It finally happened. We reached the last day of our holiday. Mixed feelings on that, as we’re excited to get back home, see the ‘kids’ (we have 2 cats), and get back into our normal lives… but we’re also sad to leave Cape Town and our holiday mode. This is my 4th or 5th visit to Cape Town and Rob’s second. He said that he absolutely understands now why I love this city so much. It would be fantastic to winter here as snowbirds, but the cost and length of the air travel is prohibitive. I mean, including the layover times (but NOT including the checkin time before boarding the first flight), it will take us almost 31 hours to get home from here. Yowza.

It is what it is. But let’s back up to the morning, where Table Mountain was trying to peek through the clouds, finally.

We stopped in at our fave little breakfast spot and had a bite to eat.

When we got back to the hotel, there was an email from Marinus! Now, I realize that most of you reading this are wondering who on earth that is… well, you’ve been introduced to Magda and Ernest - Marinus is their son. Back on our first visit here, I helped him get over his fear of roller coasters… on the “Cobra” coaster at Ratanga Junction, a park which sadly no longer exists.

Anyway, this is how I remember Marinus…

That was about 25 years ago. He’s turning 37 this year and has a lovely wife and two adorable kids. He picked us up from the hotel and we went over to the Camps Bay area for a light lunch.

Now I feel really old. Regardless, we had a great time catching up and getting to know this nice young man who used to be a kid. The scenery outside the lunch spot was nice, as you’d expect from Camps Bay.

After lunch, Marinus dropped us off at Cape Town International Airport, the first time I’ve ever flown out of here. In all my previous visits, Johannesburg was the point of arrival and departure. I must say that I was pretty shocked at how small the airport is, considering the size of the city it’s in. (Cape Town has 3.7 million people, roughly three times the size of Calgary)

Qatar Airways only has one flight in/out of here, it seems, so there were no agents at the counter to check us in when we arrived. No worries, we can just hang out at the front of the queue.

While we waited, I had a little walk around and found that the upstairs level is mostly fast food. Mugg & Bean, Spur, KFC, and Wimpy. Yes, named after the character from Popeye’s who would “gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.” Somehow, I don’t think they’ve adopted that pay schedule.

Speaking of small… the lounge at CPT is tiny and in desperate need of an upgrade. We were quite surprised when we got there at how cramped and tired it looked.

Now that I’ve said that, I’ll say this: the food was excellent. Everything I tried was good, but there were these little doner kebabs that are quite simply the best food I’ve ever had in an airport, ever. I was still full from lunch when we got here, but I still ate five of these. I would come back just for these.

Well, Qatar Airlines is very nice - our flight to Doha, Qatar was about 9.5 hours, but we had the comfy pods with lots of amenities.

The entertainment options were very different than what you’d get on a N.American or European flight. Lots of Arabic stuff, Indian stuff, and other films and TV I was unfamiliar with. In the audio section, I recognized very few of the artists, aside from Bob Dylan (whom I can’t stand), and I was about to go down the rabbit hole of new music until I discovered that there was an entire Erasure concert available(!) Oh, hell yeah!

There was a complimentary glass of champagne on arrival and since we had adjoining pods, we could toast our awesome holiday and wish for safe travels home.

We landed in the desert after a short video showing off Doha (which looks amazing, by the way) and descended the stairs like Beatles heading for the Ed Sullivan Theatre.

From there, we had a loooooooooong bus tram journey to the terminal. This airport is huge. Along the way, we got to watch another plane land, up-close and personal. (The tinted windows on the bus made the sunrise green)

Short layover in Doha, but we made use of the lounge long enough for a cup of coffee.
…and note to nearly every other airport I’ve been in: THIS is how you do a lounge! OMG.

I checked the departure screen to make sure our next leg was still on time. Surprisingly, it said, “Go to gate” even though we had more than an hour before boarding. We didn’t quite believe we’d need that much time, but we left the lounge anyway. I’m glad we did, because reasons (you’ll hear about it in just a minute)

Doha has one of the prettiest airports. One of the largest (1.6 km walk between the lounge and the gate, even after taking the inter terminal train). One of the cleanest….

