I am not gonna cry

... but I want to.

My flight was delayed by 2 hours. Which is exactly 10 minutes less than the time I had to get to my next flight.

So now I am standing at a Flight Transfers desk with hundreds of other people waiting to find out when I will be able to get on to my holiday. Since by missing this flight I will also be missing the third and final flight.

I am afraid to wonder what the fate of my luggage is. This hasn't happened to me before.

In hindsight, the lesson learned is to not book consecutive flights less than 4 hours apart.

Part of me wishes I could go home and forget this whole incident and live a boring two weeks instead of standing for another few hours in this stuffy hall that smells like a lot of people who have all been on long haul flights.

Trying to channel the Explorer enthusiasm again.

... This above was written at 3 hours past midnight and 4 cat-naps ago.

I have managed to get flights and arrange to arrive at my destination without missing too much of my tour. And with an assurance that my luggage will arrive at the same time as me. I will be travelling via Beirut except Ill be sprinting from one terminal to the next so no time to relish the additional destination.

Trouble is now that I have to phone and wake tour-leader people up to tell them that I will be late and I have to catch another 3 flights and hope for no further delays.

The only big risk on the horizon is that I have a 10 hour stop over night in Casablanca and I am not sure if Ill find a hotel. But at least Ill be almost at my destination by then :)

Second lesson of today is that Abu Dhabi is really cold. Colder than I remember Dubai being. I have dipped into my holiday pocket money to buy a scarf to stop me shivering and to keep my head warm.

So three more hours and I can zoom zoom zoom off to Beirut! (then sprint sprint sprint then more zooming... You get the idea.)

hmm Spoke too soon

I am still sitting in the Joburg Airport. It looks like I am going to be departing an hour late at least.

Not cool. Not cool at all. I don't know what I am going to do if the delay becomes longer than the time between my next connecting flight...

It's out of my control so I might as well go with it and hope for the best.

Frankie's Travels Morocco Day 0

I still was feeling ill when I got to the airport but my belly and I have now a tenuous agreement that it will stop wriggling if I feed it boring plain flavourless things for a while.

sigh - annoying physical response to stress.

Next thing to fret over is a) hoping my flights are all on time. And b) hoping I manage the international-domestic transition at Casablanca in 2 hours. If those two things go past without hitch then Ill be all good and looking for my airport transfer in Marrakech.

It's gonna be fun fun fun! And I think I am beginning to take my normal more relaxed approach to travelling now :)

Let the feel good I deserve this holiday feelings rush in and the bitter You look happier than me feelings wash away.

Too much more of this perkiness and Ill have "leeeaaaving soon a jet plane" stuck in my head...

Oh (insert expletive of choice here)!

I am ill. I am flying in 5 hours and I am ill. I couldn't eat last night and my belly is empty and all my body wants to do is puke. Ever vomitted on an empty stomach? It is vile.

I have been ill like this before. I know what causes it... (Nope Not Pregnant - Let's not be jumping to cliched conclusions now) Lets say it's a kind of mental allergic reaction that I wish I had better control over.

Anyway there isn't much to do about it but to wait it out and hope it really is all in my head and that the symptoms will pass before it affects my holiday. Please not the holiday.

For now I gotta sip some tea and hope to feel better soon. Like Really Soon. Immediately if possible.

Past midnight - it's officially Leave for Morocco Day!

I took a moment to reminiscent over past night-before-overseas trips here and a little more than two years ago I was ridiculously excited for my very first trip flying to UAE and Italy. Freshly graduated and on the tipping point of a whole wave of life change. Starry eyed and way too excited (and in hind sight a little naive)
A little less than 18 months ago I was less excited and more stressed over being a leader of some willful young women but not afraid of where the weeks to come in Germany would take me.

Now today I have been almost sick to my stomach nervous and crazy stressed out over my trip to Morocco. So many unknowns! So many things to organise! I am second guessing this exercise of independence. However it's all paid and organised and I am packed, I have nothing more to do but Be Kinda Excited. I hope only for dreams of being the Explorer and not to wake every half hour thinking of something more to not be forgotten.

Morocco! Morocco! Morocco!

And that is all I will say about Anything going on today. Any words more must go unsaid.

Morocco Countdown 19 days

..... eeeeeeeeeeeekk! And So much to still do!

9 work days left
only 60% christmas shopping complete.
House sitting for a week
I must collect my passport from the embassy
I must do a little shopping for my trip (clothes and forex and stuff and things)

Either way I am getting excited... As well as a little nervous if Morocco was such a great choice. Why I say that is that when I was in Dubai, there was this odd smell that I noticed everywhere. Kinda like a sweet smokey spicey smell. Now the blend of sweet smokey and spice may sound like something out of a novel, the smell made my stomach turn. It does explain why I spent most of the time there feeling ill and not hungry at all...

