Another day of travel. Its hard to believe we’ve been away over a month, yet it seems such a long time ago that we drove out to the airport at Dubbo.
First job today is to leave some of Tim’s ashes on the beach in front of our little bungalow at Sharazad Boutique Hotel on Jimbiani Beach, Zanzibar.
This job achieved, we’re off to check out and meet our driver. Another Shadows of Africa driver, thats a surprise, nice fellow, chats all the way to the airport. These roads are so rough, some of the pot holes would hide a Landcruiser. I leave Zanzibar with no TZ shillings and a few US $ in my pocket.
Check-in at International Departures is very quiet, they question our extra leg room. We have to pay $40usd, apparently we only paid for a normal seats. They handled it very professionally, and, all is ok. The Navigator has 15kg and I have 13kg, room for some shopping in Johannesburg. The International Departures terminal is new and very clean, well organised and things flow. Arrivals is the opposite.
OH&S for the cleaners shows up some things that would be frowned upon at home, a guy in Michael Jackson shoes, sitting high up on a rack cleaning the ceiling. He doesn’t break singing ” I’m bad, I’m bad” or ” Billie Jean, your my queen”
Boarding happens on time, the row 3 extra legroom seats are really worth the money.
Then, one small negative, a lot of us are asked to move down to the back seat for take off. The plane is half or a bit more full, and most are sitting in tge front half. We can come back to our booked seats after take off. A bit weird but…. I guess must have been important.
We cross the sea, Tanzania, Mozambique, then northern South Africa, landing early.
The now named Destiny Exclusive Hotel, shuttle picks us up, a little late, and our room booking is fine, unlike when we first landed here a month ago.
John ” The Baptist”, bus driver, porter, concierge, plus other things, dressed in pith helmet and safari shorts, a nice and really funny dude, books a half day Soweto tour for us tomorrow before we clean boots (for Sydney quarantine check) and repack to make sure fit in our 50 litre bags to get home.
Ciao from Johannesburg
Pauolo
