Game on
He picks me off at the gate, separated, tired and vulnerable. I’ve just landed at OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg after a 19-hour flight from Auckland and am desperate to make my connection to Durban. I’ll be travelling through South Africa with other journalists, but we don’t know each other yet, so there’s no safety in numbers. An airport ‘employee’, in blazer and lanyard, spots my anxiety. He grabs my passport and boarding pass, tells me I’m going to miss my flight, but he can help. For a price...
At the next gate I find the others and realise my mistake – the plane hasn’t even boarded yet. Two others were similarly scammed. It didn’t cost me that much – a few hundred rand, which is about $60, to ‘make’ a flight I had plenty of time for. Still, I’m so angry I have to fight back tears. So here’s the first lesson of South Africa: be wary. But don’t let that put you off, because I’d pay that money 10 times over for the experience that was about to unfold.
We’ve travelled to this country for the stunning landscapes, the sunsets… but most of all, to
