These are our personal thoughts written during the trip itself.

Mark's are journal entries to help him remember details from the trip.

Ann's are individual e-mails she sent to her friends back home to keep them updated with her progress.

December 22
December 23
December 24
December 25
December 26
December 27
December 28
December 29
December 30
December 31
January 1
January 2
January 3
January 4
January 5
January 6

Mark's Entry

January 5 - Time to Leave

Our last day in Africa. Our flight wasn’t until 8:50pm so we would have a lot of time to kill after checking out. After breakfast I decided to walk to the nearest bank and try my luck. This way, if I couldn’t get any cash I would still be able to walk back to the hotel where we would be picked up for the airport. The bank was about 9 blocks away. I stood in the first line and after the teller saw my foreign credit card she told me to go to another line. Once there I was told that because the card was a MasterCard, I couldn’t use it here and would have to go to another bank another block away. Once there, I stood in line, and was sent to another line. Finally I got someone who was able to help me. I gave her all my information and then had to wait for about 15 minutes while they verified it. I eventually got my 500 Rand and left happy.

We checked out of the hotel and let them hold out bags for us as we took a cab to the waterfront. We took a relaxing stroll through many of the shops and slowly found our way to the aquarium. This made Ann happy. The aquarium was really quite nice with several of the really big tanks that Ann likes so much.

We ate lunch at a little restaurant with outdoor seating right next to the water and a great view of Table Mountain in the distance. The weather was warm and we had a good time. We stopped at another café and Ann got a brownie while Jacob and I split a big cookie. We timed it well because when we finished it was time to return to the hotel for our transfer to the airport.

At the hotel we waited and waited for our transfer. Our voucher said our pickup would be at 1600 which seemed really early to us. When it hadn’t shown up by 1700 we decided to call. No one was really sure where the problem was (I think our agent confused 1600 with 6pm), so we took a cab to the airport, which cost the last bit of Rand that I had.

Cape Town airport is really nice. It’s not a hub so it’s not really busy, but it is modern and the staff was extremely friendly especially at security.

At this point I was relaxed because I didn’t have much more to worry about. The majority of the trip was over and the only transfer we had to do was at Heathrow, which should be easy. Ann was worried about not being able to sleep on the flight but that turned out OK since both of us were able to sleep surprisingly well in coach. It helped that this plane was outfitted with these cool headrests that extend out to the sides of your head holding it up as you sleep. Jacob stayed up and watched movies all night. The 12-hour flight passed by quite quickly.

Ann's Entry

Entry Coming Soon

It's still being edited.