Friday, December 16, 2011

homeward bound - One Crazy Adventure


Hey guys n gals

By the time you're reading this I'll be back home in SA. So here's a short story of my CRAZY trip home...

OK, so... the gnarly trip home started off with a super late fight out of LAX on Tuesday night. $400 later in over sized luggage, and some rather sneaky maneuvers to get my brothers Christmas present on board as hand luggage, my trip soon began to commence. The 5 hour flight to JFK International was pretty lame. Mainly due to the fact that there was a 5 year old kid throwing a tantrum for around 4hrs of the entire 5hr flight to New York.

Upon touch down in New York city, I found myself lumbering around the confusing airport, only to be told by a intensely rude and obnoxious women that I had to catch a train, out side of the airport, in order to get to the right terminal. So I meandered my way in the general direction of where I was told to go, found a train and hopped onto it. Well, from the lack of sleep, partnered up with the bad mood that I was now in, I ended up hopping onto a train that lead in the complete opposite direction. Eventually, after an hour or so of jumping from one train to another, I ventured into the right terminal. I then got checked in with South African Airways (SAA), which went off without a hitch.

It had to be smooth sailing from there, right? Oh, How wrong I was! I thought that the direct flight back home to SA would be straight forward, and that I'd sleep the majority of the flight. hmmm, another small child saw the end of my beloved sleep after only an hour in the sky. The little person whaled and squawked continuously for a couple of hours, resulting in me losing more and more sleep. After the entire 16hour flight from JFK to OR Tambo International in Johannesburg, I had only managed to get 5 hours of sleep. But, I was home, so that kinda lifted my spirits. All I had to do was catch the next flight to Durban which was in 2hrs time. Sounds easy enough. right?

In between waiting at passport control, the airport losing my bike and me having to wait for them to find it, those two hour simply flew by. As I got to the check in, with two ridiculously big bike bags, a massive luggage bag and my two carry on bags, Philemon, of SAA Domestic Flights simply said, "you have missed your flight, go buy a new one." I stormed off to get another ticket but refused to pay, after a further two more hours, I was eventually reimbursed with a ticket to Durban.

At least I'm home now. I'm super jet lagged, but its good to be back home with the family. I'm here until mid February, so I'll be home to get in some good training before jetting back over the states to tackle the 2012 Pro XCT series in the States. I'm also hoping to meet up with Burry for a couple rides while I'm back here to get some advice and pointers going forward!

Its been really awesome to catch up with my family and friends. Its been a long time since I was able to sit down and actually speak to them. I've got to make the most of the short period that Im going to be in the country!!

Sweet ride with some of the boys from Team Jeep South Africa.

I'll keep you all updated

Until next time
B