HELLO HELLO AFRICA: June 2008

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Our Jekyll Trip (before the Africa Adventure)

We took a week long trip to Jekyll Island the week before we left for Zambia. The weather was gorgeous and the kids played in the surf everyday. Grandma Pat came down for a visit and we loved spending a few days with her enjoying the beach. We rented an oceanfront house and spent time at the Jekyll Island Club. One of our favorite activities at Jekyll is renting bikes and riding around the island - it takes about 4 hours to ride around the entire island. We loved the beach but were so anxious to get back to Durango and get on the plane to London!! We took a "turtle walk" but unfortunately didn't see any of the loggerhead turtles that lay their eggs on the island. We ate lots of seafood and Beth got to sample a few different hushpuppies (a favorite and a must-have when we travel to the south!!).

THE BEST CHRISTMAS EVER!

Merry Christmas Blogettes! May our blog find you and your's happy and healthy this holiday season. We are experiencing quite a different Christmas than years past. It is about 80 degrees and raining off and on. Such weather makes it hard to distinguish Christmas from any other day here in Zambia. However, this Christmas we had the honor and privilege to experience the true meaning of Christmas. Last weekend Rianne, Deryn, and Trevor participated in a gift wrapping party at the Ambassador's residence. The Marines had collected presents for their "Toys for Tots" program. On Christmas Eve, Beth and the kids accompanied the Marines to deliver the toys to Lusaka's poorest Compounds. I had the misfortune of having to go into work, so I truly missed out. Fortunately, Beth snapped some great pictures and I could tell from the accounts given by the kids of their experience that they got it!

Beth indicated there were several moments where she had to look away to try to keep her composure, especially when the Compound children began singing "The Good Lord Loves Us." A few times she looked up and saw Deryn with tears in her eyes as she talked with the children and held some of the smaller ones. Another classic moment was when all the presents had been passed out and there was a little girl in the front about Trevor's age who was holding a younger sibling. She did not have a present. Even her sibling who she was holding had received a present. The girl went over to the gentleman who had the list of all the names of the kids and looked to see if her name was on it only to be told it was not. She quietly walked back over to where she was without a word. The Marines scrambled around and found her a gift. They gave it to her and she thanked the Marine. She then turned around and gave the gift to her brother who was standing behind her. Even now, while I'm typing this, I can feel the lump building in my throat and my eyes welling up. It was the most unselfish act and really epitomizes what Christmas is all about. As the Mastercard commercial states: Move to Africa - $50,000

1st class Safari and Victoria Falls - $5000

The look in your childrens' eyes when they realize how fortunate they are - PRICELESS!!!

Merry Christmas to all and to all a Good night

OUR AMAZING RACE FROM DURANGO TO ZAMBIA

THE PLAYERS - Jim, Beth, Rianne, Deryn and Trevor.
THE DESTINATION - LUSAKA, ZAMBIA
THE OBJECT - arrive with all our property and avoid elimination.

Day 1:

The moving company hired to move us was the worst anyone could possibly imagine. We knew it was not going to end well when the first thing the movers said was “Do you have any markers, we don’t have any with us.”

Day 2:

After breaking an antique plate given to Beth by her late Grandmother, packing things that were not supposed to be packed and not packing things that should be packed, our Moldovian movers threatened to drop the trailer and walk off the job. And believe it or not, it actually got worse!!

Anyway, after a day and a half of complete chaos, all our worldly belongings were packed (and I use that term very loosely) in a large moving van and it was now rolling down Turtle Lake Meadows Drive. As the truck departed into the afternoon sun, the confidence instilled by our Moldovian packers left us with a feeling of overwhelming and complete anxiety over whether our “stuff” was ever going to make it to Zambia and if it did, what kind of condition would it be in? Our theme for the day was – “It’s just stuff right? Right?

Now that the packing was done and our house was in our rearview window we began to focus on our task at hand. The next Pit Stop - getting to Jekyll Island for well deserved R&R. We rolled into the Residence Inn in Durango, but first we picked up some serious carbos at Dominoes. By the time the pizza was gone, we were too.

Day 3:

The next morning we woke early, grabbed a quick bite to eat and headed for the airport. But not the Durango airport, the Albuquerque, NM airport. Couldn’t get flights out of Durango (frequent flyer miles, unavailability, blackout restrictions – you get the idea) so we started our trip winding through the unremarkable State of New Mexico and its finer Reservation lands. For the most part, the trip was uneventful except for a bad accident just outside of Cuba where a motorist pulling a trailer lost control and flipped the trailer which in turn flipped the Ford Excursion pulling it. Looked like a one car accident, but both the trailer and the SUV were a total loss. After seeing that, our packing follies experienced the day before did not seem so bad anymore.

We arrived at the Albuquerque Airport right about an hour before take off. Right on schedule. Checked in, made our way to the gate and boarded without incident.

