The Travel Saga That Wouldn't End

May 8-10

So our trip home from Cape Town turned into quite the adventure. Even before getting to the airport in Cape Town to leave, we all got emails saying that our flight out of Joburg had been changed, and was now leaving three hours later, which threw off a lot of people’s connecting flights. Under this itinerary we were supposed to leave Cape Town at around 1:00, get to Joburg at about 3:00, and then leave Joburg at 9:30. We all got checked in just fine in Cape Town, with all our bags checked and we got through security with plenty of time to spare. At this point in time, all of us were just ready to be home. Even though I had a great semester, when it comes to the actual traveling I would rather just skip it all and get home.

About 20 minutes before we were supposed to start boarding our flight to Joburg, the departure screens announced that our flight had been delayed until 4:00. We just took that in stride, and figured we could sit in the Cape Town airport just as well as in the Joburg airport, so a bunch of just went and got lunch and started killing time in the airport. Around 3:45 the screens changed to show our new departure time, which was an hour later. Again, we just figured we would still be fine and resigned ourselves to some more time in the Cape Town airport. Hanging out in the domestic section of the Cape Town airport was not a lot of fun. There was one short hallway, three or four souvenir shops, a bookstore, a candy store, and a Mugg and Bean. Walking through the entire domestic section took a little under 10 minutes. Everyone started getting nervous as 7:00 approached, because we figured that was the latest we could leave and still make our connection in Joburg. Unfortunately, South African Airways didn’t have any employees anywhere near the gate to ask about when/if our flight would be leaving. We got a meal voucher at around 5:00, and overheard someone saying that our plane was having some technical problems. At 7:30 we finally figured we would miss our connection, so Katie and Will headed back out to the check-in counter to see what they could do about rebooking the 15 of us on another flight out of Cape Town.

We finally got on another flight at 9:30, about the same time our flight was supposed to be leaving Joburg. Miraculously, all 15 of us got on the same flight, which was surprising considering that every flight from Cape Town to Joburg that day was full. This short, two hour flight, was quite uneventful. We got fed dinner, or course (SAA is really good about feeding its customers all the time. On our two hour flight from Windhoek to Cape Town we got fed lunch, and then received a big snack bag), and arrived in Cape Town two hours after our connection had left. While wandering aimlessly through the airport, we started wondering if we were going to have to sleep on the floor because the entire airport appeared closed down. However, we got lucky and ran into some SAA employees who apparently knew we were coming. But I have to wonder if they would have come looking for us if we hadn’t stumbled upon them. They called a shuttle for us and got us all hotel rooms for the night. We also got lucky, because all the cheap hotels were full because of all the problems they had earlier in the day, so we got to stay in a nice hotel pretty close to the airport. By the time we got everyone checked in and sent an email to our parents telling them about missing our flight, it was well past 1:00am.

The hotel was super nice, and the beds were amazing. This situation is why I always keep my toiletries with me in my carry on! The 15 of us flying together met for a breakfast buffet in the hotel at 10:00, and then headed back to the Joburg airport for a full day of dealing with the bureaucracy of SAA and the Joburg airport. First, we found some employees who seemed to know about our situation, and assured us that we were all on that night’s departure to Washingtn, D.C. (the only flight a day to D.C. left at 9:30 pm, so we were going to be stuck in the airport all day). Our next stop was to try to find our luggage, because some employees had told us our bags were in Joburg and needed to be rechecked for our next flight. We ended up having to go through a different security line in order to get to the lost luggage counter which was on the other side of customs. At that counter they looked at all of our checked bag receipts and told us our bags were in the basement, and would be checked for us to our final destination. After that we had to head back through customs to the check-in counter, where we got boarding passes and tried to check in for our flight. Well, of course it was too early in the day for us to check in, so we just had to stand around and wait. In the meantime, we discovered that one girl on our program somehow got everyone booked onto a connection flight from Washington D.C. to Minneapolis. As a result, we all had to wait in the customer service line to get our meal vouchers and to rebook our original connecting flights. That ended up taking over two hours, and for some people it was really difficult to get another flight to their final destination. For Tamara and me, it took about 45 minutes of standing at the counter before the ticket agent was able to get us booked on a flight to Seattle.

By that point, we were well within the time that we were allowed to check in for our flight, so we headed over to the counter to get our boarding passes. For about half of our group this stage went perfectly, so they headed through immigration and security. For about 7 of us though, we got to the counter and were told that we were flying on standby and might not make the flight. At this point several people started to get really upset, and we tried to explain that we had been told that we were all on the flight both the day before and that morning, and that we had our tickets. Well, some of the employees were really rude about that and told us that our tickets clearly stated that we were on standby. It took about another hour before all of us had boarding passes and were certainly on the flight out of Joburg that night. Thankfully after that debacle it was pretty smooth sailing to get onto our flight that night. However, we still had about six hours to kill in the airport before boarding for our flight. We watched a lot of tv on our computers, walked around a lot, and basically just tried not to go crazy.

Our flight was long, obviously, but not too bad besides the fact that I was not able to sleep at all. But at least I got to watch a lot of movies! We arrived in D.C. on time, and got through immigration just fine. However, getting through customs was interesting because none of our bags were there. At that point we just had to trust that our bags were in Seattle and go through customs in order to get to our gates for the connecting flights. My layover was only about an hour, which was just enough time to stretch my legs a little and get some Mexican food in the airport. It was the first burrito I had in four months! After that, it was just a short six hour flight and we were landing in Seattle! It’s amazing how short a six hour flight feels after sitting on a plane for 18 hours. Me and Tamara also got bumped up to economy plus, which was a little exciting, although for the third flight in a row I had a middle seat (the downfalls of having to rebook all the flights, I guess). One of my seatmates was really friendly, and we ended up talking for a while. I eventually found out that she had worked for USAID before retiring, and was actually friends with the USAID employee we had met with in Windhoek.

Anyways, we arrived in Seattle and were happy to say hi to Tamara’s parents, and were even happier to see that our bags truly were safe in Seattle! Apparently, the luggage people in Joburg lied to us, and our bags had actually arrived the day before and our bags weren’t in Joburg when they told us they were. But then my parents arrived, and I was able to go home!

It was quite the adventure, and I was really happy to be home! I spent over 22 hours sitting in airports in South Africa, having no idea what was going on or when I would get home. I also spent over 26 hours sitting on planes, and went through security four times for my three different flights. Almost enough to make me not want to fly again (but of course I will, since I want to travel all over the world).