An amazing race that ended in tears
Our coverage of the Africa Cup of Nations is generously sponsored by rain
I was like a contestant in the reality show The Amazing Race.
From the moment I arrived at OR Tambo Airport on Tuesday to catch a flight to Jomo Kenyatta Airport in Nairobi, I was in a race against time to get to Bouaké in Ivory Coast in time for the kickoff in Bafana Bafana’s Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) semifinal against Nigeria.
Unlike The Amazing Race contestants, though, I was travelling alone. At least I knew where I was going; but there was no prize waiting for me at the finishing line.
Going through my itinerary on Tuesday morning, it dawned on me that it was going to be complicated and extremely challenging to get to Bouaké in time.
A quick Google search showed that I was faced with a daunting trip of more than 11,000km, including a nine-hour layover in Nairobi. Despite the odds stacked against me, I took up the challenge and leant heavily on my years of experience in criss-crossing the continent while following clubs and national teams.
A direct flight to Abidjan would have made my life easier by eliminating the overnight layover in Nairobi waiting to connect to Ivory Coast.
My journey almost ended before it started when officials at OR Tambo Airport told me I would not get past Kenyan immigration because my passport was due to expire in less than six months.
However, I would only be in transit in Nairobi and I had a letter of invitation from the Ivory Coast government and my accreditation had been approved. After frantic and back and forth communication between South African and Kenyan immigration officials, the reprieve came through minutes before the boarding gate was about to close.
The official who was helping me cracked a joke, with remarkable prescience, that the last-minute panic could be a bad omen.
When I took my seat in the plane, I thought the drama was over. But, true to The Amazing Race’s script, there were more twists and turns.
We left Johannesburg at about 6pm on Tuesday and arrived in Kenya just more than four hours later. I spent the night in Nairobi and only took off for Abidjan at about 8am the next day — the day of the match.
More surprises awaited in Abidjan, where immigration officials demanded to see my yellow fever vaccination certificate. Of course, I didn’t have one.
The language barrier didn’t help; my
French vocabulary consists of bonjour, ça va, mon ami and oui, while my Ivorian interlocutors didn’t have much English.
So I had to have the vaccination there and then, which cost the equivalent of R220 and entailed waiting in a long queue as the clock ticked down to the 5pm kickoff. It was almost noon and I still had a road trip of about four hours to Bouaké.
When I was finally done with the injection, I was ready to hit the road — but then the ATM from which I hoped to draw essential local currency ran out of cash.
Another 30-minute wait for the machine to be replenished. By the time I left the extremely hot Félix Houphouët Boigny International Airport, the clock was ticking towards 2pm.
I jumped into a taxi, but despite the driver’s best efforts the match had been long under way by the time we arrived at the Stade de la Paix in Bouaké.
Fortunately, a colleague had collected my accreditation and he came to the security checkpoint to hand it to me so I could enter the stadium.
When I finally sat down on my chair in the media section, the second half had already started. But South Africa’s equaliser in the dying minutes of regular time meant I got to watch an extra 30 minutes of football and the penalty shoot-out.
In the end, I was there for the most interesting part of the match, and I could take part in the postmatch media opportunities.
And there my amazing race to Bouaké finished, though there was no $1m at the end of the frantic 24 hours.