When they pulled me out from standby, I was frantic to know where on earth they’re going to send me to this time. The suspense was getting to me; I really don’t know how to handle things when they come as surprises.
Putting on my red hat and dragging my handbag on top of my trolley, I hurried to the station eager to know if I was going to do a quick turnaround or another layover in God-knows-where.
“You are going to CapeTown,” a man bulging in his white polo said, as he handed me the voyage report containing the flight information I needed.
In my head, I didn’t know whether I should be happy or dread the trip, as I have no clue what CapeTown was like, not as a destination, but as a flight with yet an unknown passenger profile. This is one of the newest destinations of Emirates and I have yet to receive details of how the service usually goes. I had no clue whether the passengers were going to be demanding, passive, or just a plain bunch of sleepy people.
As I scurried to the shuttle bus, the purser held me in immigration for a moment to introduce me to the flight deck crew. After which, I was introduced to the rest of the team as we rode along the airport runway.
Girl 1: “ayan na sya…yung pull out...koreana pala eh” (there she is, the one who got pulled out..so.. she’s korean)
Girl 2: “ah ok naman, mukha naman syang mabait eh” (oh, alright, she seems nice)
There were 3 filipinos huddled together in one seating row, looking at me. No wonder other nationalities call us the Filipino mafia, we always stick together anywhere.
“Hi, alam mo ba kung gaano katagal yung flight?” (do you know how long the flight is?) I asked the Filipina beside me, who I later discovered was one of our SFSs (senior flight steward).
“Oh, I think it’s going to be around 9 hours” she quickly replied.
“ah ganun ba. Ang tagal pala noh, akala ko sandali lang itong flight.” I snickered. (oh, It's that long- I thought this flight was going to be a short one.)
“…”,
she looked at me, seemingly puzzled, then her eyes widened,
“ hayyy pinay ka pala! anu ba yan, nag English pa ako!” ( You're a Filipina! And here I was talking to you in English!)
We let out hearty laughs and she introduced me to the other Pinoys.
The flight was difficult; the passengers liked to drink a lot and have almost depleted all of our liqueurs in the aircraft. I even had my skin peeled off my palm- from opening bottles of wine. Ouch!
Going to our hotel, I noticed a vast plain with plenty of scrap metal boxes littered randomly. Turns out, there were more shanties there than in Manila.
We were welcomed by the hotel staff with these colorful candies and yummy guava juice- a nice treat indeed. It was decided before we took a rest, that we Filipino Mafias would go together to Table Mountain the next morning. It was good because the others were taking the “package tour” which was unreasonably priced for us thrifty Pinoys. LOL. And it turned out that our own little adventure was way better than the packaged tour, because by the time they went to table mountain, it was already too foggy to see anything. We were lucky we went out earlier and saw this amazing view!
Good thing I brought with me this thick winter jacket; it was freezing cold up there! We took this cable car going up the summit. I was too scared to look anywhere so I just focused at the station on top. The summit was flat alright, that’s why it’s called Table Mountain. I couldn’t put into words how spectacular the view was. It was heaven. The clouds were at my feet, and the rising sun made everything look like gold. The sea beneath the clouds is sparkling like bright jewels, and the mountain beyond, called the devil’s peak, sharply jots out of the fluffy clouds.
We descended about an hour or so. We were famished so we decided to eat at the waterfront. There were some lovely restaurants by the bay, mostly selling fish & chips, but we decided on a steakhouse. This is South Africa after all, where steaks are a national pride. We had to have a bite of it. Looking out at the ocean, I couldn’t believe how wonderful the sky was. Humans are not deserving of such a wondrous sight.
We should be grateful for each moment. For each moment, a miracle is created.
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