Note: if you aren’t interested in all the details of my travel to Swaziland, you may want to skip out on reading this blog :)
Here is what I was anticipating my travel plan to look like:
Flight from San Antonio to Atlanta: 3 hours
*I met up with Katie and Kaci in Atlanta so that was a sweet reunion!
Flight from Atlanta to Johannesburg, South Africa: 16 hours
Drive from Jo’burg to Swaziland: 4 hours
Obviously this did not happen, or I would not be writing this blog.
All my flights went great minus some undesirable turbulence as we flew over the Atlantic. There were a few moments, as my body shook side to side, that I quickly asked Jesus to carry our plane. Needless to say, I began to get a little stir crazy after such a long flight and was very ready to meet Lelo at the airport to make our drive so Swaziland. (Side note: we are staying at the same homestead as we did last year, so Lelo was the one picking us up). We got our luggage which always makes me nervous. I am the person who quickly assumes that someone either stole my luggage or it got lost, I know, optimistic right? But all of our bags arrived and we made our way past customs to meet Lelo. We originally thought the drive was about 4 hours from the airport to Timbutini, Swaziland. The border closes at 10:00 pm and does not reopen until 7:00 am. We left the airport around 6:45 pm so we were confident that we would make it across the border before it closed. Then, at 9:45 (border closes in 15 minutes) we were about 10 minutes from the border and we hear a loud pop. Oh, that was just the tire popping. Just put on the spare right? Well the spare had been used on the way to pick us up from the airport because the car had a blowout then too. We rolled down the hill into the parking lot of a gas station where we spent the next 16 ½ hours. Then the electricity went out, so we were sitting in the dark. It just seems like its darker at night in Swaziland, and I’m scared of the dark, especially in Africa. I can’t even put into words the way we were feeling. We wanted to cry, but ended up laughing. You know when something happens that is just so ridiculous the more appropriate reaction would be to cry, but you can’t help but laugh because of how unbelievable it is? This was one of times. Lelo and Sabelo reassured us that we were in a safe place, and pointed out that there were security cameras connected to the police station in the parking lot. Not much sleeping took place as you can imagine and 7:00 am could not have come any sooner. We actually didn’t leave the parking lot until around 10:00 am so spent a total of 12 hours there. Lots of rejoicing took place when we got to the border and we couldn’t believe that we had spent the past 12 hours, just 10 minutes from the border. As we turned down the dirt road to Timbutini my heart began to smile, cheesy I know, but this is true. Pulling up to the homestead felt like I was in a dream. It was so exciting to be back, but in the same moment I wished my teammates from last year could be there. A few minutes later, Mbonisi, (who I wrote about in a lot of my previous blogs), showed up at the homestead, and I screamed, of course, as I ran to hug him. It was a beautiful reunion, and he just laughed as I couldn’t stop squealing because I was so happy to see him.
We went to Manzini so we could get on the internet to let our families know we arrived safely, and bought some groceries. We got home and went to sleep around 7:30 because we were so exhausted. This time of year, the sun begins to set at around 5:30 so you can’t do much anyways once it is dark.
So, we arrived safely in Timbutini, it just took a little longer than we would have liked. It was a memorable experience but not one we EVER want to repeat.
…to be continued on the blog above
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