From Albuquerque to Washington D.C. our trip was uneventful and was on schedule. However, once at Dulles Airport in D.C. our plane to Savannah, Georgia was delayed.

First Roadblock. To secure a rental car upon arrival which would be well after 1:00 am.

I volunteered to take on the first roadblock.

I quickly and without hesitation, called ahead to the Alamo car rental office at the Savannah airport and informed them of our dilemma. They said they would stay open until we arrived.

The delay out of Dulles caused us to arrive in Savannah around 1:30 in the morning and facing a 90 minute drive ahead of us to Jekyll Island - the PIT STOP.

Having successfully completed the ROADBLOCK, the rental of a vehicle was success as the attendant was awake and waiting for us. Unfortunately, the rental car place didn’t have a huge selection and at 2:00 a.m. So we proceeded to the car lot with three tired little travelers in tow to seek out our little rental beauty.

After a week in our Chevy HHR we decided it was the perfect beach car.

We rolled into the PIT STOP (Jekyll Island) about 3:30 a.m.

Day 4-10: (non-elimination rounds)

Jekyll Island was (as usual) great. Not very crowded, not too hot, and the water was perfect. We rented a nice house right on the ocean and had free reign over the whole Island. On the second day Grandma Pat arrived.

That night we went to Spanky’s so Beth could get her fill of her coveted “hush puppies”.
Needless to say she was very happy.
A good time was had by all.

The Beach was great!!!!!!

View from our deck on the rental house.
We also spent a lot of time at the Jekyll Island Club

and the Sea Turtle Center. Jekyll is known for its numerous Logger head turtles.

We always make sure to visit the Jekyll Club Sweet Shoppe where fudge and salt water taffy rule the day.

We also rented bikes and tooled around the island which took about four hours at our leisurely pace.

Half way around the island we stopped by to see Trevor’s friend Ally the Alligator.

Before we knew it our trip was over.

On to the next PIT STOP - Durango, Colorado.

Day 11:

With Jekyll Island in our rear view mirror we headed out to Savannah to catch our flight to DC and then to Albuquerque. We arrived at the Savannah Airport two hours a head of time.
I proceeded to check us in but could not check Beth in.

ROADBLOCK. - Because it was her ticket - Beth agreed to complete this task.

Beth's ticket was listed as already being used. This task caused her to have to involve numerous United counter people and to hold several counter conferences until someone, about twenty minutes later, said "Oh you just need to do this and then that." Beth's ticket immediately printed. Roadblock completed.

We later departed on time - arrived in Dulles and transferred on to Albuquerque where we spent the night at a hotel near the airport. The hotel was new and nice and quiet. We were all pretty tired from a hard week at the beach and were looking forward to completing this leg of the race and gearing up for the next Pit Stop – London.

However, there was good news and bad news. The good news was that the hotel in Albuquerque was nice and we arrived in good spirits – the bad news was that our luggage didn’t arrive with us.

ROADBLOCK - The task was to make your way through baggage claim, find the customer service attendant and without losing your cool, provide her with your luggage information.

I took the lead on this one.

Apparently our bags were still in the Dulles Airport and the cheerful little customer service gal (in true "Meet The Parents" fashion) was happy to inform me that our luggage would arrive the next afternoon and that they would gladly bring it to us when it arrived. The only problem was we were going back to Durango the next morning and then leaving to London the next day. She said she “would see what she could do.”

Day 12:

We left Albuquerque the next morning with the assurance of our perky customer service specialist that our luggage would be waiting our arrival in Durango that afternoon. (as Ben Stiller would say "You people suck at checking bags.") Well guess what – it wasn’t there and not only was it not there, it wasn’t anywhere! Remarkably United’s tracking system for lost bags was “down” but “Raj” the friendly customer service specialist assured me that the system “should be running very perfectly in a hour or two and I should just wait very patiently.” Once again it was crunch time – we were leaving for London the next day and here it was 5:00 p.m. and no luggage. After several encouraging phone calls from numerous family members, we came to the conclusion that “it was just stuff right? Right?”

Later that evening, around 11:30 p.m about 30 hours after we had touched down in Albuquerque, our luggage arrived. Once again, everything was right with the world and we mana to keep from being eliminated from the Race.

Day 13:

The next morning after repacking our suitcases we realized we had too many suitcases to haul all over London and then to Africa, so Beth began repacking. We ended up eliminating two suitcases by packing excess clothes into boxes and shipping the boxes to Zambia. So now we had only eight giant suitcases and eight carry-ons.

We loaded up the truck and headed to my office to pick up Todd Norvell (co-worker) who graciously offered to take us to the airport . On the way to the office, we saw Ryan Woolverton heading in the same direction. I called Ryan on his cell phone and he told me he was heading out to the airport to see us off. This was very unexpected but much appreciated as we quickly realized we had more bags than people. Thank you very much Ryan and Todd!!!!
That pretty much closed our Durango chapter as we headed for our next PIT STOP - London, England.

