So here we are... back in good ol' Georgia. Obviously we did manage to find a way from Kruger to the airport. After our original idea (Plan A) to drive a rented car back to the airport for someone fell through, Dr. F-H organized for us to get a ride from some dude (who's name Michaelle continues to insist sounds like "hummus"... but that's pretty irrelevant to the story) from the Kruger Gate to the airport Wednesday morning. So other dude (who's name I can't remember either, but let's call him Overly Happy Dude) picked us up from the vet camp at 7am and drove us to the Protea Hotel just outside the Kruger Gate. After waiting around until almost 8am, we checked in with the reception to see if they knew anything about this Hummus Dude. Apparently his car had broken down the night before so he couldn't take us, but no one had told us. Plan B foiled. So this amazingly nice woman at the Protea Hotel took it upon herself to organize another ride for us since we played the "we have no money and were relying on a free ride" card. After about an hours wait, there was a combi pulling up to take us to Kruger Mpumalanga International airport at no cost. Plan C= success. So we get to the airport around 10:30 and have 6 hours to wait for our flight. I feel like we did a pretty fair job of entertaining ourselves.
You know how I said that the flight TO Kruger was the most rackety flight of my life? Well this one took the gold. I really didn't think that planes could get smaller than the one that took us to Kruger, but man was I wrong. This one had about half the number of rows and only three seats across as apposed to the four on the first flight. Had to get pretty cozy with the person sitting next to you- luckily my neighbor was a very friendly New Zealander named Ryan, so it all worked out.
Below: left- Kruger Mpumalanga International Airport; right- Tiniest. Plane. Ever.
Then at the Johannesburg airport there was some mix up with our seats as we checked in to our Delta flight... all worked out in the end, though Michaelle and I still weren't seated together, but I definitely got the sweet end of the deal with a window seat :) As we took off I got to see one of the Jo-burg stadiums (not sure which one it was) bringing the total number of soccer stadiums that I've seen to 3 (including Cape Town and P.E.), and I got to wish Africa a goodbye as the land dropped away below us... there may have been a tear or maybe even two shed at this point, but there are no witnesses to attest to that :) To me the 16ish hours weren't actually as horrible as I expected since we all had our own little TV screens and a large selection of movies to watch at our leisure... so I took advantage of three great ones, including "Invictus" which I thought very appropriate for having just been in SA during a large sporting event. There was maybe about 5 hours of restless sleep mixed in there somewhere which involved some pretty crazy, tangled up, but oddly comfortable positions (which reminded me of our friend Katie's cat Jasper who cracks me up with his crazy sleeping poses).
Upon arrival in Atlanta, all went smoothly until we realized that our luggage had remained behind in Jo-burg due to weight issues on the plane (I've got two theories- flights full of Americans usually have the problem of being too heavy due to the fact that Americans are generally more overweight than citizens of other countries, or Americans just buy way too much stuff when abroad and weigh the plane down in that way). So hopefully our baggage will be delivered to our doorsteps tomorrow and everyone keep your fingers crossed that all those blood, guano, and tick samples that we worked so hard for over the past two months make it back unscathed.
I'm definitely missing South Africa already. All of the quirky South African-isms in the language ("ah shame," "ya," "as well" (different emphasis), "sorted," "organize" (use is different), "now" "just now" and "now now," "lekker," etc. etc.), all of the helpful friendly faces (especially all of the great friends we made), the chillrelaxed vibe, seeing the Southern Cross in the beautifully vast night sky (though I did get to enjoy a good four hours of it being right outside my window on the plane ride home), the great drinks we discovered (Black Label, Azul, Amarula), being surrounded by so many different and unique languages (Afrikaans, Xosa, Zulu, Tswana, and the new one we learned about yesterday- Tsonga), being surrounded by such amazing wildlife and magnificent nature... and so on and so on. Such a great country, so much I'm going to miss. Might even miss the smell of skunk bush in the morning... who knows :)
On the bright side- it is good to be back and to see family, friends, and of course my bunny Britches. I've got a lot of catching up to do on projects, etc... not to mention that we need to get inyo the lab soon to start working up those samples... you know, if they ever actually make it back from Africa... Right now I am busying myself with catching up on various things to keep myself awake so that I can get back on EST. So I also finished uploading all my pictures to the facebook albums and for those of you who haven't been keeping up with them, feel free to go check them out. I've made them both public, so you should be able to see them even if you don't have a FB account: African Adventure Part 1 and African Adventure Part 2.
Alright, so I guess that's it for me. I'm sure Michaelle will do a wrap-up post at some point as well. Thanks to everyone who's followed us on this adventure!! Until next time... :)
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