…and also one of the most seriously WTF in terms of security overload. We got off our flight and had to go through a whole security thing: remove half your clothes, take out your laptop, walk through the scanner, get patted down because something still beeped, put all your stuff back together…. you know the drill. But why do that right after getting off a plane? What did they expect us to obtain between the last security checkpoint and this one?

If that were it, no biggie. But no… We finally get to our gate and we have to have someone verify our passports and boarding passes. Ok, fair. Then another full security checkpoint. Yes, they have full security screening with metal detectors and baggage scanning at every gate. Even though you just did this 1.6 km ago. I didn’t see any AK-47 stores in the airport, WTF do they think we have on us?

Get through the scanners, get in another queue, and have the passports and boarding passes checked again by another person. Yes, on both sides of the scanner, in the same gate. Then you have to scan your boarding pass on a little security gate which finally opens to let you into the waiting area for your gate. When they call boarding, another airport employee punches in a code to open yet another set of security doors and you can get on the plane.

Once on the plane, though, Qatar Airlines is nice. Rob specifically opted to fly them on the way home as he heard their business class was one of the best. Now, I’m not nearly as well-traveled in business class as Rob is, but this is by far the nicest one I’ve been on. The flight from Cape Town to Doha was on an aircraft with the standard lie-down pods like we’ve seen on other airlines. This flight has “Q-suites” which are like little apartments.

Service has been very attentive. Freshly squozen orange juice (yes, autocorrect, I meant to say “squozen”) when we boarded (it was a bit early for champagne, though the option was there). The food options serve both Western and Arab appetites, as the flight goes between Qatar and the USA. I opted for a brekkie option I had never heard of (of course): Kunafa and Nutella croffle. I know Nutella, but the other words didn’t make any sense to me.

OMG delicious. Kunafa is a spun pasta, crispy, a little like shredded wheat. There’s crème Anglaise and strawberries. As for the rest? It’s a Nutella-filled croissant that’s been smashed in a waffle iron. “Croffle” makes sense now. It’s as good as you’re thinking it is.

They also offer “loungewear” - which we passed on for the flight to Doha, but I got one for the long flight and now I wish I’d gotten the first one, too. It’s super comfy and will make sleeping easier.

OH, there’s also free wifi up here. I’m writing all this at 9,448 m (31,000 ft), according to the screen. That also means that I don’t have to worry about finding something to watch on the airline entertainment, since I can load up YouTube and watch Pete and Bas videos…. well, most of them. Some didn’t pass the content filters put up by the airlines, so they’re blocked, which is kinda funny since pretty much all of their videos are about a couple mafia bosses running a drug ring and killing off the rivals. Flawed algorithms, for sure, that “The Old Estate” is blocked, but “Gangster Shit” sails right through.

Interesting… the filter is off now that we’re no longer over the Middle East. The wifi cut out completely when we were over Russia. Now we’re over the North Pole and wifi is back on with no filters at all. I guess Santa likes all the Pete and Bas songs.
Two things I noticed on the flight map:
1. Taking a trip over the top of the world looks silly on a flat map
2. We’re going to fly right over Calgary…. and keep going. Noooooooo!

The food game on Qatar Airlines is strong. Had another dish I knew nothing about: Qatari chicken jareesh. Wheat, chicken, and spices simmer for hours on low heat, then they add blanched almonds, fried onions, and some little dried cranberry-like things. It was absolutely delicious. Gotta look up a recipe later.

Well, hello, Canadian Rockies! Nice to see you again!

Landed safely in Seattle. For some reason, they make you collect your bags and go through immigration control, even if you’re just connecting to someplace else. Got a bit of the 3rd degree from the passport guy, but nothing heinous. Waiting in the Alaska Airlines Lounge for the last leg of this long journey. I’m going to end it here, as I imagine that the last bit will be uneventful, AND because I personally plan to collapse right after I walk through the door at home and re-introduce myself to the cats.

It was fun, everybody! Stay tuned for the next one, coming up before you know it (and very different than this one!)

Back to this trip’s main page

Back to the travelogue page