Day 14:

We arrived in London the next morning. The trip was uneventful. We shuffled through customs and were greeted with the reality that all of our luggage made it!! YAHOO!! Things were looking up!

Having been in London the month before, I knew the ropes and quickly secured us a roundtrip shuttle ($140 pounds $284 U.S.) from Heathrow to the Crown Plaza Inn located in Westminster Buckingham. After about an hour drive from Heathrow we arrived at our hotel. Our rooms were not ready yet so we got a bite to eat at the hotel.

The bellmen were loving us with our eight bags and eight carryons, however, I purposely over tipped them thinking I had to do something to turn our travel karma around. When we checked into our rooms we were amazed at how small they were but didn’t care because we wanted to get out and see London. Look kids Big Ben – Parliament.

We continued to tour London until about 6:00 p.m. By that time we were exhausted. We returned to the hotel and got ready for bed. The kids had their own room and surprisingly enough, they went to sleep rather quickly. Beth and I had a harder time because of the time change and all the other anxieties that come with travel. This was by far our easiest and uneventful leg of the Race.

Day 15:
The next day Beth and I woke up around 12:30 p.m. (slept for 17 hours). We were awakened by the phone ringing. It was the front desk reminding us that check out was at 1:00 p.m. I negotiated an extra half an hour and went next door where the kids were still asleep. (The Race was on!) We managed to get it all together by 1:30 and I called the Bell desk for help with our bags. Our shuttle for Heathrow was coming at 3:50 p.m. so we checked our bags with the Bell desk and headed off to get something to eat. We were amazed out how expensive everything was and saw a Pizza Hut close to the hotel. I convinced the kids (an easy sell) and Beth (a harder sell) that we should get Pizza Hut because we were not going to get it in Africa. It turned out to be a great decision. The Pizza Hut was by far the best Pizza Hut I have ever been to in my life. The food was typical Pizza Hut but the service was outstanding. The Maitre ‘d (yes there was a Maitre’d at Pizza Hut) was incredibly friendly and gave Beth and me complimentary cappuccinos and the kids complimentary ice cream and free chef hats.

Clark Griswold ("Vacation") couldn’t have been more proud!
After our wonderful time at Pizza Hut (that sounds wierd doesn't it?), we headed back to the hotel because it was almost time for the shuttle to arrive.

We got back to the hotel around 3:40 p.m. The bellman informed me that the shuttle is usually about 15 minutes late but not to worry because our flight was at 7:30 and we would have plenty of time.

By 4:20 p.m. I was getting pretty concerned.

ROADBLOCK: Try to secure a ride to the airport after already having paid for one. (This was a serious roadblock and required that both Beth and I step up to the challenge.)

The bellman called the shuttle service and handed the phone to Beth while I stood outside and watched for the shuttle. Beth was placed on hold immediately and remained on hold for ten minutes. (Clock was running)

During that time, Trevor was running back and forth between me (outside the hotel) and Beth (inside the hotel) eagerly providing us with updates of what the other was doing. When Beth was finally taken off hold, she was asked for our confirmation number. (Oh, I forgot to mention that the day before when I bought the roundtrip shuttle ride Rianne, in her effort to help, grabbed the shuttle receipt out of my hand while we were getting on the shuttle only to leave it in the shuttle bus when it dropped us off the day before). So Beth was unable to provide a confirmation number and the shuttle said they had no record of our reservation and worse yet – NO SHUTTLE WAS COMING!!!!

By this time it was 4:30 p.m., the very end of our time window to get to Heathrow. The Bellman rushed out to the street and got us two cabs. One for us and one for our luggage. The Taxi cab driver said it would be about $65 pounds per cab and they didn’t take credit cards. Of course I had no pounds on me because we were leaving the country. The Bellman said the Hotel would take a check and they began loading up the Taxi all the while telling me that I had to hurry. So I ran into the Hotel and waited patiently in line at the Front Desk only to be told 7 minutes and 36 seconds later by the front desk clerk that the hotel would not cash a check. By now it was 4:40 and I had few options. The taxis were loaded and blocking traffic.

I ran out to the taxi cab drivers and convinced them to take me to an ATM along the way. One driver said he knew where one was but that we were heading to the airport during rush hour and we were already late.

It was a very quiet cab ride to the airport as I was still angry about Rianne losing the shuttle receipt and even more angry at the fact that I was now paying a total of $280 POUNDS ($560 U.S.) for a round trip from the airport and back.

