So I missed my flight to Joburg. The Durban Airport Shuttle, otherwise so reliable each time I have used it, decided to falter when I needed to get to the airport. I waited 45 minutes and three came by, all claiming not to be going to the aiport, but rather coming from the airport, an odd distinction given that they were supposed to be on a constant loop.
Fortunately for a couple of hundred extra rands I got on the next flight out and made it to OR Tambo and up to my guesthouse in Pretoria for one of the last legs of my trip.
My last night at the Durban Fanfest was once again indicative of the general feeling of this World Cup. Thousands of people gathered on the beach virtually united in their support for the Dutch. That support had three main explanations: First, the Dutch fans travel well and they were in their oranje glory. Second the Dutch have considerable support in South Africa, in large part because of the small but vocal pool of Afrikaner football fans (it really isn’t an oxymoronic concept). And finally, the Dutch were playing Uruguay, which did a pretty good job of getting themselves branded as the bad guys after cheating Ghana out of their rightful shot in the semifinals.
A surprise guest performed on the Fanfest stage before kickoff — K’Naan, who brought the world the song from the Coke commercial that I mentioned the other day. He performed for about a half hour, cloding with the Coke song, and that helped to boost the already high spirits of the fans rolling into what was almost surely the most successful of all of the fan parks in South Africa in terms of sheer numbers attending but also in spirit.
The Dutch won, with the Uruguayans playing tough until the end, and the party rolled into the streets and across the beachfront, dragging me along with it in a small but enthusiastic gaggle for a long night of partying that ended up at an inexplicably open Steers (a South African fast food burger chain) at 5:00 in the morning. The Dutch, Europe’s football bridesmaids, will have one more chance to pull out the finals victory that eluded them in 1974 and 1978, and if they succeed I would imagine streets across South Africa will be awash in happily drunken Dutch fans and a considerable bandwagon.
