Pretoria 6/5/06 Hi everyone! Welcome to the first S. African instalment of our ‘on tour’ season! We have only been away for a couple of days but it has already been an interesting start and we are instantly finding ourselves in situations that we can only put down to being in Africa! Let’s begin with our flight. What a palaver that turned out to be! Firstly we were 11/2 hours late leaving Gatwick and as all the shops were shut in the airport that late at night we were getting rather hungry as well as being tired. So we depart at 12.30am and everything going fine until about half way through the flight the captain tells us that the oil pressure in one of the engines is too low and we have to make an unscheduled stop in the Central African Republic for it to be looked at. He is very reassuring and says that there is nothing to worry about but we do need to stop. Well no need to panic just yet and I do reassure Jas that we don’t need to worry until the air-stewards start panicking! Then we were trying to think actually where we are, we hadn’t even heard of the Central African Rep (a bit embarrassing eh!) but as we were flying we could see nothing but trees and a river, and we thought that we could be over the Congo and the captain did confirm this. We landed in CAR and were very pleased to find that the whole of the runway was made of tarmac! We were in the middle of nowhere and the airport buildings seemed to be the only things around. We were not allowed to get off the plane and now we were just hoping that our pit stop is not going to take too long. As time goes by we realise that the plane is not stocked with much extra food or drink and the longer this wait is the harder it’ll be on our stomachs! Not good! Well after 2 hours the captain tells us the engine has now been fixed and we will just refuel and then we’ll be off and that is certainly music to our ears. However, all is not well in the land of CAR. We are told next that the captain carries a BP fuel card to pay for unexpected refuelling, but the fuel suppliers here are Total and the airport will not accept any other payment apart from cash! Naturally the captain hasn’t got quite enough cash on him and we are informed that until an agreement can be reached over how to pay, we will be staying put! The lack of food and drink torture is taking hold fast and people are getting restless now, understandably! We carry on sitting around and sleeping if we can, while the time ticks on, slowly. After another hour the captain says that he isn‘t getting very far with the officials and that in fact some UN officials that were in the area have come to try and assist us! Wow we’re in a country where the UN is, is that good or bad news we’re not sure! Awhile later the captain, who is sooo apologetic tells us that the computers in the airport are having problems, one is not attached to a printer and the one that is has a different set up and they are having to sort this out too. He gracefully says ‘Welcome to deepest darkest Africa!’. Finally after 41/2 hours amid rapturous applause the plane takes off and we’re back on our way. Its all looking good now, only another 4 hours of flying ‘til we get to J’burg! Boy are we all tired, ready for our breakfast meal at 2pm and glad to be airborne again! So we land in J’burg 6 hours later than expected! We are hurried through customs etc and Jas and I are so tired and distracted by the whole thing that we forget to collect up one of our bags! We get right out and have met the people who are picking us up and taking us to the hostel (who found out we would be late and came back later for us – thank god!) and as we put things in the van I realise that oh my god we have left my bag with all my clothes and stuff in the baggage bit! How could I forget the most important bag of all! I was obviously too busy worrying about whether Jas’s camera equipment was all there – won’t let that happen again! So I race back through explaining to the staff whats happened and thankfully get to the place just as they are carrying my bag off never to be seen again! So I get it back – phew, and then we get off to the hostel in Pretoria at last! The hostel is lovely and just what we need to rest and relax after our arduous journey! The weather is lovely and warm during the day, but a little chilly at night. We have found some nice places to eat not too far away, and we can now sort out getting our train tickets to Cape Town. Well that’s what we thought….. the sleeper train that we planned to get, we find out stopped running from Pretoria last week! It only goes from J’burg and we have been told it’s not wise to go into central J’burg at all and we should find a different way of getting to CT. So you find us now investigating the other options. We can get a bus that takes 16 hours and costs twice as much as the train, not an appealing alternative. We can fly but that means waiting a few more days here and again costs a lot more money. Or we can hire a car here drive to CT and leave it there. We’ve been looking in to this and it seems that this might work, it will cost us a bit more than the train, but means that we can get to CT in our own time and a lot more comfortably. Plus we’ll have a car to drive us around CT for a few days to have a look at some 4x4’s. So this is as far as we’re got and tomorrow we’ll check out prices and hopefully is they are ok we’ll set off to CT in the afternoon!.......