Travel Day to Capetown

Well friends and family, I must apologize for the delay in the last few postings. We woke up early. Feeling a bit more refreshed than the day prior. Tanja, acting as my co-pilot, developed a fine appreciation for the underground tubes. She made sure we ended up at each location with no stress what- so-ever. {If you all have noticed, I always find a chance to give her a "shout out" in this log.} The agenda comprised of just hanging out around London basically waiting, until it was time to leave for our red eye flight.

Very loosely, we sauntered around aimlessly, ending up in the most peculiar locations. The town was really coming alive on this early Saturday morning, with Wimbledon, and 2 separate concerts. One of which was at Hyde Park, just some 800 meters away from the hotel featured Stevie Wonder and the Kings of Leon. This show alone was almost worth adding or pushing the flight off for at least another 24 hours... Staying focused we forged ahead filling about eight hours. In true "check-list tourist" form, we walked past the changing of the guard, managed to buy foreign magazines from Harrods and lastly had time, for one last Indian meal; while watching Brazil and Portugal on the television.

The ensuing tube ride back to Heathrow was uneventful, but the check-in had a brief hiccup that threw us for a loop. Faced with almost a $1000 USD in over baggage fees [22kg/48lbs over the limit]/ flying on South African Airlines. We decided to jettison yoga mats and security bars in order to save our precious vacation tender. This problem became evident, when we flew business to London and coach to Cape Town. Different amounts were allowed. I angrily [mostly at myself ] repacked literally 16lbs of clothes/shoes and other useless items into my already overstocked rucksack in record time on the floor of the airport with only minutes to spare before departing. Tanja helped also as we stuffed her purse with more of my items from toiletries bag and other random items.

Fast forward ahead... Still sweating and mentally steaming, I made a command decision to have a few adult beverages. Ok, sigh, I confess- 4 glasses later of wine in this 12hr. journey. Tanja in her non stressful travel mode fell softly into her rested state in the middle of reading a Frau magazine.