April 10, 2020
Postscript: Back in South Africa and into a COVID-19 managed world
It is now three and a half weeks since my last post from Buenos Aires. Since then the world has been turned upside down and and we are finding our feet in an environment where new lessons are being learnt every day.
After five days in our hotel in Buenos Aires we were informed that the hotel would be shutting down the next day and we would need to find alternative accommodation. Up until then we had had no luck in contacting our travel company nor LATAM, the airline on which we had been booked to fly back to South Africa in the middle of April. So we decided that the best bet would be to take a taxi to the airport and arrange things there.
So the next morning we checked out and got taken to a quiet but chaotic airport and started to negociate with airlines on a way to get to Sao Paulo, the only city from which flights to Africa are available. To cut a long story short, it took two days before we could get a flight to sao Paulo by which time we had missed the last flight out before South Africa shut its airports and borders and imposed a total lock down.
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We spent two weeks at a hotel near the airport while the South African embassy in Brazil organized a charter flight to repatriate those South Africans who had managed to make it to Sao Paulo. Brazilians didn't seem to be taking the threat of the virus too seriously and we careful to ensure that we only left our hotel room when necessary.
Eventually we got the message from the ambassador that the flight had been arranged and when we needed to gather at the airport. The embassy and consular staff have been great throughout the process, keeping us well informed via a WhatsApp group and doing their best to gather as much information about any other South Africans potentially stranded in South America.
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We landed in Johannesburg on the 8th of April and, after symptomatic testing, were bused away to be quarantined in a training college belonging to Transnet, the state railway service where we have been tested for COVID-19 and confined to our rooms for potentially 14 days. The COVID-19 test process is less than comfortable, with a swab stick being inserted through your nostril to somewhere that feels close to your brain and another, less invasive one, being taken from the back of your throat. After a few hiccups, the Department of Health personnel found their feet in the facility borrowed from Transnet and we have been treated extremely well given the circumstances.
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The lock down has been extended until the end of April so even when we are discharged from the quarantine facility we won't be able to travel back to the Eastern Cape because our Landrover is in storage here in Johannesburg and we won't be able to recover it until the lock down has been lifted.
In the meantime we are both in good health and good spirits. We can't wait to get back onto our bicycles - we haven't pedaled a stroke since we arrived in Buenos Aires - but we can't see ourselves being able to start cycle touring again until countries start re-opening their borders which is unlikely to be for many months.
Until then we can only dream. And of course, we are dreaming about returning to Patagonia ... again !
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4 years ago