captain.
That’s not good, because we’re also very much all over South Africa.
It has been unpleasantly bouncy so far.
The inflight magazine contains the usual plethora of advertorials: guest houses and safari lodges dominate, but there was a beautiful juxtaposition of an industrial rock crushing equipment supplier across the page from a laser tooth whitening service.
To avoid disappointment (and possibly a lot of pain), please make sure you ring the correct number.
In the same magazine, there’s the usual puff piece about the airline you’re on, and how they’re better than the other airlines. They advertise some of those differences as being “more smiles”, which I’m fairly sure aren’t objectively quantifiable SI units, and the opportunity to “say goodbye to rigid itineraries”.
Really?
Is it just me that quite likes the idea of a rigid itinerary when booking travel tickets? I can’t imagine that it is. It’s literally one of the most important things that I’m after.
For example, I’m hopeful that my accommodation for this evening is fairly rigidly booked. It really wouldn’t be helpful for them to be flexible enough to be “just a day out”.
Could you maybe pop back tomorrow please, Sir?
We seem to have finally hit some clean air, over what I’m guessing is the southern Free State. This means that I can stop thinking about flight safety statistics and engineering tolerances as mind-over-matter means of combatting the mentally challenging effects of the turbulence.
Aaand it’s back already. That didn’t last long. Quite bad. Tumble drier on a rollercoaster stuff, if you remember that post about the Christchurch earthquake that I can’t link to right now because I’m 37,000 feet up in the air. (Updated once safely on the ground.)
Really bad now. Not nice. Gasps and exclamations from passengers. I’m being stoic. Who would be listening anyway?
We’re turning. The pilots have had enough. Not back to Cape Town, but presumably looking for a bit of a clearer way around the bumpy stuff. Thank you.
Ok. About an hour to go. Agricultural landscape giving way to mining and industry beneath me.
Time to relax with some chilled electronica (it’s M83 in case you were wondering), stop thinking about that other stuff. and plan those first few shots again.
Looks like if you’re reading this, we made it.
Or at least my phone did.