U16 Adam Adriaanse's hilarious, but lucky passport adventure (WYCC)

Taken from the WYCC Canadian team Facebook page. Thanks to Qiyu Zhou and her mother for taking care of the page and sharing this story.

U16 Adam Adriaanse's hilarious, but lucky passport adventure. He lost his passport on the way to Johannesburg, but he managed to arrive at Durban by car. You will never stop reading this tempting story. Written by Adam's dad, Robert

The scenic route to the WYCC 2014

My son Adam U16 and I woke up at 4am in Ottawa ready to go to the WYCC in Durban South Africa. After an early flight from Ottawa to New York, we boarded the 15 (!) hour nonstop flight from JFK to Johannesburg. All went well and we enjoyed sitting beside U18 player Zachary Dukic and his mother Sandra, and U16 Jacob and his father David Berman, who was also in the same section as Adam, arriving at 8am.

We waited for 1.5 hours in a long customs and immigration lineup in Johannesburg. Then it was our turn to see the customs officer. Adam could not find his passport. It was in his pocket when he boarded at JFK.. Check pockets, no. Check backpack, no. Double/triple check everything, no…aargh! We were told to stay in the arrival from in limbo while the tried to find a ground crew to check the plane.

By luck a British consular official, Sarah Morris, overheard our plight and started helping. She called the Canadian consulate, and helped with the airport personnel.

After 2 hours of checking the plan three times, no passport was found. A passport is required to enter the country. So, we were told that we had to return to Canada and in the interim stay at the transit hotel, a “special” hotel where you cannot leave except to fly out of the country.

At the same time, Sarah found a sympathetic senior official. She made the case that Adam was an accompanied minor, we had a photocopy of his passport, and customs was aware of the WYCC event, including participant photos provided in advance by the Canadian WYCC delegation, South African customs made a pivotal decision. They accepted the passport photocopy as an official document and stamped it for entry into the country. No one on the British or Canadian consulates had seen then done, ever. It was incredible luck that we had all of the support at the right time.

Once we assed through customs after 5 hours, we collected our luggage, with the understanding that Adam would not be able to leave the country without a new passport. We found out that the Canadian consulate would be closing in 1.5 hours..in Pretoria. We rushed out of the Johannesburg airport, and got to Pretoria with less than an hour to spare. Sarah had contacted the Canadian consular official Monique and took camera photos of Adam’s documents so she could get the process started.

Another three hours later, we had a new passport for Adam, even though we didn’t even have all of the required support documents, and had to provide full details on references by memory, as my mobile phone did not work. Lia Codrington got a surprise reference check call in Canada as her address and phone number was one of the few that I could remember after so many hours without sleep.

At that point we felt great as Adam was legitimately in the country and could also get out. All we had to do was get to Durban in less than 24 hours for the first game at WYCC.

We took the train back to Johannesburg late in the afternoon. Thousands of people, all wanting to get to Durban. We tried to re-book our flight to Durban that we had now missed by 7 hours. No seats, not even on standby, not even the next day. Tried British Airways, same thing. Mango airlines, same thing. Kululu, same thing. We were pretty deflated at this point.

It’s a 6 hour drive from Johannesburg to Durban, no choice. We rented a car, GPS, bought SIM card, and finally got something to eat, and then started to drive a very long time to get to Durban, stating near dusk. The scenery was beautiful, but time was running out.

Along the way, we crossed a fire induced wind storm which caused flock of sheep to panic and run into traffic on the highway right in front of us at night in high winds, thick smoke. Chaos, vehicles damaged but not ours luckily.

After that, it was time to rest, so we stopped half way at a town called HarrisSmith, we crashed right away at about 10 pm local tim, about 14 hours after landing in Johannesburg. We woke up 8 hours later, at dawn, and first noticed the gorgeous scenery and interesting countryside. South Africa is very beautiful, and Adam and I had some some quality time together, and he got a nap in as well.

We arrived in Durban at 10am, 6 hours before Adam’s the first game. We saw a lot of South Africa, but I would’t want to repeat it.