After some administrative work, I was off again on the road to the airport to return to Jo’burg and ultimately on to Sydney and New Zealand. Along the way I stopped at to buy some souvenirs and ended up getting rid of … er, exchanging a broken watch, a pair of pants, some mini-toy koalas, two pens and some small cash for quite a few wooden trinkets – only animals that I saw in the wild though.
Before long I was down in Jo’burg once again, the flight made all the more palatable by an extremely pleasant steward with a vibrant repartee and an open yet velvetly seductive voice. Even when he sprayed the cabin with toxic fumes as per South African regulations he did it in a manner that made you smile and feel warm inside.
At the airport, Anrie and her mother greeted me and we were straight back to their place. It was here that I realised I’d lost my first video tape! This was a crushing blow, I had about 50mins of great memorabilia on there, of stuff that I didn’t really take photos of too. Such a disappointment. I’ve since been calling hotels and tour companies trying to find it but I’m not holding out a whole lot of hope. {It has since been located, but it is at the discretion of Zimbabwe Post as to whether or when it might make it back to me}
Well the night did get better, we went out to a nearby bar to celebrate my imminent departure from the continent and we had an odd but great time. Anrie’s sister broke up with Anrie’s boyfriend on her behalf, and Anrie ended up getting with another old mate, and Antoinette came and left before I could really speak with her (not that I paid her a lot of attention), and Bryce came and drank with us all one last time, and we went to a seedier sort of place and I had a go at one of the guys with us for getting sleezy with Marisa (Antoinette’s sister) & some of the other girls, and I got with Marisa, and we finally left at 3:30am and Jana’s (Anrie’s sister; my ride home) boyfriend had a car accident and we went to help him out & calm him down and we finally got in at about 5am.
And we got up at 7am, but only briefly for me before rising properly after 8am. Over to the Sheraton to pick up my luggage that I didn’t take on tour, back to repack, put the boot into the girls and to the airport we go. Some short but heartfelt goodbyes, and I’m off.