Prices in South Africa? Not bad at all (good beer for 77 cents!)

PRETORIA, South Africa – The United States sold more World Cup tickets that any other nation outside the hosts. I know that many of them are here waving flags from other lands, but that’s still impressive. Suck on that, soccer haters!

I also know that quite a few more would have come to South Africa, or at least tried, but they were frightened away by a toxic mix: an economy on the skids and the high price of travel into this continent. They’re all saving their pennies for Brazil 2014, a tournament that will be responsible for an epidemic of divorces, I’m sure. (Note to self: buy stock in Valtrex!)

That’s too bad about more people not arriving into South Africa. Because one element may have been overlooked into the decision-making calculus: once you’re here, the prices aren’t bad at all.

Yes, the flights into Johannesburg and Cape Town go for a princely sum. And there’s always a threat of gouging at Olympics and World Cups, although I think that got washed away with the diminished tourism estimates. So despite it all, I’m not displeased.

I had a great, semi-high end meal last night for $18. That included a cold Stella Artois and a cappuccino to finish.

(Plus, the nice owner there at Gorgeous Restaurant drove me home! It wasn’t far, but he and about 16 other people practically hog tied me when I mentioned I was walking back to my B&B. “That walk is safe during the day. But at night, no! They’ll take all your things.” Well, I need my things. All of them. So when they told me a cab would take about 30 minutes to negotiate out of the city traffic just to get there, the owner said, “It’s no problem. Come on. I’ll drive you home.”  So I’m channeling Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction as I’m thinking, “Man, I’m coming back here … that’s just all there is to it!”)

On the subject of beers, my friends back at the pubs in Dallas – Uh, seriously guys, go home. You have wives – will be absolutely despondent at this news: the beers here are about a buck or less.  That’s as good as the 75 cent Sagres that had us all perpetually giddy and semi-perpetually inebriated when we all visited Euro 2004 in Portugal. Good times. (Except for that unfortunate cigarette incident at the gas station. Oh, well. You can’t win ‘em all.)

Here, I’m charged 6 South African ZAR for each Amstel Light in the fridge in my room. That’s about 77 cents. So, enjoy your $7 Hoegaardens back in Dallas, boys!

The prices on souvenirs don’t seem unreasonable. And I assume the prices are pretty good on clothes, too. But since I’m a hard-working journalist and not some uppity, art-buying, shop-til-I-drop woman of marginal virtue, I really couldn’t say.

A few journalists are also jealous of the Bed and Breakfast gem I’ve found here. It’s not only within spitting distance of the U.S. compound – an absolute Godsend logistically for someone who will be writing approximately 316 stories/blog entries over numerous platforms, most of them about the U.S. effort. It also comes at a great price, less than $100 a night, including breakfast and taxes and such.

It’s a little out of the city, hence the bargain. Plus, I’ll end up taking it up the ol’ giggy on transportation into Jo-burg and into the media center here in Pretoria – but don’t tell the jealous journos here that. At least not yet. Let ‘em think I’m winning, just for a while at least.