Epilogue

FINAL SOWETO UPDATE: As it turned out, the tour operator person was very nice about our aborted trip, making various offers to take us out that evening for dinner/drinks. Offers which I kept declining because basically I was still annoyed with them and, no money ever having changed hands, I just wanted to forget about the whole business. Yeah I know, another gift horse stared squarely in the chops.

Anyway, it's nearly the end of our trip now and it's often been a strange and fascinating experience. So, what have we learnt?

• South African petrol stations aren't very accepting of credit cards. Plus they all have attendants who fill your tank up to overflowing unless you specifically ask them not to.
• They have tomato sauce over here rather than ketchup, which is sweeter and tastes just different enough to be faintly annoying
• B&B/hostel cooked breakfasts consist of, at most: one egg, two bacon strips, one tomato and toast ONLY. There's normally plenty of cereal and fruit too, to be fair
• Wimpy restaurants are still popular here
• Their Fanta tastes rubbish
• There are lots more potential hazards on the roads, including people and monkeys
• Said simians can make sizeable dents in the front of one's car
• Vuvuzelas are an integral and intriguing part of South Africa's footballing culture, but if anybody brings one into a ground next season and starts playing it near me they can expect the bloody thing to end up wrapped around their throat
• There appears to be an unwritten law that all backpacker hostels must provide at least two dogs and, consequentially, lots of signs urging you not to feed said dogs or let them out of the grounds
• One such pooch, Sarah at Nothando in Plettenburg Bay I believe, was the friendliest but also the most demanding I've ever met. Tennis balls, twigs, stones, there was nothing she wouldn't make you throw for her to fetch, then nudge you repeatedly until you threw it again (or she moved onto the next unsuspecting victim)
• Radio football commentators can be very amusing
• Most of the country appears to be suffering from permanent drought, although nowhere we stayed ever ran out of water at any point
• England have by far the most fanatical travelling fans (and, judging by our historical results, the most optimistic). Cities where we play become colonised, the main squares festooned with St George flags, which are then transported en masse to the stadium in time for the game. Every England game at this WC was like a home game, which is why we did so well obviously. Er hang on...
• The England players have a lot to answer for
• They still have Woolworths here, but confusingly they're more like Marks and Spencer.
• Boerwors, the specialty sausage, tastes pretty much like any other sausage when all is said and done
• Most major roads only have one lane, although they have a hard shoulder which you can pull into to let folk overtake. It's not technically legal, but everybody does it anyway (which says a lot)
• Spain are rather like Arsenal, except that they win stuff

And what we haven't:

• How exactly minibus taxis operate
• What the city centre of Johannesburg is actually like
• Just why England were so rubbish
• Who on earth (OFFICIAL FIFA SPONSOR) Yingli Solar are

Normal life is about to resume. Strangely I've not felt properly homesick the whole time I've been away, which for a trip of over a month is pretty impressive. Still, it'll definitely be great to be home. The hot weather will probably have vanished by the time we land, though...