2023-08-21: Leaving Africa

It’s time for us to start our journey back home. We had our last 5:45am wake up call. We had showers and put the last few pieces into our bags. At 6:30am we headed to the main lodge for some breakfast. We had a chat with Fenwell while we ate. While we were eating, the lodge staff grabbed our bags from our room and brought them to reception. We settled our bill with the lodge once breakfast was complete. Then we loaded into an SUV and headed to the airport. It was a little weird being in an enclosed vehicle again. We haven’t been in one in about a week.

It was interesting driving through the villages in the daylight. It was dark when we drove to the lodge a week ago. There were people transporting produce and gear on bikes, people walking along the roads, and we could see the roadside shops and vendors. Fenwell pointed out his house as we drove by. His wife was standing on the front steps They waved at each other.

We arrived a Mfuwe airport at 7:45am and said our goodbyes to Fenwell. Mfuwe has a very tiny airport. We were through security and checked in within minutes. We sat in the boarding area waiting for our flight when one of the check-in agents came over. They asked if we were transferring from Lusaka to Johnnesburg. We confirmed that we were. The ProFlight office needed to see our passports for some reason if that was the case. They took our passports and ran away for a few minutes. We were a little leary to let them out of our sight, but they were returned to us within five minutes without issue. While we were waiting they announced that the incoming flight from Lusaka that was scheduled to arrive at 8:00am was now estimated to arrive at 9:00am. That’s the plane that takes us back to Lusaka so our flight is now delayed by an hour. Good thing we had a 3.5 hour layover in Johannesburg.

A little after 9:00am the plane from Lusaka landed. After a quick turnaround, they had us boarding the plane. We ended up taking off at 9:45 so were only 45 minutes late. The flight was uneventful and we landed in Lusaka at 10:45am. We walked into the terminal building and had to collect our bags. There was another representative at the exit who escorted us to the international terminal and helped us get checked in for our South African Airways flight. The check-in agent was able to tag our bags through to Zurich which was excellent. We went through security and passport control before entering the departures area. We still had a couple of hours to kill and Michael was getting hungry again. We found a restaurant and ordered some lunch. We think they only had a single cook working. We all ordered pizzas and they took forever to be served. Three of them came out and then Patrick had to wait a bit longer for his. The server came over a couple of times to tell us he had to step away for five minutes and to make sure we were okay until he came back. Very different operation from home.

Once lunch was done, we found our gate and waited for the boarding call. We didn’t have to wait long before they started boarding. We got onboard and settled in for the two hour flight to Johannesburg. We forgot that the airlines here aren’t cheap like they are back home and actually offer meals on the flights. We didn’t need to buy lunch in the airport. They served us a lunch on the plane.

The flight was on time and we landed in Johannesburg at about 3:30pm. We were supposed to have four hours in Johannesburg, but they bumped our departure time up by an hour and a half. Our arrival time in Zurich hasn’t changed so we assume it’s to deal with the airspace issues around Niger. That still left us with a health 2.5 hours to make our next flight. We had to go through security and a passport check again. When we tried to scan our boarding passes at the security line, they wouldn’t scan. Looking at the boarding passes, they weren’t printed very well. The printer looks like it was running out of ink and there were white streaks where ink should be. That doesn’t do good things to barcodes. We passed a transfer assistance desk just before security. The security agent asked us to go to the desk and get our boarding passes reprinted. We backtracked and, luckily, the Swiss airlines desk had no line. We walked up and got us sorted out with new boarding passes. They also gave us a voucher to the Aspire Lounge since we are flying business class on this flight.

We returned to security and had no issues with the boarding passes this time. Once through security we found our boarding gate and then continued on to the Aspire Lounge. Of course the lounge was on the other side of the terminal so it was a bit of a walk. We grabbed a seat in the lounge and relaxed for about an hour before we headed to the boarding gate. When we arrived at the gate, a crowd had gathered. Within 10 minutes we were being called to board the plane. We got onboard and settled in for the 12 hour flight to Zurich. We all watched a movie and had some dinner before getting some sleep on the plane.