Day 3&4 Tuesday Wednesday July 7-8 we were up by 7:00 am in the morning and out by 8:00am. We walked away from our hotel very fast for the one block to Park Station to lessen my anxiety. The plan was to catch the Shosholoza train to Cape Town (Shosholoza is also a folk song). This Shosholoza-Meyl train is a very comfortable long distance train and it would have taken us to Cape Town for 280 Rand, but there were no sleeping cars that day. The train takes a day and a night to cover the 1300 kilometers, so it would have been difficult without the sleeping car. That is why we had to find some other way to get to Cape Town. The SA Roadlink Bus company was leaving at 11:00 which was in an hour. The trip with them would be 18 hours for 450 Rand per person 900 Rand for the two of us. 900 Rand is about $135 dollars – still not too bad. We took it because we had to get out of Johannesburg. The bus was a double-decker and we went to the top and took separate seats from each other, so we had an additional seat next to us to put our stuff and we could also stretch out and possibly sleep. As I got on the bus I talked to the driver, a very big white South African man and he assured me that the ride would be safe and smooth. My anxieties subsided somewhat, but only on the surface. Deep down I was still jittery. South Africa is great, except for the security. I was still scared from reading the US Travel Advisory. Tourists like us are targeted and frequently robbed. The questions that came up in my mind were like “What am I doing here? Why on earth did I come here?” But the reality was that I had dreamt about coming to Black Africa since I was a child and now I was here and in reality it was fantastic! I was feeling better, and the adventure was on. The road was smooth and the ride was great and I was taking pictures as we were leaving the city. Sally was also excited about the trip, and she also took a lot of pictures. She also watched the onboard TV a lot. I continued reading Mr. Gurdjieff and slept a little. We arrived in Cape Town in the very early morning, around 4:30 am the next day. The place was still dark and empty, but there was a cab there. We took it to the Penthouse Hostel on Long Street for 20 Rand (3.00 dollars). The hostel was on the 6th floor and we had no problem getting into bed. Sally, thank God reserved this place for us for 4 nights for $30 dollars a day a real bargain. The hostel was clean and was centrally located. We slept until noon and than we decided to get up and look around the city. But first we had to eat something, so we went next door to an Indian restaurant and we had something vegetarian. After that, we started walking down on Long Street toward the Cape of Good Hope Castle. As we were walking there we stumbled on the First Dutch Congregational Church. I will write about this later, because we went in there again. We were anxious to find the castle and we had to ask for directions several times, but we found it. The castle was built toward the end of the 17th century, in the late 1600’s exactly between 1666 and 1679. We didn’t go in because it was closing when we got there. Maybe we should have. Apparently this is the oldest structure in South Africa. The "castle" was actually a defensive fort to protect the Dutch settlers. We took a lot of pictures there than went on to the District Six Museum: This area was the name of a former inner-city residential area which is known for the forced removal of over 60,000 of its people during the 1970s by the Apartheid regime. I spent a half hour with Mr. Noor the founder of the museum, and he told me that this was a terrible thing that the government did to this district. Because of this the peole are still suffering. Later on we, went in to the Woolworth Building to rest and relax a little and just watch people coming and going. We got back to our hostel around 9:00 pm.

Day 1&2 Sunday and Monday July 5-6. We’re to leave for Africa this morning. Delta flight #46 leaves SF at 6:00 am to Atlanta and from there in the evening at 8:05 another Delta flight #200 leaves for Johannesburg. Both Sally and I were up by 3:45 in the morning. I felt good and full of anticipation. I took a shower and packed my red backpack with food and some of my medications and one book Gurdjieff’s Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson. This bag is my carry-on, I’ll check through my green bag with my clothes and my sleeping bag. I called Sergio Torres, our neighbor; he took us to the airport. We got to the airport ahead of time and checked in at the standby counter. By flying standby we can only get on the plane if there were some empty seats. We were lucky; we got onto the 6:00 am Atlanta flight. Although we had to sit separately, we were on our way. In Atlanta we ate our sandwiches and waited, and waited, and waited. But we got lucky again, we not only got onto the Johannesburg flight, but we got seats in the Elite Business class. This was a major victory, because this means that we had a bed, so I could lie down horizontally, not to mention all of the other amenities. It started with champagne and orange juice I think they called it a “mimosa.” The dinner was also exceptional and after that I made my bed. I was reasonably comfortable and listened to some music and started to read the Gurdjieff book. This is a difficult book to read, and people who are not familiar with the Gurdjieffian system would not understand it at all. I’m somewhat familiar with his teachings, but still I had to force myself to read it. He raises a very important question “What is the sense and significance of life on Earth and human life in particular?” Wow! Very few people dare to tackle that question.
Much later I wrote the following in my diary on the plane: This is probably Monday already and we’re flying over the Atlantic Ocean close to Africa, and I just had my breakfast of croissants with butter and preserves. I had a difficult night, but I did sleep. I was thinking about the return trip already. Why am I thinking of the return trip already!? My God! The 1969 movie “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid” came to my mind, particularly the scene where Butch Cassidy (Paul Newman) says as he encourages the Sundance Kid (Robert Redford) to jump into a river way below, the only way of escape. Redford says “but I can’t swim” and Paul Newman replies “What are you worrying about not being able to swim? The fall will probably kill us anyway.” So why am I thinking about how I will be coming back? The question should really be “will I be coming back at all?”

After 15 hours in the air we arrived in Johannesburg around 6:00 pm. We easily got through emigration and as I walk out, I saw people with name cards picking up people. Nobody picked us up. I changed about 100 dollars to South African Rends with the exchange rate of 7:1 much better than I would have gotten back in Atlanta which was 6:1. I felt completely lost, but Sally was alert and was thinking about taking the local bus to downtown to our hotel, but common sense prevailed and we got a cab for 250 Rends to take us to the Formula Inn Hotel. Formula Inn is right behind Park station in the black section of Johannesburg next to the train station and the bus station. I felt very unsafe even in the car, but my fear diminished once we were in the hotel. We were 10,000 miles from San Francisco, but this was our home, because your home is where your bed is. We went to bed happy this is our first night in South Africa.