Now I know that while Morocco has a big Islamic element it is not really the arab middle east... I have noticed that All the Sahara/Middle Eastern/Moroccan themed restaurants in Joburg seem to smell the same when I walk past...

I do know that this may be my minds Nervous worries getting creative again... Is it possible that this poetic "smell of the Sahara" and exotic arabic smells are just not right for the nose on me?

I guess Ill know in 19 days.

(yippeeee!)

Travel woes

So I am sitting outside the Morocco Embassy in Pretoria waiting for the office to officially open. I am leaving for my holiday of independence to exotic places in less than a month. Because I am a little bored sitting out here, my head is spinning over travel worries (I am a woman - we worry over everything)
So here is what I am stressing for at the moment...
7. The creepy security guard will harass me.
6. I don't have all the required paperwork for my application
5. My visa application is rejected based on something a South African politician has done to offend the Moroccan government
4. I loose my passport in the next 3 weeks
3. No one else in the entire world books the same trip as me (sub-worry is that there are only a few people on the trip and the people on the trip are lame/too old/too young/unfriendly)
2. I miss one of my 6 flights getting there and back.
1. I won't enjoy the holiday for what ever reasons. Or else something BAD will happen there. Resulting in feeling that I have wasted my money and will regret the impulsive urge that got me to this point of sitting outside the Moroccan embassy...
Sigh... And I drank too much coffee so my digestive system is u-n-h-a-p-p-y...

Back again to Botswana

... I am back in Botswana.
Honestly I REALLY do not want to be here.
Firstly, I have been involved in other proposal work for these past two weeks and so I am not quite on top of my game as far as the Botswana project goes.
Secondly, the new (assistant) PM is kinda really efficient and so there is another reason why I am not fully in the mode for the meetings to come.
(In my defence, This project has been the main part of my work for 18 months I am not far off my game yet. Ill be back in the swing of things in no time at all)
Thirdly, the client has been sending letters to us that indicate that they think our performance on this project is unsatisfactory. And while the core reasoning behind their complaint is valid and I know we have put the best of our resources into the project, they are going about the complaint in the rudest most uncivil mean-spirited way. Being told that you are no longer welcome on a project that you have put your entire effort into for 18 months kills all motivation to work hard... Especially after letter number 3.
Finally I am tired and am full of the end-of-year exhaustion feelings. I don't feeeeeel like being away from home for 3 days mid week on a non-holiday.
Anyway I dutifully packed my bags and printed my paperwork and went to the airport and boarded the plane to Gaborone.
Now it is always a mission to get accommodation in Gaborone and so a few months ago we found this B&B called Kidron Suites. Which is a little unknown but nice and pretty good value for money.
Problem is that it is near impossible to find this place. Especially at night where street lighting is minimal and you're looking for the second dirt road on the left.
So we landed and I bravely took my car voucher to the car rental and got the keys. Lesson in Frank: 99% of my driving experience is in my little old trusty manual Toyota Tazz. The brand spanking new modern Polo Vivo is Not At All Like the Tazz.
First I couldn't figure out how to start it... Then to figure out how to get the lights turned on ... Finally to turn off the accidently-initiated windscreen wipers... And oofff we goooo!
So I thought I was doing pretty well following my map that I made earlier today. Left at the substation, second right, third left and.... I was lost. And it was getting dark. I decided to press on and tried the next dirt road - Wrong Place! I turned around and tried the next dirt road... Which was in fact not a dirt road but a bus stop sign and a steep grass embankment...
Fortunately the Vivo's brakes are in tip top condition...
And so the semi-retired lines specialist offered to drive and let me direct. So we swapped seats and he promptly drove to the nearest hotel and asked me to go get directions.
Lesson 2 from Frank: The reason why so few roads have road names in Gaborone is that none of the locals use road names. The man at reception looked at my map with awe saying "Wow we have a road named after the president! Oh is that the name of that road..."
Finally he let me phone Kidron who immediately offered to drive across and lets us follow them back.
So while I was dying of mortified shame, the specialist followed our hosts and in 10 minutes we were signing our book in forms.
They helped carry our bags, bought iced water and said the greatest thing all afternoon "Chicken stew and rice is for dinner and it will be ready in 10 minutes"
And it was.... And it was delicious.
See as irksome that it is that I was reluctant to be here and that I got lost and I was ashamed... These people are really really helluva nice.
So here goes the shout out for the nice nice people;
If you are ever in Gaborone, and looking for a great place to stay, look up Kidron Suites. You'll get fair value for money and you'll feel really well looked after. Kidron Suites! Kidron Suites! Kidron Suites!
... Just don't ask me how to get there.

But if you have to ask... Ill give you the number and they'll tell you instead :)