World Cup 2010... This time for Africa!!

Ok… here is a detailed overview of my World Cup South Africa 2010 experience. This is for my own memory as well as for other people to hear about what I did…

I flew from Nairobi to Johannesburg on Sunday (June 20th) afternoon. I had a few hours in the Joburg airport and got on a place to Port Elizabeth. On my plane there were probably 50 Chilean fans because Chile was playing the following day. The pilot even acknowledged them and wished them good luck and the whole plane erupted into a Chilean cheer. Welcome to World Cup, right!?!

I arrived in Port Elizabeth that night and Daniel’s friend Kim picked me up and we went to her friend’s place where I stayed. I was immediately blown away because their apartment was super nice. We watched the night match on their huge TV.

Monday morning they all went to work and I went for a run in the neighborhood. It basically looks like California. Palm trees all over, manicured lawns. All really nice houses, apartments and condos. The roads are all perfect and there is lots of security everywhere, like spiked fences and security guards all over. I walked down to the water, which was like 15 minutes away and went to Mcdonalds for lunch. It was the best food ever. After living in Kenya for almost 2 years, chocolate milkshakes are heaven!

There were tons of Chile and Swiss fans there because the game was that day. Kim picked me up in afternoon and we headed over to the match. The PE stadium, Nelson Mandela bay Stadium is brand new and seats 42,000. Game was actually not super exciting, but I was just in awe the whole time because I was AT WORLD CUP! There were lots of Chilean fans which made for a great atmosphere. Tuesday, Daniel finally arrived in the afternoon and we went to fan park to watch matches. In every big city, FIFA/Coca Cola sets up fan parks with huge screens and big open places where people can go to watch all matches. The one in PE was in their local cricket stadium and the screen was huge and was one of the ones used at winter Olympics and they flew it in from Vancouver. We watched the South Africa match there when they beat France which was awesome and everyone was dressed up and going crazy. We went to dinner at KFC, which was absolutely delicious and not like it is in the US… or maybe I have been away from good fast food too long.


We went back to Fanpark for Argentina v Greece. After the game there was a Fatboy Slim concert at the Fanpark. On Wednesday we walked down to beach to a restaurant to meet an American couple Daniel had met in the airport before the England v. Slovenia match. The English fans at the match were crazy and drunk, but the whole match we were freaking out about US v Algeria which was going ona t the same time. The England match ended and after about 5 minutes the guy in front of us got a text message that the US had won and we were soooo excited! After the match, we went to the Yacht Club with Kim and had delicious seafood and sushi then watched Germany v Ghana and had springbok shots (famous in SA – Amarula and peppermint liquer). Thursday we spent all day trying to get USA v Ghana tickets because we now we realized it was a possibility and we had to go! In the afternoon we went to a bar, ate burgers and watched Italy v Slovakia. That night we went to dinner with Kim and some of her colleagues and ate fancy seafood and had lots of delicious local wine. That night we experienced night life in PE…. Friday was Mcdonalds for lunch and Kim dropped us at bus station at 5pm to head to Johannesburg.

The 15 hour ride became a 17 hour bus ride which was absolutely FREEZING. I seriously felt like we were sitting on top of the bus. Longest ride ever! We arrived at the transit center in downtown Joburg. We arranged to take a bus with other fans to Rustenburg for the US game. We arrived at the game with lots of crazy US fans. Despite seeing so much red, white and blue most neutral people were cheering for Ghana so the crowd was definitely a Ghana majority. It was sad that the US lost, but I was definitely still supporting Ghana. That night it took us 6 hours to get back to Joburg, which should have taken 2. We arrived at 4:30am and had to take a sketchy cab with a talkative know-it-all American and arrived at Daniel’s friend’s place at 5am. I was absolutely exhausted.

The next day we drove all around looking for a rental car, but can’t find one and decide to take taxi (15 passenger van) to Durban the next morning. That afternoon, in the train station, we watched Germany v England half outside a bar and half in a convenience store. England was totally embarrassed. We get on train to Soccer City for the Argentina v Mexico game. Walking off that train and seeing the stadium was unreal. Sweetest stadium ever. It looks like a spaceship all lit up and everything. There were crazy Argentinians throwing toilet paper onto field. It was amazing to see Messi play. The game was exciting and Argentina looked awesome. We rode back to with Daniel’s friend and slept at his place.

He picked us up the next morning at 6am. We went back to the train station AGAIN and couldn’t get a taxi so we ended up renting a car and driving to Durban. The road was phenomenal and the tolls were super expensive. We arrived 3:15 for 4pm match at Daniel’s friend’s Anne’s mom place haha. Anne’s mom was clutch and got us to stadium on time. Netherlands v. Slovakia!! Moses Mabida Stadium in Durban was AWESOME. It is brand new and had marble floors all around the outside. The game was fun, but not really amazing. There were many weirdly dressed Dutch fans. It was super windy after the match and we walked down along the seafront. Dinner was at an Indian place. We went back to Anne’s mom’s house for Brazil v. Chile and sleeping. Up at 7 for an early morning drive back to the airport. We dropped the car and flew to Cape Town.

