Another Airport

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Geo: -26.1951, 28.0339

The wild wind storm had ended during the night, so we all finally got a good night's rest. I, also, woke up feeling 1000x better than the day before, which was a huge relief given the long plane ride ahead of us.

We managed to load up all six of us, our luggage, and more than 30 bottles of wine between us, into the van and headed to the town of Meusenberg, where the parents of our friend Barbara live. They were not flying back to DC until the following night, so we brought them over for their last night in South Africa. It was also our first opportunity to meet Barbara's parents, as her mother had been ill earlier in the week when we were originally supposed to visit. They have a lovely home literally on the hillside overlooking False Bay. While the views were amazing, the house was built along terraces and has dozen of rough stone steps leading up from the road, and it was no surprise that her parents were in the midst of selling the house and moving, as it was simply getting to be too much of a challenge.

After a short visit, we made it to the airport and met the throngs of Easter travelers. Due to a change in flights after we made our original bookings, the three of us were not all flying home together. Anna and Katherine had been originally set to fly from Capetown directly to London, and then over to DC, but the Capetown route was discontinued, so we all had to make our way to Johannesburg, from where I flew to DC, and they continued on to London and Dulles.

With none too much time to spare, K and A deposited me at the gate for my flight, while they had time for dinner before boarding their flight a couple of hours later.

There was a snafu with K and A's trip, however, as there was a last-minute change of plane which resulted in everyone's seat assignments being changed. When they handed in their original boarding passes to get on the plane, they were handed new seats which were, unfortunately, not together. K explained that they were traveling together and she didn't want Anna sitting alone on the 10-hour flight to London, but they were directed to board the plane where they could "sort things out." K found a helpful attendant though, who solicited some folks to swap seats, allowing the two of them to sit together. Still, though the flight went through the night, neither of them got much, if any, sleep. My flight was not much better, with our 1:00am stop in Senegal extended by over an hour while they attempted to fix the toilets -- which they did, thank goodness.

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Comments

[mary]

What a wonderful trip blog! Love that you do this so we all can enjoy something that few of us will ever get to see! thank you!