20,000 Miles and a Day Off

We have survived the most intense segment of travel of the World Cup and look forward to a much deserved day off. After flying and shooting every day for the last nine days, we arrived back at our Dunvegan Lodge base at half past midnight. Amazingly we have found ourselves on the downhill side of the entire trip. So far we have taken 14 flights and we will be airborne five more times to cover the remaining games. I have set a personal travel record by compiling more than 20,000 air miles in the month of June alone. On average we spent as much time flying everyday as we do actually photographing the matches. Even the members of our team that were not members of a Star Alliance frequent flier program previously will fly over 25,000 miles and reach Silver status during our World Cup voyage.
We have ‘visited’ several cities, searched out food and drink, been escorted from airports, to hotels, to stadiums and back again. As familiar we have become with all the destinations, passing through the same airports several times, it all became a blur. It often takes a moment to remember which coffee shop was in which terminal and where you ride buses to baggage claim and where you ride the escalator up or down to get to ticketing. But what was still missing is a more intimate look at the country. The glimpses of the cities, towns, townships, villages and countryside from the air have been enticing my curiosity.

The terrain changes dramatically as quickly as you leave the beaches surrounding Cape Town the mountains jut skyward and ragged interspersed by low-lying marshlands that collect water headed for the sea.

Areas further inland are geometrically hashed up with agricultural fields. Flying into Durban the outskirts of the city are surrounded by suburban tract homes and tracts of shacks in the townships. The closer you get to the harbors of the port towns reveal cargo holding areas and rail yards. On our inland journey to Johannesburg the geography became more dramatic as the earth gained elevation from sea level to the 5700’ altitude of the city. The hills grew more mountainous and rugged. Canyons cut by rivers. And lush topography near the shores becomes void of vegetation and turns more arid.
Looking at the roads that slice through the sugarcane fields surrounding the Durban airport have me longing for an epic bike ride, being able to take the time to better inspect the houses, to better observe and appreciate the labor of the men cutting and harvesting the sugarcane by hand and aimless turn from paved to dirt roads and back again rolling from the coast, inland and back again.
We now have two days off and hope to shake off the exhaustion of the rigorous travel and get out and explore further beyond the tracks I have already made in the Kalk Bay and Fish Hoek neighborhoods of the Dunvegan Lodge.