Back in Dallas

Well, after a beating of a trip, we're back in Dallas. The trip from our Cape Town guest house to our apartment here took 32 hours with no easy transfers. At the Cape Town airport we learned that our travel agent failed to issue a critical paper ticket to Johannesburg, and if we didn't get on that flight, we probably wouldn't be able to get back for days. Fortunately, they found a way for us to re-buy the ticket and get on the plane (we bought our new ticket 20 minutes before take-off . . . very dicey).

Johannesburg was a trip. Apparently they are fiendish checkers of passports there: we had ours scanned roughly four times. We also went through a secondary security check consisting only of a guy asking, "Do you have a gun in your bag?" That's an easy question to answer. Once we boarded, we sat on the runway for two hours without air conditioning--sweating profusely on a plane before a 12 hour flight creates a unique olfactory experience.

Then our late arrival in Heathrow meant a frantic switch to Gatwick. I walked up to the gate with my belt still in my hand from the security check--such was our time crunch.

But we're home. They've lost our bags, but we're home. Really, most of the baggage should probably be buried in a deep canyon somewhere dry and then buried forever . . . but we are pretty anxious to get some very special bottles of South African wine as well as a delightful South African liqueur called Amarula (I had it over ice cream . . . like Bailey's but significantly tastier).

It's great to be back (my belly is now happily stuffed with Tex-Mex). Tomorrow we will get our film developed, wade through all twenty-something rolls, and get the highlights posted later this week.