Patti: Well, it has been quite the ordeal over the past number of days. Our 4 hour plane delay turned into a 20 hour delay so we spent a night in the Dubai airport with several thousand other people. The worst part about the situation was that no information was being shared with the passengers so people's stress levels and impatience was very high. We only saw 3 shoving matches but there could have been many more. The airport obviously had no contingency plan and no one seemed to know what was going on. Apparently, the last time they experienced any sort of weather related issue at the Dubai airport was 4 years ago, so they don't have as much practise as Canadian airports dealing with snow storms. So we were relieved to finally arrive in Johannesburg, only to discover that our baggage did not arrive with us and again, no real answers. With no real sleep this almost put us over the edge. Thankfully, we had met a guy Alex, who was on the same flight as us who kind of took us under his wing. His mom picked him up from the airport so she also gave us a ride to a hotel including a pitstop to pick up a few essentials (toothbrush and toothpaste, soap, food, etc.) After several unanswered phone calls to Air Emirates (give some thought to whether you fly with them), we finally got a hold of them the following day which resulted in us going to airport to get our bags. We were both very relieved and surpirsed that everything was in them and we could continue on.
At present, we are with my cousin's family, Karen, Bill, Juliana, and Jessica in Phalabowra (about 550 km northeast of Joburg). It is the best place to be to recover from our few days of stress. They have a beautiful home and one of the first things we did when we arrived was go for a swim in their pool. Our meals have been exceptional and we have picked their brains about how best to see Kruger National Park. Although it isn't the best time of year to be viewing animals, we'll be happy to see anything. We have already seen some warthogs, baboons, and other monkeys just in town. We will camp for 5 days in the park before heading to Cape Town to hook up with our organized safari.
We'll continue to do our best to keep you updated.