In true Amazing Race style, we wound through the streets of London following our luggage which was in the taxi ahead of us.
The anxiety level actually rose higher when the cab driver asked what terminal we were departing from since British Airways departs from two separate terminals. (Of course we had no idea because that information was on the shuttle receipt that we no longer possessed). The driver said it would add an extra 20 minutes if we went to the wrong terminal. We told him we were going to Zambia and he said, "I'm not sure which terminal that would be." The driver then told us that most African flights departed from terminal 4 so he would take us there.

When we arrived at the airport I felt like the last team arriving and facing elimination. As we loaded up our carts (3 of them) and rushed toward the check in area, I read the Departure board and saw Flight 66 to Lusaka, Zambia gate 21 Terminal 4. (We were the last team to arrive but were happily informed that it was not an elimination round).

As we were checking in we were immediately approached by British Airways with an offer (DETOUR) to give up our seats because there were not enough and they were overbooked.

They offered to route us through Johanesburg where we would arrive the next day. The offer came with 5 roundtrip tickets and “cash” but would get us in Lusaka later the next day. (Another cruel trick by the travel gods knowing full well that I would have to decline because I was on official travel and was forbidden from traveling through Johanesburg because of a State Department travel warning in effect). I declined – I was thereafter rewarded with two seats in the second to last row next to the toilets and three middle seats 8 rows away.

Our fortunes finally started to change when it came time to board the plane. As we were walking down the jetway Trevor and I became separated from Beth and the girls so I pulled Trevor aside and said “let these people go in front and we will wait for mom.” Little did I know, but the first President of Zambia “Kenneth Kaunda” was right behind us. He saw Trevor and bent down and extended his hand and said “Hello how are you?” Trevor, not knowing who he was, gave him “5”. The Former President and his entourage began laughing. The Former President then showed Trevor how to do the “Secret African Handshake.” After the handshake, they all laughed and the former President tapped Trevor on the head and proceeded into the plane and up to first class. We basked in the moment, (the way Ralphie did when he turned in his expose on the Red Ryder BB-gun to cheers of his fellow classmates as portrayed in the movie "A Christmas Story") until the flight attendant asked us to take our seats. We then headed in the opposite direction to our seats by the crappers.

We later learned that the current President, Levy Mwanawasa, was also on the same flight.

Day 15:

We arrived in Lusaka around 6:30 a.m. the next morning. It was chilly and I could see my breath. As I exited the aircraft I saw there was red carpet laid out and about a hundred traditional African Dancers on the runway. Music was playing and there were a lot of photographers. I stood still and began to wave all the while slipping into another Ralphie moment. When all of a sudden a felt a tap on my back followed by the the flight attendant kindly reminding me that the President was on board and "I needed to get off the plane." (Oh well, it was nice while it lasted).

Customs was a breeze as embassy personnel were awaiting our arrival, and yes, all our luggage made it!
We were now in Africa – our home for the next year or more. Our new temporary home is about a half an hour from the airport. When we arrived we met our Guard “Nebert” who bears a striking resemblance to Chris Rock.

As we opened the door to our new home, a feeling of relief came over us. We did it!! We finished the Race without getting eliminated.

The kids immediately headed for the pool.

HELLO HELLO AFRICA

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Our Jekyll Trip (before the Africa Adventure)

Blog Archive

Followers

South Luangwa Safari

Safari boys

Trevor & Peyton

Love birds 50 years!

Awaiting arrival of our guests

"Just give me some time."

Karin and Rev. Zimba

Victoria Falls

Zambezi Sunset

Big Boy

Bartering

On Safari

Did I get the right change?

Market Madness

Guest Suite

Relaxing at the Zambezi Sun

Karin on Safari

Brunch with the Ambassador

What do you think?

Double Rainbow from Backyard

Take the Picture Already!

Above the Falls

Statue of David Livingstone

Monkeys on the Balcony

Soccer Tournament

Tropic of Capricorn

Why did the big chicken cross the road?

Sloppy Drinker

Male Kudu

Zebra rolling in the dirt

Zebra Buddies

Zebras X-ing

Impala

Cool Drink

Watering hole guests

Warthog

Grass snake on the Dunes

Hiding Place

Waiting for prey

The Lion is actually in the bushes

Lion Buddies

Giraffe Killed by Lions

Lion Close Up

Full Tummies after giraffe kill

Lion Stalking

Lioness

Guinee Fowl

THE BEST CHRISTMAS EVER!

Waiting for Santa

Trevor with the children

I promise I've been good

Deryn with Children

Deryn with baby girl

Making a Christmas wish

A Good Day!

Deryn handing out presents

How did you know I wanted a teddy bear.

Trevor and Flat Sophia handing out gifts

Singing "The Lord has been good to us"

Yeah, I got one too.

Wrapping gifts at the Ambassador's House

Trevor handing out presents

OUR AMAZING RACE FROM DURANGO TO ZAMBIA

Hartebeast

Oryx at the watering hole

Wildebeast

White Rhino in Bushes

Black faced Impala

Zebras at Watering Hole

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