Transport day from Zanzibar to Umkomass, South Africa

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15 July Durban:

We had an early morning start as we were off to the airport an hour and a half away and wanted to stop at the post office before hand. The drive was nice and we reached the post office around 9:30. The old man at the counter remembered Samantha so when he had to type the recipe asked if we automatically wanted to help as last time Samantha mentioned he was super slow and did one key at a time so she helped then as well. We arrived plenty of time at the airport for us to : first go through security; check in where mango airlines and no others had computers so the boarding pass was all hand written, bags simply put behind them and had to write our information on a piece of paper for their records. Thirdly was immigration with the exit cars you had to fill out and then another picture and figure prints. Lastly was security round two. Once through, there was one gate and the announcements you couldn't understand. We spent some of our Tanzania money on some food for the plane and then asked where we could change the money. The okay place was actually back at the entrance so they said one of us could go only for five minuets. Samantha succeeded.

At about the time that our plane was to board,Samantha went to check with the announcement lady and sure enough, time to board...first you go through the one gate and outside is a few buses lined up. You get on and these busses have some seats, small space time luggage involved or bags, and some standing room. Then you drive a ways out to the planes on the run ways where you board.

We were finally off to Johannesburg where we arrived slightly early which was good for us as we had to find our bags, go through immigration and then recheck in for a domestic flight. After we successfully did that, our other goals were, find warm clothes, find a new backpack for Samantha as her zipper broke on hers, buy a SIM card do Samantha's phone, and myself, withdraw money. We succeeded all but the warm clothes and so, due to time, went through security to our gate. On the domestic side, there were not many shops but Samantha was able to find a hat before we boarded.

Once we arrived in Durban, we hurried to the car dealer, Budget, to get our car and start our hour drive to Umkomass to the dive centre for the night. Didn't take long for the paperwork and everything to be completed and navsav checked out, we packed up our Nissan and were off. With navsav help, we arrived in an hour. The dive centre provided instructions on how to get in but we had trouble with the gate key. The security guard thankfully came and help and helped us get our luggage to our room. Once settled into the six bed dorm with only us in he room, we quickly set up everything for he morning and crashed as it was 11PM and we had a 6AM start.

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