For any Americans who decide they want to venture to South Africa (I highly recommend it) you have a 90 day visa upon arrival to the South African borders. Once those 90 days are up, you are an illegal immigrant, and they will give you a hassle at the port of exit. You will also be fined 1000 ZAR and if the officers are feeling up to it (very very small chance though) they can threaten you with prison. I being the check-in/check out sort of person I am, decided that I wanted to avoid all of that nonsense so I decided to spend a few rand and get an extension visa.
That was definitely an episode.
To do this, one must go to the Department of Home Affairs. The Department of Home Affairs is located Downtown, in a building in desperate need of a paint job. When walking into home affairs, you first approach a counter with a saucy DHA woman who gives you a ticket number and instructs you to go to a particular level of the building to wait for your number to be called. When I went into the building, the whole place was super busy with an outstanding number of asians and Zimbabweans. I got my number and went up to the third floor, designated for visa extensions.
Sitting down, I was happy to see that I only had four people in front of me. So I chilled and read a bit, but not without doing some people watching. If you are ever in need of good people watching in Cape Town, besides the wharf area, the DHA is the best place to do so. You'll find all manner of people in the place and Wednesday was my lucky day. In front of me seated was a pimp. I kid you not. He was wearing a very brightly colored orange silk shirt, and snakeskin shoes. He also had an odd assortment of gold jewelry on, and the guy next to him looked like a bodyguard of some sort. Perhaps he was famous or something. Next to me on my far left was a middle aged woman (clearly cougar) trying the Mary J. Blige look (over 40 and feeling foxy as comedian Jeff Foxworthy would say) who was kind of flirting with the guy next to her who looked around my age. It was disturbing. On my right was a quiet but attractive American guy (California surfer type) who was also around my age. The reason I knew he was American was because of the American passport he held in his hand.
After going to the counter to hand in my documents, I was directed to another counter where an extremely ancient looking woman was doing accounting and signing off on paperwork. As I was standing in line, a woman wearing a fuschia colored ball gown and clear plastic heels waltzed past me. Everyone seemed confused by her appearance, especially me. She looked a bit lost, but I wasn't sure what she was doing in DHA in formal wear. Perhaps she wanted some attention, but I think the type she was aiming for, she certainly wasn't getting.
After the woman who probably knew Caesar personally gave me my paperwork back I bolted out of the DHA. I can only take so much oddness in at once and that was a bit much. After going outside, I called a very reliable taxi company I use all the time to scoop me up. Oddly enough, they were late and while I was talking to the driver, I found out why. Apparently, the South African Police (SAPS) was out trying to catch people with outstanding warrants or ticket fees. How they do this is simply by setting up computer booths on the public roads and stop everyone. After doing a fingerprint scan and a computer lookup, if you happen to owe money they will ask for it on the spot, and if you owe A LOT of money they will arrest you on the spot. Pretty effective system, except for the fact that it made all the drivers in CT super paranoid and everyone was driving as if they were drunk. It was hilarious but the morning exhausted me and it wasn't even 11:00 am.
After a nap ( I stress sleep) I got up and did work. Vacation in less than a month. Super excited.
All is well,
Carolyn
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