Saturday, June 11:

We finished all the last minute packing and ate breakfast. When the driver (Collins) arrive, we l load all the bags (15) on top of the Landcruiser and tied them all down securely. We said goodby to Dr. Dan and drove to Livingstone. The first stop was to be Victoria Falls. Only three of us had been there before. Everyone was impressed. We got great photos of the falls with rainbows arcing across the mist. We also got pretty wet walking along the trail and bridge on the ridge in front of the falls. When we returned to the parking lot and members of the team wandered among the vendors trying to buy, barter, and sell items, Jon was briefly accosted by a baboon that mistook one of his purchases for a bag of food.. A number of locals sprang forward to chase off the baboon before any harm was done, but most of us – and especially Jon – were a bit stunned by the baboon’s aggressiveness.

From the falls, we went on to the airport. We said goodbye to Dr. Joan and readied to board the flight to Johannesburg (1.5 hours). British Air agreed to waive the extra bag fees since we were on a mission trip. However, they did not feel they could waive the fees for Virgin Atlantic so the said those of us with extra bags would have to reclaim our bags in Jo’burg and then re-check them at the Virgin Atlantic desk. This turned out to be just as much of a hassle and confusing as you might guess, but we eventually got it all straightened out with Virgin Atlantic agreeing to waive the extra bag fees again. And we did this just in time to realize that Dr. Kari and Larry had left their camera on the airplane from Livingstone. They contacted British Air representatives but were told the plane had already been serviced and flown off but that no one had turned in the missing camera. That was a clearly disappointing and depressing turn of events.

We eventually boarded our plane for London where we would have another 4-5 hour layover. The flight to London took just over 11 hours. Most of us got only 1-2 hours of sleep on the flight.