Travel disasters

I spent yesterday in the Transkei (photos on real camera so I will
post them later) looking at drinking water systems which was great,
then we rushed back to East London to catch our flight back to Cape
Town only to find it shrouded in pea soup style fog [insert your own
joke about London weather here].

We were quickly informed that our flight was cancelled, and our hosts
went into overdrive and rapidly organised us accommodation and a bus
(there are 18 of us so no small feat) and off we went back into the fog.

At this point the monsoon decided to start, but our driver got us to
the hotel safely, and we all unloaded and walked to reception only to
be met with blank looks. I should point out that it was a really nice
hotel. So it was back into the rain, onto the bus, and off to the real
hotel.

The driver proceeded to get lost, but at least that just brought us
back to the same hotel. So we got instructions and headed off again,
in the rain and fog, about an hour after we initially left the
airport, and after 8pm after a long day and with jetlag. And then we
got lost again, this time in a dark narrow laneway in the rain, with
the bush on one side and some houses on the other, on very steep
roads, in a bus with a luggage trailer attached, in South Africa. At
this point the locals started to sound a bit stressed. At least it was
a posh gated-community neighbourhood. And the driver managed to
reverse up hill and turn us around.

In the end it was iPhone to the rescue - gps found us and it gave us
directions to the hotel. (it wasn't my iPhone - there were others set
up for overseas or prepared to pay overseas rates anyway). We finally
arrived two hours after leaving the airport to a motel (a bit
disapointing after the first hotel) to a well received hot meal. And
it was near a beach (photo below) so we got to smell the sea air
briefly while we got back on the bus.

And the it was up at 6 to get back to the airport, where we have now
been waiting for about 90 minutes. Our "special" flight is supposed to
leave in 7 minutes... But we're not too fussed since the reason they
cancelled the flight last night was one of their planes went off the
runway. Although I am getting hungry - I brought snacks but got
through them on the first day. We have not had morning tea or
afternoon tea once! It's just not cricket.