The First Saviour - The Jo'burg Porter

The brutal introduction to South Africa is a long 11 hour flight from London. Done overnight, with a little blue sleeping pill, it seems to fly by, but the creaking bones and stiff muscles let us know that we’ve slept upright in narrow airplane seats.

We might not have made it if not for a very effective airport porter in Johannesburg. Our flight out of London, had been delayed by the weather (rain of course), and the need to fly around French air space (a strike, of course) which left us barely more than an hour to make it through immigration control, retrieve our bags, dash to another terminal and check in for a domestic flight. Predictably, we were steered away from the most logical direct route by an airport official who said there were shorter lines “just up stairs”. Up stairs turned out to be the entire departures area… how to find our next flight?

Having ignored the phalanx of porters on our way, I was ready to do so again when the skeletal little porter spotted our baggage tag and said “Capetown sir, this way, ya. You have your boarding pass sir?” He seemed to know exactly where our minds were and frankly, time was getting short. Before we knew what was happening, we had skirted around behind some counters, he had me putting our bags on an unsigned weigh scale and he had Fran standing at a counter with our passports and boarding passes issued in London. With the luggage weight approval slips, our bags were on a conveyor belt before we knew what was happening and he was steering us towards security while I dug frantically through our a knapsack for South African Rand for a tip.

Unsuccessful, I stuffed a British 5 Pound note into his bony hand … “British pounds sir? The bank will take so much in exchange. But OK just give me another 5 Pound note”. I figured almost $8 dollars was good enough for 10 minutes of service … particularly since he had me do all of the lifting and carrying. He smiled, pointed us to the gate and wished us a good trip.

A 10 minute dash later, we were through the relaxed security and on the boarding ramp – and with a moment to catch my breath, I thought “worth every pence”.