I'm resuming my blog for this trip to Cape Town, initially to participate in the World Seabird Conference next week followed by a spot of birding in the Karoo and Bushmanland with Mark Tasker.
My first leg has gone OK. I'm flying from Aberdeen via Amsterdam to Cape Town and stopping overnight at a Golden Tulip hotel at Sloterdijk which is midway between the airport and the city centre. A younger Andy would have gone into the city to party, but I'm content with an early night having eaten a not unpleasant pizza at the airport. I'm using a fantastic app on my phone called Citymapper which guides you around public transport in even familiar cities. If it covers Cape Town as well as it does Amsterdam and London, then I'll be a very happy bunny.
It was all a bit of a push to get things done before I left and one of the things that got squeezed out was adequate preparation time for the trip. I've left lots of things behind.
Top of the list is any travel plugs of any type. Thankfully my room at the Golden Tulip has a UK socket so this will keeper going until I can buy an adapter at the airport.
My other mini disaster is that I failed to spot that my suitcase was checked through to Cape Town complete with wash bag and overnight stuff. You normally get asked if you want this to happen so I had a moan at the KLM service desk about that (it would have been a minimum 1 hour wait for my bag to be retrieved) and they gave me an overnight wash bag which includes a t-shirt. I'm easily bought.
I'm quite impressed with the hotel. It's not in the city centre, but given the high standard of public transport, it would make a good base for an Amsterdam / Netherlands trip at a reasonable price.
2 comments:
Hi Andy, I DID remember my S African travel plug. They use the large round 3-pin things that we used to have when kids (15 Amp I think). You can really only get them in South Africa though (or maybe one of those multi-daptors has them). Happy flight in the morning - I'll be following 24 hours behind!
I picked one up at the airport. As you say, I don't think my international adapter that I left at home would have covered South African power points. It was cheap enough - 95 Rand (approx = £5 at the moment).
Post a Comment