October 23th / 24th 2003
Frankfurt - Windhoek - Cape Town
 

It was a very short-term decision to do a language course in Cape Town, so it was not easy to find a good and cheap flight. The best alternative was the flight with Air Namibia via Windhoek, the capital of Namibia.

The Trip starteg with three disappointments: At first it had been not the plaine from Air Namibia, because the only Boeing 747 from Air Namibia was on a inspaction, so I had to fly with a charter plain from the british company European Airways. This plain was unfortunately very narrow and I had not really enough space for my legs. The second disappointment was that they had no seat on an emergency exit for me and the third disappointment was that we took off with a delay of 1,5 hours. Actually this was not a problem for me, but I had to reach my connection flight to Cape Town at Windhoek airport.
Otherwise I can't remember much of the flight, because we took off at 0.30 at Frankfurt and the palin had been landing at 9.40 at Windhoek. The first two hours of the flight were busy with the meal, than I was sleaping and the last hour before landing I had breakfast.

Landed at Windhoek International Airport I wondered a little bit abaut this airport of the capital of a sovereign state: It was an airport like in the countryside of Fiji Islands. There wasn't coaches to transport us from the plaine to the airport building. We had to go on our own feets. Thats really uncommon. But it was not a long distance, there were no long distances at this airport. Inside the building I had to stand in the queue in front of the transit desk. It was an extreme long time to stand there and some time my connection flight to Cape Town was called on the speaker. The lady behind the counter was a little bit confused, but than came another one and it proceed know faster. After the check-in I could went directly through the safety control and out of the building to my plaine. It was a Boeing 737 and this plain was in fact from Air Namibia. On this flight were mostly people from the flight from Frankfurt, so the take off of this machine was also delayed. 45 Minutes after time we took of from Namibia for our 110 minutes flight to Cape Town.

The airport of Cape Town was gigantic compared with the Windhoek airport. In comparison with Germany it was only a regional airport like Hannover or Nuremberg. But there were coaches to bring us from the plaine to the airport building. There had been another queue in front of the customs desk. After a long time (in the meanwhile I was called through the speaker from my bus driver), I could explain the customer that I was only on touristic reasons in South Africa and not on reasons of my profession. My aim was to learn English.

My driver was waiting behind the barrier. This transfer was organized by my travel company where I booked the whole journey incl. the language course. (Studiosus Reisen). My driver picked up another person from the domestic Terminal to bring us to the student hostel of the YMCA. It was Adrian from Switzerland who want to learn English for four weeks like me. So the first contact to another person was quickly organized.