Due Course

From left: Erika, George, Piet, Xolile, Alfie, Diago, and Thomas at Sets and Devices, where ITASC's mobile base structures were fabricated

Day 5; January 27, 2009; Cape Town, South Africa

We continue to happily endure the seemingly never ending process of preparations, and spent the day getting extra tripod plates, DV tapes, a wind jammer for the microphone, s-rings, distilled water for our backup-power fuel cell, emergency blankets, signaling mirrors, a sound card for Ntsikelelo, and other random pieces of the equipment puzzle.

Early in the day we stopped by Bobby De Beer’s warehouse where much of the ITASC’s mobile base was constructed, and met many of the people who built the three structures.

At the end of the day, worn out from all the to and fro, Thomas dropped me off at my hotel, and I took a long and much needed nap before the evening’s events.

We were to be interviewed at 8pm by Caitlin Ross who is a writer for the West Cape News Agency, and would be gathering at Alfons’ hotel for a drink and conversation.  We chatted with Caitlin for an hour or so about our expedition and projects. Near the end of the interview, as the clock stuck 9pm, we interrupted the meeting in order to call ALCI to hear the latest on our flight details and to see if we would be leaving tomorrow at 10pm as originally hoped.

To our surprise, they changed the flight schedule again, but this time not to delay it—we were told that the flight would leave the next morning for sure at 9:30am. The anticipation and excitement was palpable—finally, we would fly in!

After a quick bon voyage dinner of burgers and champagne with some friends of Thomas’ I went back to my hotel to pack everything up and rest before the newness of everything the morrow would bring.

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