Wings or Cash

Truly if this goes on I'm either going to have to grow a pair of wings and learn to fly, or make a few hundred million dollars in cash and buy a private jet.  Sadly neither of those options are actually viable, so my future airline travel will possibly continue to be just one nightmarish experience after another.

I now have yet another airline to add to my growing list of "WHO NOT TO FLY WITH",  Iberia Airlines.  Our flight to South Africa with them, well what can I say, not the best experience!  This is remember only my opinion, to which I'm entitled, but to say I wasn't impressed is probably the understatement of the year.

Following a very long, and uncomfortable overnight flight, we were met at Johannesburg airport by my sister-in-law Ruth, where we proceeded to tour the airport looking for the Iberia Airlines customer service office, as we had a few issues we wanted to take up with them.  Luckily for them, their office was closed until the following Thursday...  This did not please Bob, but there was nothing else we could do, and I was very grateful that at least our luggage had all arrived unscathed.

The drive to Ruth's house was only 40 minutes, which gave us both a chance to take in all the sights.  The weather was sunny but quite cold.  July is their winter, and Ruth had warned us to bring warm clothes, but I already knew that we hadn't brought enough with us.  South Africa can't be that cold, I had told myself when I was packing for the trip. WRONG, South African winters are very cold. The middle of the day it warms up quite nicely to around 65 - 70 degrees, but the evenings and early mornings are very, very cold.

I was shocked to see the amount of security around the houses, high brick walls topped with electric fences and rolled razor (barbed) wire (like you see around prison's).  Homes here have either tall heavy metal electric entrance gates, or are within a manned, armed, gated sub-division.  The crime rate here is very high, so everything has to be locked, alarmed, and guarded.  All the homes have heavy metal bars on all the windows and doors.  Security is a big business here.  The homes themselves were lovely, with either barrel tiled or thatched roofs, and the style is quite Mediterranean.  The Tuscan style house is very popular here, and if is wasn't for all the security everywhere it would be quite lovely.

Ruth's house was really beautiful, once through the electric gate you find yourself in a beautifully manicured large front yard with palms and lovely flowering borders, hundreds of magnificent colorful birds fight for supremacy over the many bird tables and feeders throughout the garden, I couldn't wait to get my camera out and start taking photographs.

The house itself is beautiful, light and sunny and tiled throughout, with only the bedrooms carpeted (and wonderful underfloor heating), most of the house has an open plan design with a large interior courtyard that's accessed off a large room housing the indoor swimming pool and jaccuzzi, the courtyard has a built in barbeque and bar area and sunny open space for sunbathing.  A little path leads to a cottage, a spill over for extra guests.  The bedrooms are housed in a separate wing of the house that's accessed through a heavy iron gate which is closed and locked at night.

The Interior swimming pool

The amount of security around and within this house should make one feel quite safe, I think it's better protected than most banks, but one has to wonder how safe you are when you leave the house.  From everything Ruth tells me Johannesburg sounds like a dangerous place, which is such a shame because it's really quite beautiful...