Long flight to Joburg...

Yesterday I was on edge the whole day. I took my seat on the plane next to a loud Californian named Tim. Tim was traveling to the Congo, he does every month for work. He was a oil rig supervisor. I was so nervous I was shaking. "Scared of flying?" asked Tim.
"Oh no" I said. "I can fly".

Before we took off Tom got something out of his bag. It was a little bracelet made of string.
"I want you to have this. I worked with a lot of Thai people and this bracelet has been blessed by a monk. Never take it off and no harm will come to you" he said.

If your already nervous about the whole international thing, the worst thing a stranger can do is to give you something - no matter how small.

I panicked. I didn't want the bracelet. When I felt it, there was a piece of metal or something woven into the string. I've always had a wild imagination, so while I reasoned that it was proberbly unlikely that I was a drug mule for a 10th of a gram of cocaine, I did imagine the senario where the bracelet gave of just enough of a scent to allow sniffer dogs to detect it, resulting in hours of searches and interrogation at Joburg airport, providing enough distraction for Tim's more well endowed mules to escape undetected. At the time, this seemed viable.

Tim had a few bouborns and fell asleep. I took the bracelet off, and wore my polarfleece for the rest of the flight so he wouldn't notice.

After 11 hours the pilot announced that we had landed on African soil. A prag of excitement ran through my body. Buses pulled up to take us to the terminal. On the bus I was crazy. There were building materials everywhere - all over the tarmac. The sun was setting behind them. It was beautiful.

Every couple of seconds I would look around and remind myself I was actually in Africa. It was like the best dream I had ever had, and it just kept going. In a crammed bus after an 11 hour flight, my smile hurt. Everyone else looked like they were ready to kill.

"Joburg Airport has no rules. Its like a rugby league match" warned Tim before getting off the plane.

Passport control was about the size of a basketball court. There must have been 500 people there, as 240 had gotten off my plane. There were 3 checking counters open. It took a few minutes to issue each person with a visa. The Aussies were cracking it. I could hear them above everyone else:
"This is ridiculous"
"They should open more gates"
"They would have had to have know there was this many people arriving"
"Oh (sign) for goodness sake"
I counted 9 signs advising were you could send your complaints to.

Customs wasn't what i had imagined. I walked up to the officer and he gave me a "What do you want?" look, and waved me on. I felt like turning around and yelling "Im not carrying any fruit or vegetables - not that you care!"

I got to the hotel easily and flaked. I jumped into bed with a cup of tea and watched that movie were Nicholas Cage gives away half his lottery ticket. I woke at 8am Perth time. 2am South African....