This won’t be my final entry as I will have a wrap up one tomorrow.
January 10, 2020 will be one of the longest days of my life. We awoke to another beautiful and calm African morning.
We had the option of a 90 minute drive or a 90 minute boat ride before we were to leave for our voyage home. We chose to do the boat ride as it was something different and felt like it was a peaceful way to start a long day of travel.
We had fun and just kept quiet as the smells and quite of the morning surrounded us.
We did have to divert around a few hippos (we actually barely hit one too which he wasn’t happy about). Our guide Max also taught us how to make some necklaces and rain hats from the local flowers and lilipads.
We cleaned up our rooms and said goodbye to our journey.
The local airstrip was closed for maintenance that day so we got the fun of getting a helicopter ride to the closest airstrip. So we took our boat to the chopper and got in.
This was Tami and my second time in a helicopter but the kids first. I again, heavily medicated both with prescribed chemicals and a gin and soda, conquered my fear of heights.
The trip was about 7 minutes and we could see all sorts of animals. It was actually a great way to see a lot of ground and animals very quickly.
Once we arrived at our airstrip another famous winter thunderstorm came in and our plane was not able to land. We got quickly shuttled to a nearby camp to wait it out. The stress was beginning as we only had 2 hours to make our first flight in Maun to Johannesburg.
Those of you that know me well that another personal anxiety issue I have is getting to the airport on time. I think this trauma began when I was a kid and my family was late for a flight to Hawaii. My youngest brother had left his blanket on the rental car bus so we had a huge panic about going back to get that (because we didn’t want to deal with him on a 5 hour flight with no “Bobby”) and we barely made it in time before they shut the door.
When I first started my career I would get to the airport almost 3 hours before takeoff (and this was before I discovered the United Club or American Express Lounge!). I am much more reasonable now and prefer to be at the airport an hour before boarding. I am working on this folks I know but it gives me enough time to get a meal for the flight and check in on work.
Eventually as my pacing began to burn a hole in their deck and they decided they better get us out of that camp so they took us back to the helicopter to the next closest airport without weather where our plane was waiting.
We all jumped on the small aircraft and flew to Maun where we had 10 minutes to spare to connect to our flight to Johannesburg.
We had a 5 hour layover in Jo Burg that we filled with eating dinner, doing some last minute shopping, and catching up on work emails.
We then boarded our A340-600 to JFK on one of the longest flights on planet earth (over 8,000 miles which my son tells me is longer than the diameter of the earth. Fake news?).
We all caught up on some movies, slept a lot, read books, and had way too much time to our own thoughts. We arrived in NYC early Saturday morning and headed to our hotel for a quick nap. We knew we had to make it to 9pm that night so we weren’t up all night.
We basically spent the whole day doing a NYC walking tour of midtown. Went to a singing diner, swang by my firm’s office, saw Times Square, did some shopping, and ate at our favorite Italian restaurant in the city.
Campagnola’s has been a favorite of mine since the days when I actually lived in New York. It is one of those places where you sit down tell the waiter what you like and he brings you a full meal. And it is always delicious. We all loved it.
We headed back to our room and could only make it to 8:30pm. We woke up at 2:45am the next morning to catch our flight from Newark back home. The flights were uneventful and all connections were smooth. We made it home at 11:45am Sunday giving us a whole half day to recover before jumping back in to school and work.
Stay tuned for my next post for my total trip review.
Richey's Travel Adventures 