27 August: Lima to Johannesburg

I was up early this morning to get ready for our 7am airport transfer. @UselessRob was waiting for me at the gate to say a final goodbye :(

I watched Extraordinary Measures on the TACA flight to Buenos Aires, which definitely felt like a made-for-tv movie. The stop over was pretty dull, aside from the fact that there seemed to be some commotion with some other South Africans on our flight (which had also caused us to board our flight from Lima late). From what I overheard, they'd bought a fossil and packed it in their check-in luggage to take home. Something about this is apparently illegal. Either way, this time we got our boarding passes quite quickly and had a very helpful man who spoke very good English assisting us all from as soon as we got off the plane in Buenos Aires. Quite a change from our experience at the start of the trip.

The flight back to Joburg luckily did not feel nearly as long as our first flight did. But it was still pretty annoying. It was great because it was close to empty so I moved to my own 2 seats. But there was a group of about 8 (business?) men who were clearly traveling together who just crowded around standing in the aisles chatting to each other and constantly blocking my view of the (supremely annoying) main console entertainment. Which was dreadful itself. I tried to watch The Back-up Plan but the quality got so bad half-way thru that I just tried to sleep instead. Have been truly unimpressed with SAA's entertainment on both flights. At least the food was decent tho.

Arrived a bit early in Joburg on the morning of the 28th and breezed thru Passport Control, Baggage Collection and Customs. I love it when things are easy and smooth. I said goodbye to The Ageing Aunt who headed off to catch her Cape Town flight and caught the Gautrain home.