It feels so good to stand on African soil.We arrived in Johanesburg completely exhausted. After 2.5 days of travel and a 6hr time change, the only thing on our mind was sleep. Squad A arrived a few days before us, and had recovered by the time we arrived. The race planners were gracious enough to give us a day to rest before sending us out to race.
We went into Pretoria to begin the race. After receiving our clue, we had to find the Union building and take a picture with a statue. Our team accidently got the wrong statue, but fortunately the correct one was actually in the background of the photo so we still got credit. After finding our contact there, we got another clue that sent us to the train station and onto Johanesburg. After a 2hr train ride, we had to get in a Kombi (public transit) and go to the Zoo. At Zoo, we had to get pictures with the Big 5 South African animals, the national bird, and Max’s memmorial (a gorilla that had been shot by a criminal).
We also had to find out the significance of the colors of the South African flag. The second half of that challange was to go to the “Moyo” restaurant by the Zoo Lake and order the “mixed platter”. The team also had to get their faces painted by the restaurant artist and then get a picture with our empty platter. Since only four people have to complete the challanges, we split into two groups. Five team members scored a ride through the Zoo in one of the Zoo keepers trucks to get the pictures, while two of us found the restaurant and ordered the food. The others met us at the restaurant just as the food was delivered to the table. Perfect timing. We quickly ate the food and got our faces painted before running out to catch a taxi to the next stop. Fortunately, the hostess had called taxis for us so we didn’t loose any time.
Our next clue sent us to the Aparteid Museum. Four team members ran through the museum searching for the answers to the questions on or clue list. When they finnished, we sent four ahead to the Carlton Tower to find the “Top of Africa” and cross the finnish line. As soon as they jumped in the taxi, we realized that they had the clue sheet and we didn’t actually know where we were going. the remaining three of us had to run out to the street and beg another team to let us ride with them in their Kombi so we did not get left at the museam. Thankfully, they were merciful and let us join them.
I also realized that I had not given money to the other team members to get into the “Top of Africa”. So we ran as fast as we could to get up there. When we arrived, they had already used personal money to get in. I just had to pay them back. Thanks to fortunate circumstances and good strategy, our team came in first. Yippee!
