Lilongwe home. Hee hee. Kenya to Heathrow tonight!

Tuesday July 20th
Woke up at the Longonut Lodge (district 3 of Lilongwe), ate, attempted to blog and headed downtown by foot to do our last bit of shopping at a curio market (the airports of course have shops too). Once again the curio shop owners are very, very aggressive and all try to talk to you and push their goods at once. It is a very uncomfortable feeling and certainly killed the joy of shopping for me.
Back to the lodge, loaded bus and Shorai joined us to the airport. The lineups were huge and there was anxiety about making our flight. Turns out all was good as the planes were all somewhat delayed. Kevin waited until we were checked in to head out for the rest of his week in Africa - Tadeo made plans to meet him in Mulanje to climb the mountain with him. We were at our gate in sufficient time and boarded the first of many planes home.
Boarded the plane was the key statement here as we sat on the tarmac for 2 hours as there were concerns about some tar on the runway. Barb, Vera and I played 2 games of crib and Barb won both to kill some time and reduce anxiety - we now have 3 hours rather than 5 to make our connecting flight to Nairobi.
Once in the air all was good. Flight to Nairobi was short and sweet ( about 2 hours). Did some last chance souvenir shopping, bought a 26 of African rum (made from sugar cane) for Derricks' 40th bday and awaited the next flight. Barb started to feel ill and we are hoping the flight will go well.
Nairobi to Heathrow - 9 looooong hours, I am clearly not meant to sleep on a plane. Cannot complain about the Kenya airlines service or planes at all. The staff are wonderful, food is fine and the planes all have individual TV's with a bout a dozen recent Hollywood movies, TV shows, Children's' movies music and more. Our only issues with Kenya airlines was in the bookings or should I say lack of bookings department - our trip down was great on the plane but was a nightmare for checking in and getting connections and boarding passes.
Wednesday July 21, 2010
Arrived at Heathrow international airport and made our way to gate 3 - Air Canada here we come! Was very sad when they took away my bottle of rum for Derrick they did not seem compassionate for the fact that we could not check it in in Nairobi as our bags were already checked through to Toronto or that the Nairobi Duty free sealed the already sealed bottle in a plastic wrap - shucks!
Although we had a 5 hour layover, we immediately made our way to the check in counter as a few members of the group had been given boarding passes in Lilongwe for the flight to Toronto but most of us did not have one. Turns out air Kenya did it to us again. Five of the 10 of us planning to fly home to Toronto were checked in.
Marleen Jonker, Vera Rumley, Meagan and Sue Luckay and Sue Krakolovich were good to go. The rest of us were to report back in 4 hours to see if we could go standby. The airline reported that summer break had just begun in Europe and the Air Canada flights were all overbooked, we knew not to hold our breath.
An hour later we were once again trying our charm.
We maintained some optimism that there would be some no shows for the flight to Toronto but unfortunately that was not the case. We told the staff that we would be happy to get to Wpg through Calgary, Edmonton, Montreal or Toronto if that would help, and that we would be willing to split up the group. She was appreciative of that and tried to do magic but told us to return again in an hour to see if there would be standby seats on the Calgary flight. She said every flight out for the day was overbooked.
An hour later, she called us off to the side and handed 4 boarding passes over for Lisa Ferguson, Barb Birch, Ken and Karyn Fanstone and one with the hand written message 'if possible please let her on last minute pass' for me. We were off to the gate and I was fine with the situation until Barb hugged me and the tears started.When boarding time came I was told - sorry we can't do it. Was OK until Ken's big bear hug and again the tears erupted.
Back to the lovely Air Canada desk once more. This time the check in staff were expecting me as the boarding staff had already radioed to them I was given the now expected 'please come back in an hour' message but also a 'we will try really hard to get you onto the Edmonton flight' to go with it, they were very all nice to me.
Off for a bag of chips and chocolate bar for both comfort and distraction!
It was very sweet when the lady from check in (that had worked her magic earlier with he boarding passes) came over to my usual seat on the floor near the window to say she was going off shift but that she had made sure to tell the other check in staff to take care of my pass. A half hour later, I was once again in line and given a standby pass for Edmonton and off to another gate. There were about 20 of us with standby passes and so I was not certain that I should feel so optimistic about my flight.
At one point an boarding staff member came out to call names but mine was not on the list - darn - she returned a while later and said if you are on a standby ticket please back away as they want the other passengers to not be confused about the line up - I ventured over to say - that I was on standby but did have a boarding pass for a connecting flight from Edmonton to Winnipeg but unfortunately was snubbed).
About 10 long minutes later another lady came out and said is there a Dawn Birch here?
Music to my ears!
I went in and the original lady actually apologized and told me a window seat was awaiting me and enjoy my trip home! 36 hours of no sleep and tension took its toll as I could only mumble a quiet thank-you through my third set of tears for the day!
off to Canada I go!
Arrived in Edmonton with an hour to my connecting flight, texted Barb to say I was in Canada and could she let me know if my luggage made it to Winnipeg, also send it with Vera and I would cab it over there when I landed.
Flight form Edmonton to Winnipeg was great. Sat with a structural engineer and that provided some very interesting conversation to both keep me awake and pass time quickly.
Arrived in Winnipeg!!
Text from Barb saying glad to hear I was in Edmonton. Let her know when I get to Winnipeg. Called Vera's house and found out they were not home yet, texted Barb and turns out that she was still in the parking lot. Vera also responded from minutes away she and Wayne turned around and came back for me.
As it turned out the flight from Toronto was delayed so the Calgary travellers arrived an hour earlier that everyone else as well as an hour before the luggage that was on the Toronto plane. My flight arrived only a half hour later and since I had no luggage to pick up I had just barely missed everyone.
What an incredible end to an incredible journey!