June 3, 2010
Dear Friends,
Joan Turner, one of our Board Members, Amanda Pippitt, our grand-daughter, Ralph and I are on our way to Zimbabwe. Ralph and I will be in Zimbabwe until mid-October. Amanda and Joan will be returning home the end of July.
We are in the air between Dakar and Johannesburg, one day behind schedule. After all of our years of traveling, this is the first time there has been a problem with flights. We’ve never missed a connection and never lost baggage. I guess we are long overdue.
The flight from Denver was right on schedule and the flight from there to Dulles was smooth. Then things changed. We boarded our flight for Johannesburg on time but Ralph and I were concerned about there being no air flowing. We taxied a ways and then the Captain came on the intercom and announced we were going back to the terminal. There was no air conditioning. We sat in the HOT plane for two and a half hours while they worked on the plane. Finally, SA decided to let us off. We were given meal vouchers when we entered the terminal.
Later they announced our flight and we re-boarded. The plane was some cooler but I felt it was because the sun had gone down not because of air conditioning. I had a strange feeling that things were not right. We eventually pushed away from the gate and everyone clapped. After taxiing for what seemed an unreasonable amount of time, the Captain announced that we were going back to the terminal and that we would all be staying in a hotel for the night. The problem was still not fixed. He announced that they were bringing in another plane for us in the morning. By the time we deplaned, it was after 11:00 pm and we had to stand in line for an hour to get hotel vouchers. After walking forever, it seemed, we found the hotel shuttles. By the time we checked in at the hotel and had our room assignment, it was nearly 1:00 am. Since we were told to be at the airport by 7:00 am for a possible 9:30 departure, it was a very short night. We caught the 6:30 shuttle to the airport and the check-in line was already very long. We stood in line for two hours and it was after 9:00 am before we had our boarding passes. Needless to say we didn’t depart at 9:30. It was about 11:30 am when we finally left Dulles airport on our way to Dakar and Johannesburg.
We didn’t receive our connecting flight assignment in Dulles for the Johannesburg/Harare portion of our flight. We will have to obtain that after we land in Johannesburg. I have no idea when we will actually arrive in Harare.