Day 14 - The return home

Our last sunrise from the trip from our balcony at Elephant Camp

After 31 hours of travel, we finally made it back to our living room (and dog) in Philadelphia.  We were picked up at Elephant Camp at 9:30 a.m. local time and chauffeured to the Victoria Falls Hotel, closer to the Zambia border, where we were handed off to another caravan to finish our trip the airport.  This depot approach permitted us a quick glimpse inside the Victoria Falls Hotel, which was built in 1904 (the first hotel in the area) and has not changed much since.  It's reception desks boast a beautiful, dark wood counter top and columns that are beautiful in their bold simplicity, contrasted with the wildness of the surrounding landscape.  It is very colonial - still today.  Even the lawns are well manicured and bright green in a very English way.

At the hotel we picked up - you guessed it - the Gallardos (they were also on our river cruise the night before, though we didn't have a chance to say "hello").  Tinos, our driver from Elephant Camp, then left and handed us off to - you guessed it again - Joseph.  We loaded up into our van (which was one of several making its way to airports that morning from the hotel) and were off to recross-the boarder and head to the airport.  To exit Zimbabwe, we got stuck behind a group with 20 Japanese tourists.  Joseph seemed to them view this as a potential game and we tried to get ahead of them 100 meters later when we had to re-disembark to re-enter Zambia.  We were close - but not quite, as their tour guide, a very petite young woman from Japan, had taken all 20 passports and run ahead to go through immigration on behalf of her entire group (very clever).  This gave us the opportunity to chat with her briefly, and we were surprised to hear that her group of older Japanese folks had been in Cape Town for two nights, Victoria Falls for two nights (we saw them when we landed as well), and now, after only those four days, were heading all the way back to Japan, with a layover in Hong Kong.

We were about halfway through our 20 minute drive to the airport (a total of 7 folks in our group) when Joseph got a call on the radio and asked if we would be okay with him going back and getting more groups from other hotels (though with no more border crossing).  Without any objection from the riders, Joseph whipped the van around and doubled-back to another hotel complex on the Zambia side and we picked up a family of three from one hotel and a family of five from another.  Then, we were off to the airport.

We grabbed our bags and went through security and check-in (which was thorough and had some redundancies), and soon were off back to Joburg - a mere 1 hour and 20 minute flight.

In Joburg, we had a very long layover of nearly 6 hours, during which we paid $60 US per person to enjoy a relatively quiet, comfortable lounge with WiFi, electrical outlets, limitless snacks and beverage and a self-serve bar (which was down a few glasses of Amarula on our account).  Eventually we made our way to our gate for our overnight flight, which was smooth and permitted us to sleep a fair amount.

After the 15-hour flight (which had minimal child screaming), we landed at JFK, went through immigration, collected our bags, went through customs, grabbed the train to the long-term parking lot, walked what felt like 5 miles (but was probably 1/10 of that) to our car, paid our $276 parking bill for the 15 days we were gone, and drove the 90 minutes down I-278 and the New Jersey Turnpike back to our fair city of Philadelphia.

Total travel time from our tent at Elephant Camp to our living room: just under 31 hours.  Total travel time for the entire trip: somewhere around 80 hours.  Was it worth it?  Yes.

It was a tremendous trip and I hope anyone who has been reading along with (or any portion of) the blog enjoyed it.  We saw parts of the world that made us feel very privileged to see, shared experiences that were once-in-a-lifetime, and met very special people whom we will not soon forget.  Among others, we met people from Spain, Italy, London, Wales, South Africa, Namibia, Japan, Belgium, Sweden, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Australia, the U.S., Singapore, and other places from around the world.

The world paradoxically feels like an extremely small (almost miniscule) place at times, but is also one with limitless expanses of space and landscape and a plethora of different cultures and people.  The more you travel, the smaller it seems, yet the more you feel you still have to experience.