Read part one.
Part Two
“Is this the South African embassy?”
“Ja, hallo,” responded a voice that could have been my Afrikaans grandmother. The sensation was a little nostalgic. Here I was, thousands of kilometres from home, minus one very important passport, and on the other end of the call was a voice that epitomised everything that was home to me.
“I think I have lost my passport,” I said, forgetting my manners.
“I am well and you,” she shot back, leading into a friendly laugh. She may as well have been my Ouma.
“I am so sorry,” I said, immediately regretting my faux pas. This woman was meant to be my only hope at sorting everything out and here I was giving her classic miscreant attitude. “How are you?”
“Better than you are, by the sounds of things,” she said. I could hear the smile in her voice. And, despite a relatively heavy Afrikaans accent, her English was flawless.
I explained the situation and she asked me when my visa expired.
“Tomorrow...” I said, holding my breath. My game of chicken with her silence was hopeless. “But I am meant to be going to Turkey tomorrow, and then to India...”
“ Sorry skat, you’re going home,” she cut me off. Her words went straight from my ears to the pit of my stomach like a colloquial block of concrete. “And you’re going to have to organise things quickly. If your visa expires tomorrow, you have a little over 24 hours to get out of Europe.”
“What happens if I don’t,” I asked.
“You’re fined €1,200 in Greece, and you can be blacklisted forever,” she said with the candour of someone who has repeated the same set of damning words more than a couple of times.
“Jesus,” I said, almost under my breath.
“It would be kind of you to not take the Lord’s name in vain,” she said, her tone a little less friendly but still very much in the grandmother zone.
She told me where the embassy was in Athens and recommended I get on the next flight out of Santorini.
“What do I use for papers? I have no ID,” I asked, thankful that I had thought of it while on the phone with her and not at the airport minutes before confronting security at departures.
“You need to get an affidavit from the police station. That should be enough. Call your family and ask them to send over a certified copy of something to identify you. Once you get to the embassy, they will get an emergency passport for you. When did you say it expired again?” she asked.
“Tomorrow,” I answered, the pit in my stomach deepening.
She let out a sigh.
“Good luck skat.”
Her voice was laced with sympathy.
“Why, how long does it take to get an emergency passport?” I asked, visions of South African home affairs flooded back. South African Home Affairs was as efficient as sucking custard through a straw, on a good day.
“Two to three business days,” she replied. “Ek’s jammer, hoer?”
I don’t panic easily, but I began to, and panic hard.
Next call was to my cousin’s hubby. They had a boutique travel agency that had taken care of the administration. And I was about to increase their workload. For whatever the reason, the panic on David’s side of the phone calmed me down. I work well in hopeless situations. Thank god.
I turned to Vic after the call.
“Bru, I am going home.”
I smiled, and he smiled, and for whatever reason, it felt right. I was bitterly disappointed, but for whatever reason, I couldn’t fault the outcome. It was time for me to go home. I just had to get there.
I needed to get a flight out ASAP. Luckily, one was due to leave at 21:00 that night. I booked some accommodation at a cheap bed and breakfast relatively close to the embassy. The website was scummy and asked for prepayment, but I had no other options. I had to plan this carefully and I needed to get to the embassy at 08:00 when the doors opened if I had any chance of getting my emergency passport back. The scummy website it was.
David came back to me and said there was a flight out of Athens to South Africa, via Frankfurt that left at 14:00. There was another one at 14:30, but it was fully booked. This was my only hope.
“Just book it, Dave,” I said.
“That’s the thing, I can only hold it until we got your passport details. That means that if someone else pays, they can make the booking. And there aren’t many seats left,” he said. I could hear the suppressed urgency.
Here’s to hope.
I landed in Athens just after 22:00 and found a taxi from the airport. I don’t know what it is like in other countries, but in South Africa and, apparently, Greece, embassies are either in very affluent suburbs or run-down parts of the central business district. In this case, it was the latter.
The bed and breakfast was more like a hostel. It was dirty, it smelled of beer, and it had unsavoury types lurking in the hallways. By this time it was already nearing midnight.
When I got to the front desk—if you can call the third floor “the front”, or a gap in the wall, a desk—they had no record of my booking and were now full. I can only imagine what I looked like by then, but if the speed at which a bed suddenly became available is to go by, I must have looked ready to make a ruckus.
They gave me a key to a room with four beds in it.
When I got to the room, I spent about 15 minutes trying to figure out if I was just tired and stressed, or if they had given me the wrong key. But it definitely didn’t work.
When I got back to the third-floor hole, the guys promised that he’d sort it out.
“Have you been to the roof before?” he asked.
“Nope, first time here,” I replied, ignoring the urge to add that it would probably be the last.
He smiled. “I think you should go get a drink.”
I needed one.
But when I stepped out onto the roof, I was struck by an uninterrupted view of the Acropolis, lit up in all its glory. It honestly took my breath away.
Image: Aviano Airbase, the closest I could find to the view I saw
“Makes the crap beds worth it doesn’t it?” a voice called from the bar.
For a brief moment, I wasn’t so stressed. I didn’t need to leave Europe. There was no pressure. There was just beer and some very nice Canadians.
“Yes. Yes, it does,” I said.
The brief moment turned into a 4 am bender. The Canadians were too nice apparently.
Nevertheless, nothing sorts out a hangover like impending deportation.
I got to the embassy and found my way to where I needed to be. I had everything I needed, except for passport photos. Now, I had to venture off into Athens to get my picture taken. Luckily, there was an old lady who had a little shop down the way. I got my photos and, for whatever reason, she wouldn’t let me pay.
“Gift from Greece,” she had said.
It was on the way back to the embassy that the gravity of what was happening began to sink in. Was I naive thinking that a South African institution was going to be able to pull a rabbit out of a hat to get my passport turnaround reduced from a couple of days to a couple of hours? The answer was a resounding ‘yes’.
Getting into the lift with my 22kg backpack and even heavier disposition, a gentleman greeted me.
“You from South Africa?” he asked, his tone was friendly.
“How did you know?” I replied.
“Well, only a South African would travel with their life’s belongings on their back,” he smiled and added, “and this is the South African embassy.”
I laughed a little, just enough to be polite but not enough to hide my strain.
“What you in for?” he asked.
I briefly told him the story, as much as one could in a lift ride.
“And now I got to get the thing before 12:00 so I can get to the airport,” I concluded.
“Lucky,” he said.
“Huh?” I replied, trying to seem less confused than I was. I had obviously missed something.
“We will get you sorted in no time,” he said, shaking my hand.
“I am the ambassador to Greece.”
Leaving Europe: A Series
As is the case with stories like this, they are long. I’ve decided to break this one into parts. The next of which will be ready next Wednesday. Subscribing to this newsletter will ensure you don’t miss the craziness that ensues. Read the first part here.
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