Monday 11 January 2010

Leaving on a Jet Plane

This, for many of us, is where Jo’burg ends- OR Tambo airport: a blunt nexus of steel and escalators. Yesterday I met some departing friends in the food hall for a few between flight hours. The food hall is a gleaming, shrieking neon kaleidoscope of tat that leaves your eyes feeling like a chameleon crawling over a TV test pattern.

Travellers, by and large, are not beautiful people. They’re an exasperated, over aged, sexless, lumpen jetsetariat that make you wonder if they’ve ever had sex, and with WHO? Or what?. If so, who was the blind drunk chump who did the deed, and do they still wake up screaming decades later?

After much searching, I found a chunk of my growing diaspora of friends, who’ve chosen lives of winter snow, safer places for kids, nanny states with far less crime.

Just finding a quiet place to chat and catch up in an airport is nigh impossible. We tried the kid-friendly Spur restaurant, but the hordes of shrieking, balloon-popping, sugar-crazed toddlers in it seemed bent on enacting a riot in a maximum security prison.

Shell-shocked with the above lesson in contraception still ringing in our ears, we moved over to Fournos Bakery. Like all airport coffee bars, it’s soulless, sterile, and lit brighter than a dentist’s chair. I do recommend the coffee milkshake though. It’s loaded with enough caffeine and sugar to turn you into a crazed Cape Flats gang member kite-high on tik.

See someone off, rather being the one flying, is like dancing to no music. Sad and sugar-buzzed, I drove back into Jo’burg. With all its flaws, it’s my home. Joburg’s more than skin deep- it’s in my veins. Here’s to 2010, and another year in our mad, bad, ‘n good city.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

You've described it perfectly!!!!
F%^&k I hate going to ORTIA

tam said...

Nice one. Yip, here's to it. 2010. The baggage handlers at ORTIA smack their chops and rub their hands with glee...

timothymarcjones said...

In December, they broke all the locks on my brother's family's luggage, rifled through, but nicked nothing . Fuckers. Makes me angry, and embarrassed of my country.

karen said...

Just been catching up... Perfect description of the airport atmosphere, complete with Jetsetariat - how marvellous (almost as good as Pregnaho). Wishing you a great 2010!

Janelle said...

fuckn hate airports. but the joburg one is shiny. try finding a saamie that won't kill you in dar. x j

timothymarcjones said...

Thanks for the comments, Janet, tam, karen, and janelle. Good riddance to 2009. Here's to a fizzy sherbetty 2010.

Anonymous said...

well said. CPT Int is as bad

ExMi said...

even though i'm originally from dbn, i have seriously come to love jozi. it's embedded itself completely in my heart - shitty traffic and all.

so i agree with you - here's to another kickass year, in our kickass city!