Never a dull moment

 Jamaica time does not work in South Africa. I saw that everywhere we went but the lesson is now forever etched in my brain, as it has been very expensive very expensive experience 😥

Sipping South African wine in Johannesburg airport 

We had been up from 3 am and got ready for the taxi to pick us up at 4am for the Cape Town airport. By 3.45, he was there. 

Having checked in on-line, all was well and although the flight was a bit rough at first, all was smooth up to Johannesburg.

This O.R.Tambo international airport is much larger and more impressive than the one in the Cape and almost every shop window has some painting or sculpture of the late great Nelson Mandela.

We checked easily through immigration and security and started moving slowly towards our connecting gate, taking in everything, as we had plenty time to spare. (we thought).

We heard some catchy South African music and headed towards it. 

On the floor below, we saw a uniformed welcoming group of singers and dancers. 

They were waiting for a French female soccer team to emerge we were told.  They were coming to play South African female soccer warriors and guess what, these teams are made up of grandmothers!

Yup, you heard that right😂

The welcoming committee is in yellow, South African grandma players in red and the visiting French players in white.

Then we heard there was wine tasting and you know who had to be there.

After my second glass, my cousin said we should start moving  to the connecting gate and we again started moving,  but no hurry. 

We had both forgotten the popular Jamaican saying ;‘chicken merry hawk deh near.’

A beautiful male outfit in one shop window 

My cousin had wanted to buy a bottle of South African wine to take home and since we both thought we still had a reasonable amount of time,  I told her to meet me at the boarding gate.

What none of us knew was,  just how far a walk it was to get there😢.

By the time I got to our gate, the bus taking passengers to the plane was closing its doors! The boarding agent called them to stop as she hurried me to the door. It did but problem was, my cousin was no where in sight. I called her but got no answer. 

After about a minute, the clerk said they could wait no longer and waved the bus off. Just then I saw her coming down the escalator but alas the lady said they couldn’t wait any longer and the bus took off. 😭

Long story short, our luggage was up loaded, we had to retrieve our luggage, go back through immigration and rush to try to get another flight to Livingstone.

But alas there was none. So here we are stuck in Johannesburg.

It’s been a terrible experience but the good news is we were able to get the same flight to Livingstone for tomorrow and luckily we will not miss our safari to Botswana which was my greatest fear.

Thank heavens that had booked that for Saturday not Friday.

And yes, we are close to bankruptcy but wiser and happy it was not worse.

For it could be.