The South African Sojourn - Day 1: We are at the World Cup!

We landed at O.R.Tambo airport, Johannesburg at 8:30 AM on the 11th of July, 2010 - the day the curtain was raised on the FIFA World Cup. There would have been a sense of excitement all over the world but the mood at Johannesburg, the city hosting the opening ceremony and the match had to be personally witnessed to be really understood.

You could feel it in the poster greeting us as we disembarked from the plane. You could feel it in the Bafana Bafana T Shirts the ground staff were wearing. You could feel it everywhere. The biggest sporting event in the world was about to kick off and we were there in Johannesburg. I think I pinched myself more than once to ensure that it was really true.

Coca Cola greeted us with a complimentary welcome drink on arrival, but our focus was on our most guarded possession, stored safely along with our passports, was the FIFA kit containing, a) The voucher confirming us as ticket holders and b) The MTN Sim Card that we had to activate to get our SA number. We navigated our way through the teeming crowd and reached the help desks as we had heard that tickets could be collected at the airport. At the help desk we were however requested to collect our bags first, the ticket collection center was on the second floor outside the arrival hall.

Proceeding towards the luggage area, we had our first interaction with the fans - a set of Brazilian fans decked in the yellow of the Selecao and already shouting "Campeone". The group of Brazilian fans after clicking a few photos of themselves immediately proceeded to the Duty Free where each Brazilian bought two bottles of Absolut Vodka. Quite clearly they were making plans for a long campaign!

What caught our eye more was the reaction of a certain Portuguese fan who till then was sporting a Portuguese jacket. He saw the Brazilians. Unpacked. Got out a Portuguese flag and put it on his back pack. We would see the fan twice more at the Airport and each time he would display some new Portuguese merchandise - scarves, caps, larger flags, bags, etc. I am pretty sure he had an entire wardrobe full of Portuguese paraphernalia.

Having collected our bags we joined the queue of fans to get our tickets. There were two separate queues. One for those having bought tickets through Bank transfers, the other for those, like us - who had bought tickets through credit cards.

We joined the rather longish queue, a lot of fans were arriving on the opening day of the World Cup and found ourselves behind another Brazilian fan and his South African driver. After enquiring with the driver as to where the exit to the train station was, how long it would take etc. we got talking football with the Brazilian. He spoke with obvious passion about Dunga, the starting XI that Brazil would play and his disappointment that Ronaldinho was not picked.

The queue in itself was like the United Nations - Algerians were in full force, we saw Slovenians, English fans, the Portuguese was there again. The most vociferous lot were the Chileans though, they were busy locating and hugging each other through out the queue with shouts of "Chi-Chi-Chi Le-Le-Le" "Viva Chile!". Their exuberance was infectious and it was definitely one of the more popular slogans of the World cup for the neutral. Any Chilean fan sporting their national colours was always joined by neutrals in shouting out this very slogan all across Jo'Burg.
The ticket came out of vending machines and were fantastic. All one has to do was to insert the card with which the tickets were bought on the internet. The details of the card holder and the ticket details were clearly displayed on the screen. The tickets were then immediately printed by the machine and collected similar to cash from an ATM.

The tickets were personalised with the name of the card holder and a bar code which would have to be used to allow entry into the stadium. The metamorphosis of the anxiety as to whether the card would be read correctly to the total euphoria of seeing the tickets being printed in front of us took all of fifteen seconds!!

So with our new most prized possession - the match tickets, we proceeded to leave the airport after purchasing some talk time from MTN. The service and help at the store was great and the hospitality showed by the South Africans would be a constant highlight throughout our stay.

We had decided that we would be taking a combination of South Africa's newest mode of public transport - the Gautrain to get to our hotel. The Gautrain (pronounced How-Train) is basically Johannesburg's first attempt at an Metro.

The set up is a combination of trains to major hubs and from then on Gau-Buses to the suburban areas. We had pre-researched this on the Gautrain site. We had found that we had to take the Gautrain to Sandton (Johannesburg's key suburban area) and from there take the S6, which would drop us right opposite our hotel. The Gautrain is supposed to act as a major boost to a city which apparently has the 4th worst rush hour traffic in the world. From O.R.Tambo airport to Sandton which is Johannesburgs most posh suburb and the financial capital- the Mumbai equivalent would be BKC, against the Taxi alternative of one and a half hours and R400, the Gautrain took us 15 minutes and R100 each.

We arrived at Sandton at around 1.30 PM and immediately boarded the Gau-Bus. The card reader (we had loaded money at the airport and got a preloaded Gautrain card in return) of the bus was not working which meant that our transfer was going to be free. Our bus driver profusely apologised for the inconvenience (!) and wished us a great stay at South Africa - did I mention South African hospitality?

Sandton, was when the true impact of football fever hit us. The Bafana-Bafana (translated in Zulu as The Boys - The Boys) were playing Mexico in the opening match and all South Africans we laid eyes on were sporting yellow. We also heard a weird droning in the background which I thought were car horns at first but later found to be the sound of the Vuvuzela. South African flags were everywhere, on all the cars, on the road, on all the houses. This was a nation caught up in football fever. The mood was so overwhelming, so buoyant that I found myself really hoping that the Bafana do well and not spoil the scenes of joy and hope all around.

We checked in at our hotel without any hassles and it was only then that we realised how tired we were. We immediately freshened up, hit the bed and alternated between watching the opening ceremony and sleeping. All our sleep was forced out of our system however when the South Africa game started. When the opening goal went in, the hotel staff, all of them decked out in the colours of the Bafana Bafana and armed with vuvuzelas, literally brought the house down only for sanity to return when the Mexicans equalised.

For an early evening snack we ordered a Barbeque Chicken Pizza from Debonairs - one of the more popular South African chains and the official fans choice for the World Cup.

At around 7pm we were on our way out for dinner when we first encountered the darker side of South Africa. We were flatly told not to go anywhere walking as it was not safe to venture out. Not fancying an unwelcome adventure ride after our warning we decided to retire for the day with some more Pizza for dinner.

We were still tired and we had a big day coming up. We were fast asleep by 9 PM South Africa time dreaming about the Albiceleste, Lionel Messi and Diego Maradona. This was the World Cup and we were in South Africa!