OK, so I bet some of you have been wondering why I stopped writing in my blog a couple weeks ago. On Thursday night, while Elizabeth was still in Africa with me, I got an e-mail from her grandmother. She needed me to arrange for Elizabeth to call home. Out of respect for Elizabeth’s family, I will not go into the details, but we both had to leave for the United states as soon as we could get a flight out.
Unfortunately, the first flight out that we could both get on was on Sunday. So we just said, forget it, and went to South Africa for our weekend in Madikwe despite the current situation. Which, I was very happy about, because I already had paid for it and I had been looking forward to it for a long time. After getting about 3 hours of sleep, I got up Friday morning, walked to clinic and arranged for flights home on Sunday. I then came home to wake Elizabeth and called Tshopo to take us to Madikwe. He changed me 400 pula, I got him down to 350, but it was still too much in my opinion. But I didn’t want to argue with him, I just wanted the rest of the trip to go smoothly.
Lucky for us, the Buffalo Ridge lodge was beautiful. Breathtaking, really (BTW, Elizabeth has all the pictures of this, I will try to get them from her as soon as I can). Our room was number 7 (out of 8). It was a thatched hut complete with gigantic bed, sun deck (that faced Buffalo Ridge) and a shower that opened up to the bush. It was exactly what we needed. We spent the three days there soaking in the beauty and simply enjoying the comfort. The food was fantastic, the company even better and the game sightings, amazing.
Elizabeth befriended a South African couple who had clearly been on many safaris. They walked Elizabeth through each sighting and even helped her draft a list of everything she had seen (which was quite a bit).
Our fantastic trip was toped by two wonderful events. On our last game ride we made it our goal to find Elizabeth some warthogs. And that we did! But, just as Elizabeth was snapping the picture, an orange figure streaked across the road in hot pursuit of the hog. It was the rarest of rare. A leopard. We all gasped, including our ranger. Before we could get out of our state of shock, the hog comes leaping out of the bush back onto the road. He stares at us, with the look of “what the hell was that” and cautiously jogs to the other side of the road. Our ranger tells us to sit down and be quiet. He turns on the jeep and pulls forward. We find the leopard laying, panting just a couple yards off the path. He eyes us, and stands up to walk away. Our guide calls it in as we go off-road to track his shameful retreat into the think bush. Within minutes, 3 other jeeps arrive asking our guide permission to come see the leopard. After a few more minutes of tracking, we leave, allowing the others to see the prize.
The second event occurred just after a great dinner. We had combined all of our tables to have a large meal with all the six people on our game drive. We returned to thatched lodge to find it light gently with a half dozen candles lining the floor. Our bed nicely turned down lined with rose petals and a large snack bowl found just behind the bed. Before we could really enjoy the scene, Elizabeth had knocked over two of the candles, one of course, spilling hot wax all over my shoe and pant leg.
Needless to say, it was an amazing trip to South Africa and suitable, although sudden ending to Elizabeth’s visit.
The flight home was full of anxiety and broken entertainment systems. However, traveling with Elizabeth by my side made all the difference. I was content and I even was able to get some shut eye on the leg following our stop in Dakar, Senegal.
The week following would be trying to both of our will powers, but we both agree that we have immerged stronger than ever. Once again, sorry for the lack of details. The upside of the week, however, is that I was able to meet just about all of Elizabeth’s family and they all seemed to take a liking to me, as I did to all of them.
Last Saturday (3 days ago) we left Hartford, CT; this time parting ways. Elizabeth hopped on a flight to china, and I went home to DC. Over the next two days, I moved into my new apartment and caught up with my parents, sophie, lana, scott and Toub. On Tuesday (today), I woke up at 5 am to catch my flight back to Africa. So far it has been uneventful, except nothing has gone right on the South African Airways flight to Joberg. I am sitting in front of a kid that is scared of flying, behind two kids who wont stop making loud sound effects and next to a little girl who wont stop screaming at her video game. I would normally ignore this and put on a movie, but the damn system isn’t working!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am clearly writing this on the plane now because I have nothing better to do. This is a 15 hour flight with absolutely no entertainment what-so-ever! Not to mention that just following this flight, I have a 7 hour layover in joberg. I am a very unhappy camper right now. For the first time, I am regretting the decision to go back to Africa. More to come later. Probably while I am bored in the joberg airport.
I arrived at the Joberg, SA airport (it is Wednesday now) about an hour early. I was able to get 1-2 hours of sleep, if you can call whatever I did sleep. A smile and glimmer of hope swept across me as I realized I had time to catch the early flight to Gaborone. I rushed to the ticket counter and asked to see what they could do for me. They set me up on the flight and said it would only cost me 210 rand (30 US) to get the new flight. I said hell yeah and gave her my credit card. She handed my card off to another woman who slowly walked away to charge it up in the SA airlines office. 30 mins later (10 mins before my flight was to depart) she comes back to tell me they made a mistake and that it would cost me 1500Rand to switch. I declined and waited another hour to get my ticket switched back to the original flight.
With my head hung low, I retreated to the familiar, but unsatisfying premier lounge where I plan to spend my next 8 hours. This has been a nightmare.
Following the 8 hour marathon of trying to stay awake and fighting the anxiety of being back in Africa alone, I boarded the flight for Gaborone. We actually took a big South African Airlines Jet that was not even close to full. The flight time was just about 30 mins and I enjoyed a light snack and orange juice. This was important because I didn't want to go shopping when I got to my house in gaborone, so this snack would have to hold me through the night. When I arrived in Gaborone, I kinda felt like I was home. It put me at ease to great people in setswana. And, for the first time all trip, something went well. Ernest, the Baylor driver was waiting for me, to give me a ride to the Baylor 1 house. Finally, something went well.
Once at the house, I was greeted by Mitul (a peds resident) and his newly wed wife. They seem like very nice people but they left for Bull and Bush quiz bowl before I really got a chance to talk to them.
I spent the next couple hours unpacking, showering and reading. I tried to go to sleep around 8pm with no luck. I was up and about until midnight. I'm not sure when I went to sleep after that.
I have to admit, I'm not 100% happy to be back, but I still think it was the right thing to do.
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