So Long Zimbabwe

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BANK TO BANK, CROSSING FINGERS

First thing, we head over to the bank to collect our money transfer. We go to the Chartered Bank. Everyone is really helpful. After 20 minutes it’s all done! Can’t believe after all the hassle to arrange it was this simple - happy days!

Then we go next door to Barclay’s Bank and ask to speak with the Manager. We explain what happened yesterday, that we didn’t count each bundle of money, but neither did the teller. He asks the teller if he was $60 USD over yesterday and he says no. So unfortunately we don’t get the rest of our money, we doubted that we would, but there was still a small hopeful part of us that thought we may…

But the manager has kept all the information of what happened and will place it on the teller’s file. Like we said to him, at the end of the day it seems someone from his bank appears to be stealing from him, so he will be doing spot checks on the bundles from now on.

ON OUR WAY TO EGYPT, THE LONG WAY

Liki picks us up and on our way to the airport he tells us already people are talking about the Aussies in the bar last night and not in a cheery way! Along the way we see police pulling people over. Liki tells us that drivers always keep $5 in their cars for when they get pulled over. The police will give them a choice a $20 fine or ‘something’ for them maybe. So they are given $5 and it goes in their left pocket and let you go on your way. Fortunately Liki didn’t need his $5 today.

Victoria Falls International Airport is tiny. This is the one and only country I haven’t been able to get a flag, it’s also the only country it didn’t rain, getting sprayed on at the Falls doesn’t count!

So we fly to Johannesburg where we will have 6 hours to kill before our flight to Cairo, I hope on spending it having a 6 hour massage! Hopes and reality I’m sure will be a lot different, hahaha!

Our plane from Victoria Falls is so small that we don’t even pull up in front of the terminal, we park way out and have to catch a bus!

JOHANNESBURG AIRPORT

Johannesburg is CRAZY, the airport arrivals area is full of fans and reporters from every country here for the World Cup. At least it gives something better than TV to watch while waiting for me to do our 2nd post home.

The time goes quickly enough; we find plenty of people to talk to while waiting to be able to check in.

Finally we can check in (if I had got the check-in counter right we probably could have been there earlier - oops), we arrive and there is a huge queue. The people in front of us have 17 bags!

There is 13 year old boy, Lincoln, queuing behind us with his father. He will flying alone and even though his dad arranged for a stewardess to look after him, they now don’t have anyone available. We offer to keep and eye on him and help him collect his bag etc - perhaps it will be a case of the blind leading the blind though! Eventually the airline finds someone to look after him, so all is well.

When we get on the flight, the first thing we observe is lots of Arab type men scattered about the plane all talking to each other, we don’t really quite know what to make of it. Usually when everyone boards a plane, they put their luggage away, sit down in their little space and keep to themselves….

Then man sitting opposite us starts to chat. He says that he is from South Africa and him and 55 others from his community are doing the pilgrimage to Mecca (so that explains why it seems most of the flight knows each other), and there will be perhaps more than 250,000 other people there as well. He spoke a lot of their culture and how things are done and why, he welcomed all of our perhaps silly questions and gave us advice and suggestions to make our time in Egypt perhaps a little easier.

We all eventually get some sleep and can’t wait to wake up in Egypt!

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