Our Flight from JoBurg to George

Friday, Oct 15  South Africa

Leaving Marloth Park area, we drove 4.5 hours back to the JoBurg airport enjoying the foggy, rainy, then sunny scenery along the way.  Getting there early for our flight to George Airport which is on the Southern coast of South Africa.  We get all checked in and take  our seat at Gate E1, being probably 90 min early.  At boarding time they tell us our flight is delayed 1hr 20 min... "okay, whatever, we're on vacation!"  So about an hr later they tell us our plane still is not there and request we (all 147 passengers) go to Gate C-10, so we proceed down the escalator to the new gate.  There, we were informed that our flight will leave in an hour.... we're just thinking, "okay, let's just get there!"  Shortly, they announce the plane is still not here and they don't know when it will be here - that it may be 3-4 hours! WHAT!!

So at this time I'm thinking I need to call the place we're going to be staying & let them know we ARE still coming, but it will be a late check-in.  So, I don't hesitate to ask our new best friends in line if we could pay them to use their cell phone. They were super nice and didn't hesitate.  Done deal, rooms confirmed for late arrival.

So, here we STAND!  Yes, stand as there aren't even close to the number of seats needed for everyone to sit.  And to think, we had chairs at the first gate.  By the way, the local South African Airline that does these puddle jump flights several times a day is called "1 Time Airline" ...uhhh, we'll call them "Last Time Airline"!

Well maybe 30 min go by and they make the announcement and request that all 147 passengers now go to gate E1... are you kidding me!!  By now it's funny!  We go back up the esclator to the new gate and I find a place to camp out on the floor by one of what I think was only 2 electrical plugs in the whole airport... and I GOT one of them!  I got my laptop out and began to make some blog drafts to post whenever I might find wi-fi some day in Wilderness, which is where we will actually be staying this week (Fri-Fri).

After 30 min or so we find out the plane we are waiting for will only hold 111 passengers and since there are 147 of us, they request we go to Gate E10 to wait for a bigger plane, but again they are not sure when it will get there!  At this point I truly cannot believe how hilarious this all is... and truthfully, I didn't really see anyone mad, it was too funny!  We all got to know each other pretty well.

As everyone begins to herd down to Gate E10, I tell Dennis I'm staying with my plug-in and for him to just come get me if we ever really get to board.  In little bit he comes and tells me he found the 2nd plug in the airport which was closer to our boarding Gate.  I didn't want to leave my plug, so he takes my cord and the plan is:  if he doesn't come back, then that means the plug was still open when he got back there."  ...Ok, he doesn't come back, so, I pack up and head down to Gate 9 and get camped out again... then I realize Avis closes at 8:30 and I know we can't get there by then.  We were supposed to leave at 3:30.  So, our new best friends helped us out again with a phone call and Avis said not to worry, they would wait on us.

By now "1 Time Airline" is beginning to feel bad and they offered a voucher to everyone on the flight for 60 Rands so we could buy dinner, but said we will be boarding in 30 min... uhh,  that would compute to about $10 and I'm thinking, sure that gives us PLENTY of time to go have a meal!!  We weren't starving, but took the Rands and DT grabbed a pre-packaged chicken salad sandwich, a couple drinks and muffins and managed to get back so we could continue to hurry-up and wait!

Finally, they call us to board and take us out this door to cram all 147 people to stand or sit on one shuttle bus, over to the plane... some how we all managed to get on... the guy and blonde left of him were the ones to help us with our phone calls.

Good thing we we flew direct with no connecting flight, huh!?

We did finally arrive in George, was getting our rental car when the agent realized it wasn't an automatic as we had reserved and she asked if we could wait 20 min while they find an automatic in the fleet.  "Sure, no problem!" Hey, driving on the wrong side of the road is hard enough to concentrate on without having to shift with the left hand, so an automatic was a must if I wanted to drive at any point!  About 30 min later we finally have a car key in hand and actually loaded and on our way.  She was nice and gave us a free upgrade to a larger car.  We got new cars each rental, so that was nice!

Yes, we managed to find or way to "Wilderness Dunes" in the dark, and at least it wasn't raining, there was no construction, and it was only 15 minutes away, but we did manage to see one of those cameras flash,  ut-oh!!  We get settled in for the night and this place is certainly a step up from our tents!