Arrived in Africa!

After a long, reasonably brutal flight, we arrived in Africa! We had discovered upon arriving at the airport in Lisbon at 11:00 pm that our original flight -- an all-night flight -- had been cancelled, so we spent the night with our friend Maria, sans luggage (which we had decided to check in early so that we could save time in the morning). Those of you with kids might understand why we were bummed about this switch to an all-day flight! so many hours during which to entertain a 4-year-old... Then it turned out that our rebooked flight was not direct to Maputo as the cancelled one had been, but rather stopped in Joburg for 2+ hours enroute to Maputo.

We finally arrived Maputo after 11:00 PM on Saturday, but with immigration, visa purchases, and very slow luggage, we didn't manage to get out of the airport until well after midnight. Poor Ian - it was all he could do to barely hold it together. And it was HOT and muggy compared to what we were accustomed to... I suppose I should have been happy that 5 of our 6 bags showed up, but I wasn't, as the missing bag was mine!! (it did manage to show up a full WEEK later after much effort to track it down...) But at least we had arrived.

We spent 2 nights at our friend Carlos' house in a "suburb" of Maputo, adjusting to our new surroundings. Ian an I mostly flopped around as Rich had African adventures (flat times, hitch-hiking, running out of gas....) while trying to accomplish a few necessities in Maputo. We then packed up again and headed West to Kruger National Park in South Africa for the next phase of our adventure...