The Trip Home

It took us about 40 hours to return home from South Africa. But our trip was so worth the travel time.

Taylor woke up Saturday morning feeling better, although not 100%. We thoroughly enjoyed the Radisson's breakfast buffet and may or may not have slipped a couple Rooibos tea bags into our jacket pockets (#bestteaever). 

We thought we could have a lazy morning at the hotel until we asked about getting a ride to the airport. Turns out you have to book a transport (there are no shuttles or Ubers or Bolts in Hoedspruit) aaaaaaand Saturday was a busy day for transport companies. We were able to get a ride, but the ride could only retrieve us at 10am. That meant two hours at the tiny Hoedspruit airport. C'est la vie.

Taylor started to feel poorly again at the airport, which didn't bode well for the journey home.

We flew from Hoedspruit to Johannesburg, where we had a five-hour layover. While there, we grabbed some lunch, pumped Taylor up with Tylenol, and bought a few souvenirs.

The overnight flight from Jo'burg to London took about 10 1/2 hours. It was a packed, kinda hot, can-we-please-get-this-over-with-soon flight. We all slept, but not well. 

Once we arrived in London, we had to go through customs to get our connecting flight. Taylor had packed a toy slingshot -- a gift from the Kambaku Safari Lodge -- in her backpack. Unfortunately for us, the slingshot got picked up in the x-ray machine. A stern-looking Heathrow security man called us over and said, "Did you know there was a dangerous weapon in this bag?" A dangerous wha...?, I replied. And then I caught on and said, "Oh. You must mean the toy slingshot."

But this guy was not happy and was not having it. "It's a weapon!" he said. "And it's against the law. This is now a police matter. Bring me your passports and boarding passes!"

I started sweating. I gave him our passports and boarding passes, to which he then said, "I don't need your boarding pass." (Okay, but you just sai...)

And then: "I am going to ask you a series of questions. If I am satisfied with your answers, maybe we can settle this matter here."

"Yes, sir," I said. He asked who the bag belonged to (Taylor), who packed the bag (Taylor), if I supervised the packing (of course, sir [a white lie, but I wanted to keep us out of jail]), if I knew the slingshot was in the bag (yes, sir [my second white lie]), and if we had any intention of using it on the plane to hurt people (absolutely not, sir). 

And then, as quickly as the incident arose, it ended. The man, satisfied with my answers, confiscated the slingshot and had his deputy re-scan the bag. Our passports were returned, and we were allowed to continue to the international terminal.

The real kicker here? Wyatt had his slingshot packed in his backpack, too. It was never picked up. 🤣

In London, we had a four-hour layover. During our time in the international terminal, we kept seeing all of these women (and some young girls) wearing Taylor Swift merch. Turns out Taylor had performed at Wembley Stadium that Thursday, Friday, and Saturday; she had a break on Sunday before performing again on Monday and Tuesday. Taylor and I were excited to be in the same city as the other Taylor! (Tim and Wyatt, not so much.)

Finally, we boarded our flight to Los Angeles. Lots of Swifties boarded, too. I almost belted out 'So Long, London,' but contained myself.

About 10 1/2 hours later, we landed in LA. It felt SO good to step out of the airport and into the sun. 

We got home close to 5pm Pacific Time. Wyatt dropped his bag in the living room and walked upstairs, into his room, and fell onto his bed. He fell right asleep. He didn't even wake up when, an hour later, Roger pounced on him and licked him for five minutes straight.

The rest of us were in bed about 7:30pm. Bed felt glorious.

And that was our trip home. And that's the end of our South Africa blog.

I will close by saying that Africa has my heart. In all honesty, I was a little nervous about visiting South Africa before we left home. We had read a lot of headlines about safety, or rather, lack thereof. The US State Department has a Level 2 travel advisory for South Africa: Exercise increased caution. Tim and I worried about taking our kids to an unsafe country.

But the fact of the matter is, we never felt unsafe, even in Cape Town. We exercised caution in Cape Town, definitely; we followed others' advice and didn't do anything stupid.

Does South Africa have problems? Absolutely. There's corruption. There are vast imbalances in wealth, housing, education, healthcare. Black unemployment is more than three times white unemployment. The country has significant issues. But doesn't every country? It's just that, in South Africa, the problems are in your face, always.

This is the one country we've visited where we felt the most community, the most connection with the people. We made real friends on this trip. We loved everyone we came into contact with (minus that mean guy at London Heathrow). The people we met were joyous and full of life. 

I would go back to South Africa in a heartbeat. And I'm now motivated to visit other countries on the continent. Hey, maybe Zimbabwe will be next. After all, we've gotta reconnect with Dexter. Can't wait to see his chicken farm up and running...

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Big, big thanks to all of our readers. We love you and appreciate you and LOVE reading your comments. Whenever you're ready to visit South Africa, let us know. We just might tag along (no doubt we'll be craving more Rooibos tea and pap...).