20 years ago on the day before 9/11 I was far away in Capetown, South Africa getting ready to fly back home after teaching for two weeks.

My colleague asked me if I wanted to get up early and take a drive along the coast before heading to the airport for my flight home. Of course, I didn’t want to miss a scenic drive.

It was a rainy and misty day, and the pictures were not the best.

The pictures were are all taken with an early digital camera that saved the pictures on a floppy disk. I did have a film camera with me, but found out later that a small grain of sand had been keeping the shutter from closing all the way and I had several rolls of overexposed film when I returned home.

It was a little nerve wracking going down the wrong side of the highway in the rain. I am just glad that I was not driving.

We stopped several times to watch the waves crashing on the shore and enjoy the fresh air that came along with the rain.

We finally made it back into town and the streets were a bit flooded as we made our way toward the airport.

As we were on the way to the airport we passed a shanty town and I was able to get a few pictures as we drove by. I thought about whether to post this picture tonight, but wanted to let you see how the poor of other countries sometimes live. This was one of my last glimpses of South Africa on the trip.

Soon after this we made it to the airport for me to get checked in for my flight to London and then on home to San Francisco. Many of my memories of this last day in South Africa are blocked, but sometimes looking at this pictures I can bring them up. I do remember doing one last thing at the airport. We went to several banks or currency exchanges looking for a good 200 Rand note so that I had one of each denomination.

Tomorrow I will share what happened on the way home from South Africa. I have written about that day several times, so it may be a re-post of an old post. It depends on how I am feeling as it is always a tough day.

Steven