Johannesburg 6-3-86 Half-way around the world

By Bob Van Leer
(Johannesburg, South Africa, June 3, 1986) - Today Betty and I arrived in South Africa after a 16 hour flight from New York on a Boeing 747. The name of the continent, Africa, has always conjured up images of a wild, primitive place, the last continent to be explored by civilized man. So what are our accommodations?

We are staying at the Sandton Sun Hotel, which has facilities and service superior to anything that Oregon has to offer. We have stayed at the Benson in Portland which has the reputation of having Oregon's finest service, but the Benson could take lessons from this hotel. Physically it is impressive, with a 20 story atrium and water and fountains everywhere.
  But most impressive is the service. Our bags were waiting at the door when we got to the room. Inside was a bowl of fresh fruit, two small bottles of South African wine, and a personally addressed letter of welcome from the manager. We had room service send up dinner and we selected shrimp with palm hearts and springbok medal-lions (tender steaks from a small local antelope). After dinner the maid came in and turned down the bed. So much for roughing it in Africa.
  The trip here was long, but relatively uneventful. We left Sunday evening from Medford and had a slight problem in San Francisco when one plane developed problems and it was necessary to wheel out another which put us into New York (John F. Kennedy Airport) about two and a half hours late. However, we had allowed plenty of time so this was not a problem
   We stayed in a hotel room at the airport for half a day catching up on sleep and then boarded South African Airways for a trip that left JFK at 7:30 p.m. Monday and arrived at Johannesburg 5:30 p.m. Tuesday. This crosses a number of time zones, so the elapsed time of the flight was 16 hours. We are now 9 hours ahead of Gold Beach, actually 10 time zones, but South Africa does not have daylight saving time.
  This is pretty close to halfway around the world from home. We are in the southern hemisphere, so the seasons are exactly reversed and it is almost winter. It's dark at 5:30 p.m. The temperature is mild, warmer than at home. The plane made one refueling stop at Ilha do Sal, a bleak, treeless bit of land in the Cape Verde Islands owned by Portugal off the west coast of Africa.
  Most of the flight was over water except for the last leg over the Kalahari Desert in Namibia and Botswana which looks from the air a lot like Nevada. By now the passengers look a little rough -rumpled, hair messed up, and unshaven. But the long flight was not as bad as we thought it would be. Our cabin was only about 60 percent full, which left enough room to stretch out a little.
  We were waved through customs, no check at all, and were taken to the hotel to meet the rest of our party . This is a Study Mission sponsored by the National Newspaper Association, a trade association of small newspapers. There are fourteen of us on this trip. In addition to the two of us from Oregon there are others from North Carolina, Wisconsin, California, New York, Colorado, Florida and Alabama.
  One of the first observations is that prices are cheap here. A bottle of beer on the plane was 25 cents U.S. The fancy dinner for two was $16.00. The South African currency has dropped dramatically in relation to the dollar in the past few years. In 1983 the South African unit of money, the Rand, cost $1.11 in US. Today it is about 42 cents.
  We have had little opportunity yet to talk to the local residents, but the few whites we have talked to seem defensive about the country's political situation. It is too early to make firm conclusions but there appears to be a "siege mentality", us against the world.
  I have talked to a few blacks working in the hotel. They are polite, pleasant, but won't give a hint of an opinion, which I suppose is a sensible position for them. Tomorrow we start our real study with a tour of Johannesburg including a trip down into a gold mine and, in the evening, a reception with several members of the South African Tourism Board as well as talks by two newspaper editors, one white and one black.