I have always heard and read other people’s experiences and agony over getting lost at one of Africa’s biggest airports and never, in a million years did I think it could happen to me.

Well, that day was the 30th August 2019.

A friend of mine (Amy) was departing for Denmark and I had to come send her off, together with her family on the day. Her flight was scheduled for 13:45pm and had to check-in 2 hours before.

Since I work at a province away from Gauteng, where the airport is located, I had quite a journey to embark on hence I decided to leave home a bit early (the aim was to leave at 8am to ensure that I got to the airport by 10am). I ended up leaving North West Province slightly after 9am as I had to make a quick stop by a printing shop. An important pitstop I had to make to complete printing the parting gift I had for Amy…I am sentimental when it comes to gifts.

I was already late, according to my schedule, so I tried being calm along the journey by playing some gospel music on my playlist while on the road. It managed to help.

Amy’s sister gave me a call along the way to alert me that the rest of the family, including Amy, still haven’t left their home for the airport as yet and were running late. This made me feel at ease, especially knowing that I was about 30 or so odd minutes away from the airport.

I gave Amy a call as I approached the airport and was informed that they are stuck in traffic – typical of Johannesburg,even more so when it’s payday. Surprisingly, I was not caught up in any traffic. I may have used a lucky route. And I was a bit disappointed because I am not fond of experiencing traffic at the mining town where I work so it would have been a welcomed delay, though one that would not be ideal at the time.

I got to the the dreaded entry points of the airport where one needs to decide whether they are parking, picking up or dropping off. Those many options and lanes still confuse the hell out of me and I found myself on the drop off/parking lane.

There was a noted increase in the presence of police patrols on duty and as I glanced onto my immediate left, I saw the Bokke team players on stage and pieced everything out. It was the same date that the Springboks were traveling to Japan for the world cup tournament. Amid the frenzy, I found myself getting into a parking area and ailse that I was not used to parking at but it was not the long-term one so I felt all was alright.

The excitement of getting to the airport on time and having to see my friend off to her new journey, coupled with the Bokke euphoria in the atmosphere at the time, made me lose focus in tracking my movements. I simply wanted to get to the international departures as quickly as I can.

I got there and I am not certain whether I was the first one to arrive or Amy’s older sister was, but in any case, we managed to meet up. We both then waited for Amy and the rest of the family to come along.

Amy and her squad arrived and we had about less than an hour to spend with her, seeing that time was not on her side as well. It was both emotive and surreal as we quickly said our goodbyes. After seeing her off, Amy’s family, in fact, her father, decided that everyone must catch up over a light snack and drink right there at the airport.

Cool idea. I hadn’t had anything for hours already…

We sat down and started catching up – heavily. The conversations were so lit, intense and interesting, that we forgot about the time we’ve spent. Hours later, after all the laughs and smiles, I parted ways with the rest of the gang and as I was walking to the parking area, I started to panic.

I could not recall where I had parked.

I had the parking ticket with me and I constantly referred to it to see if I can’t locate the actual parking area, but I failed. I decided to go to the parking offices to be assisted to locate the parking area using the card. The poor ladies tired all means to help me get to where I had parked and I had to come back for assistance a couple of times.

I made the dreadful mistake of paying for the ticket before I found where the vehicle was parked and was shocked by the amount I had to pay. I felt the airport was ripping me off, right there and then. Luckily I had a couple of hundreds in my wallet that I abruptly had to part with to the automated parking machine.

My anguish was doubled as after paying for the ticket, I still struggled to locate where I had parked. After making mutliple turns and bends, taking a couple of lifts, I was relieved to eventually find where I had parked.

The relief quickly turned into frustration because of how foolish the entire experience was. I am a very observant person in nature and usually park at the same area whenever I am at the airport and I was mad at myself for not doing so even at this time.

I may have taken a different turn off into the airport when I go in but that’s a story of another day – I said to myself. As I drove towards the exit boom gate and as usual, I had to insert the ticket the parking ticket card onto the machine for the boom gate to open.

To my shock, the parking ticket returned and I was left confused. I then inserted it again and it repeated, a parking assistant came along and told me the ticket is unpaid when it does that and she kindly directed me to a place where I could temporarily park so that I can pay off the ticket – again. Well the balance or whatever.

When I got out of the vehicle to walk towards the pay-point, I told the parking assistant, who was walking with me, that I had already paid and was able to find out that the delay from after I just paid the ticket to when I eventually found where I had parked, may have been too long. This resulted in the extra charge to the ticket.

I was fuming but I paid it nonetheless because I just didn’t want to see myself at the airport anymore.

This incident led me to always do these three things whenever I am at the airport:

1. Be mindful of the time I spend at the airport. The parking rates increase excessively per hour so the less time I spend there, the better.

2. Be very observant of where I park so that I can be able to trace my steps back afterwards. Be mindful of the exact surroundings – Check the colour code of the pillars around the parking area, that can help as well.

3. Always take a picture of the actual parking slot. They are always numbered and written on the floor. Save the parking lot as a Google map location and look around and ahead, what key landmarks are there that will make it easy to map the way back?

I did exactly steps 2 and 3 when my partner and I left for Victoria Falls in about three month’s time from the incident.

And it helped big time when we returned from our holiday!