When we arrived, it was pouring rain and we got to the house where we were staying (a friend of a friend’s place of course) and no one was even answering the door. Then we meet Sam, the girl we were staying with, who knew nothing about Cape Town despite living there for 3 years. To get around we decided to rent car. We stayed in the Southern Suburbs of Cape Town and hit up a local place, Jake’s, for Japan v. Paraguay. Mike the waiter is awesome. We had to leave before the penalties in that match in order to get to the stadium for the night match in Cape Town. We parked at the nearby train station and rode to downtown. With a match ticket, the trains are free that night. We arrived downtown and walked 2 km to Greenpoint Stadium with a ton of other fans. Spain v Portugal!!! Tons of talent on the field, namely the ENTIRE Spanish team and Ronaldo, but we didn’t see greatness. We were next to the main Spanish cheering section. There were tons of crazy Spanish fans and even one with a bass drum. That was the last match we attended… but we were ready for some relaxing, touristy stuff and watching quarterfinals on TV. Wednesday we had delicious Ethiopian food for lunch, saw the waterfront and mall, and took Sam out to dinner. Thursday we met up with the American friends we met in PE for lunch at V&A fan area at the waterfront. We then were supposed to go on the Robben Island tour in the afternoon. We waited in line and they announced a 15 minute delay, then cancelled the tour, then said it was back on a few minutes later. After 20 more minutes it was cancelled for sure. We got a refund and rebooked. Friday morning we headed up to Table Mountain. Took the 3 minute cable car to the top and we spend about an hour walking around/taking picture at the top. It was UNREAL. That afternoon we headed to downtown Cape Town and sat at a café for lunch and shopped at the African market there. We watched Brazil v Netherlands at the Fan Park downtown with some cool British guys. What an exciting upset!!! We headed to restaurant over near the stadium to watch the night match. We had great food and watched the Ghana match with really cool South Africans. I was more upset about that loss than the US loss by far. Saturday morning we checked out a local café that was recommended to us for breakfast. Then we finally did the Robben Island tour. It was pretty surreal to see the place where Mandela and so many other prominent South African leaders were in jail for decades…. Not just years. We arrived back to the waterfront to watch Germany v Argentina with so many people! We watched the second half through a window at a bar because the whole area was so crowded. That night we had Thai food for dinner and watched Spain v Paraguay. There was so much drama with the penalties, but it was a great game to watch.

Sunday morning we made the quick drive to Stellenbosch, the famous wine town in South Africa. They happened to be having a wine festival that day!! We met a cool American guy right in the beginning and hung with him the whole day. For the festival you paid and got 5 vouchers to be used at any of the like 100 wineries around there. There were shuttles running the entire day going to all the different places so you could just get on and off wherever. We went to a vertical tasting at de Trafford (same wine from different years). By the way I know nothing about wine, but I learned a TON in one day. We continued from there to Waterford Estate for a super fancy wine and chocolate tasting!! After that we went to Dornier Estate for more tasting, a beautiful view and delicious bread. The town of Stellenbosch is also really cute and we had dinner at an amazing Lebanese restaurant.

The next day from there, we continued towards PE on the Garden Route, a popular drive through the mountains and along the coast of South Africa. We drove the R62 route through the mountains and stopped for lunch in a small town called Montagu. We continued along and made the famous stop at Ronnies Sex Shop which was hyped up to us by a lot of South Africans, but wasn’t quite as crazy as we thought. It is a roadside bar where female travelers leave their bras and underwear hanging in the bar. Kinda funny, but basically reminded us of rural Texas. We arrived at the Backpackers Paradise in Oudtshoorn where we were staying the night. We walked around the town, which was very Afrikaans and had dinner at a local Italian restaurant. For a huge pizza, salad and ostrich steaks (delicious!) and two bottles of wine for both of us we paid like $20… amazing! The next morning we had to check out the famous ostrich farms of Oudtshoorn. So we had a tour at one of the farms and got to see different kinds of ostriches. We even got to sit on them and watch them race. We could have ridden them if we wanted, but those things are crazy and totally creepy so we opted out of the riding part. After all, that town is supposedly the ostrich capital of the world… who knew!

We started the second half of our Garden Route drive and headed from the mountains back down to the coast. We stopped in the famous Knysna for their Oyster Festival but it was super cold and windy and not a good festival day. Despite this, we had a great seafood lunch on the water. The rest of the drive was pretty, but not super exciting. We got to PE to watch the first semi-final match, Holland v. Uruguay and hung out at our friend’s house and watched it on the big screen TV. The next day we did some more exploring in PE because we had our own car and met up with Daniel’s friends again to watch the other semi-final, Germany v. Spain. We watched it at an amphi-theater on a HUGE HD screen. It was great! Thursday I did my last bit of shopping and said all of my goodbyes and got on a plane in the evening to Johannesburg then flew back to Nairobi that night and to Kisumu in the morning.

Overall, I was absolutely blown away by South Africa. I expected it to be nice and all, but it is totally first world. You might as well be in the US or Europe. It is my favorite place I have ever visited and I would recommend everyone to go there. It is naturally beautiful as well as culturally diverse. The cities are cosmopolitan and the people are amazingly nice. Everyone was so hospitable and welcoming. It was extremely clean, the bathrooms were great (very different than Kenya), the roads were perfect and best of all I felt super safe everywhere we were.

World Cup was phenomenal and I can’t wait to do it again in Brazil in 2014!!!