Clown car to hell

I was prepared for adventure. I had hoped it might involve wildlife.

Today, half of the Canadian media contingent made its way back to the Jo'burg airport to pick up our rental car. Easy peasy. No, actually not. What rhymes with 'incredibly difficult'?

First, the Gautrain - the showpiece infrastructure addition to Jo'burg's public transportation system. It was supposed to go all the way to Pretoria. It doesn't. But it does go to the airport.

Chaos when we arrived at the Sandton Gau station to buy our tickets. There were five self-help kiosks. At any given point, one worked. A crowd roiled. The attendants - all young new hires - smiled through the bickering and the complaining. An impressive show of restraint on both sides, actually.

We five - Young and I from the Star, George Johnston from the Calgary Herald, Mike Zeisberger and Morris Dalla Costa from the Sun papers - poured off the train relatively none the worse for wear.

Gettting the car was simple - 45 minutes in a line four people deep, par for the course here.

Then the horrible moment when we saw the car. Some sort of miniature Volkswagen (ed.: It's a Polo, which is Zulu for 'short man'). In a perfect world, it might fit two. Zeis - who stands 6-foot-5 - called shotgun. Watching him wedge himself into the front seat was a little too much for me. 

"I can't hear you laughing," Zeis said. "The sound of my ligaments snapping is too loud. George, what's the difference between an MCL and an ACL? Cuz I need one of them replaced."

The three in the back were even worse off. 

We were smart enough to hire a GPS system. We were not smart enough to hire one that works. So as we sped out into the chaos of the Jo'burg highway system, we had no idea where we were going (or where to plug the freaking thing in).

I'm screaming at Zeis. Zeis is screaming at me. Everybody in the back is just screaming. We're careening down the road - which wasn't much different from anyone else swerving beside us.

Did you know that South Africans drive on the left side of the road? Yeah, it surprised me, too.

Finally, Zeis got the GPS to kick in. Then it was twenty terrible minutes of silence as Chris yelled out things like, "Right in 200 metres."

Me: "Right, right?"

Chris: "Yeah, right. Right."

Meanwhile, Morris is on the phone home saying 'right' intermittently.

Zeis: "Maybe we should switch from 'right' to 'correct'"

Right.

Finally, we recognized where we were - about a block from where we live. I nearly wept.

We unfolded ourselves out of the car, which involved Dukes of Hazzard style hood-gripping and frantic pulling. Morris' knee locked up. We pried him out. I kissed the ground a la Schiavone.

A couple of minutes later, George announced that he was headed up the street to pick up a power adaptor.

"Wanna drive?" I asked.

I thought George was going to hit me. I would've understood if he had. 

C.K.

 

The party has started in Johannesburg

Coming in from the airport to our home base for this 19th World Cup in the dark of late Tuesday night, this place was eerily quiet, not a soul on the streets.

In just a few hours, it had all changed. A few minutes before noon, and thousands of vuvuzelas sounded in neighbourhoods all across Johannesburg and presumably, out across the country, a swirling green and yellow hornets' nest of sound and motion that will doubtless become one of the iconic images of the first World Cup in Africa.

At Norwood Mall, where we were taking care of logistics - Internet cards, check; cellphone, check; and on to accreditation at Soweto's Soccer City stadium, all of it under the fog of a typical first day on the ground - one woman coming in for her morning shopping watched the scene. "What are they going to do on Friday?" she wondered, as this nationwide pep rally broke out a little over 48 hours before South Africa starts it all off with an opening match against Mexico.

On the road to Soweto with Star colleague Cathal Kelly and Canwest World Cup veteran George Johnston of Calgary, it was the same story. Crowds lined the streets in the colours of the Bafana Bafana home team, waving and blowing on their vuvuzelas - or whatever they had at hand, one woman rolling up her newspaper as an impromptu horn as we stopped for a stoplight (or as they call them here, a robot.

Charles, our taxi driver, took us on a detour by Nelson Mandela's house, a few flags fluttering on the walls. He recalled similar scenes around the 1995 Rugby World Cup, South Africa's victory with Mandela on hand to watch in a Springboks No. 6 jersey and cap.

"Nobody slept that day. That's what I like about the games - they unite people. We forget the differences."

Nearing Soccer City stadium, we were stopped by hundreds of marching, singing, dancing South Africans on their way to a rehearsal of Friday's opening ceremony.

"This is not planned," said Charles, shaking his head. There was nothing to do but wait listen to the car radio reports - of the Jo'burg CBD brought to a standstill by huge game of street futbol; of a trio of journalists robbed Tuesday night in their hotel outside of town; of whether Madiba will attend the opener (not confirmed yet) - and finally give up and hoof it the rest of the way.

Soccer City is not just the name of a stadium, it turns out. If this is just the warmup, what on earth are they going to do on Friday?