Johannesburg, South Africa

The flight to Jo'burg was not so bad. It was fairly short and the weather wasn't as problematic as the trip out. We were stuck there in Jo'burg for about 5.5 hours with nothing really to do and no prospects for sleeping. Meg and I took turns watching each other's stuff while the other person did some shopping. I was looking through the giant "Out of Africa" store for a mbira (a sort of gourd finger harp) for my friend Trisha - but they only had these cheap little toy-like ones there. Almost everything in that shop actually looked kind of fake (or really 'produced') after seeing the actual work of people who do the carvings and other stuff by hand. On some level, it was kind of hard for me to look through - a bit like walking into a McDonald's or something. They had a few interesting things - in fact I did end up buying a mask there - but it was mostly fabrics and stuff like that.

While I was in the shop, Meg got surveyed by some guy who was asking travelers about their time in South Africa - and then while I was guarding the stuff, a lady came up to me with the same survey. I guess we were easy targets, since we were surrounded by baggage and couldn't move. I didn't mind the survey, but I had really only spent about 20 hours in South Africa and most of that was sleeping - plus researchers probably aren't an ideal group to ask travel questions about - since we generally aren't there as true tourists.

The rest of the time we just sort of frittered away - I wasn't really interested in many of the other shops. I chatted with Karlyn on the internet a bit, listened to my book, and counted down the hours. It was too early for me to try to sleep. I was a little sad to be leaving Africa, but hopefully I will get back there again sometime soon.