London is calling - And we're Off

This of you who have read my blog would have read about my arrest on a previous trip to the Meditteranean in Johannesburg. Every bone in my body was prepared to take a flight out of Cape Town and NOT Johannesburg. The prospect of not leaving Johannesburg occupied my mind for a long time so when Jesse and I sat down to plan our flights, it was going to be a flight out of Cpt. The best priced flights were on TAAG (Angolan Airlines). So we booked Debbie, Jason and myself on Taag, flying via Angola, Portugal then London.  We worked out layover times and everything panned out really well. Because Jesse and Ashleigh did not have their passports ready as yet, they were going to fly Qatar Airways the next day. A mistake which I made which actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Fast Forward to the day of departure and Jesse takes us to the airport. I tell him to just drop us off and go but he insists that he wants to make sure that we go through customs.

The excitement at check-in was soon shattered when the check-in lady asked us for a Visa for Portugal. Despite me telling them that we are only in transit, they would not listen. I even called the Portuguese Embassy and put them on the line and they would not let us through. Now remember that we got to the airport 3 hours early so tht we could avoid all this hassle. I completely broke down and wept. I thought my dream would be shattered of taking my family overseas. Despite assurances from the various embassy's, we were not allowed on the plane.

I was so weak, I couldn't even walk. Step up Jesse and Debbie. Jesse ran around with the TAAG representative trying to find a way to get us on the flight. He was an absolute Trojan. Jesse together with Natalie of TAAG arranged all our boarding passes for the entire journey. CPT - Luanda, Luanda to Lisbon and then BA flight Lisbon to London which was business class.  The only snag was, we were not allowed to take luggage, only hand luggage. At this point I was quite happy to take hand luggage and was quite happy to wear the same underpants for 2 weeks, but to London I was going. 

We were finally checked in and now stood in the long queue to get through Customs. It took forever, the flight was leaving at 17h20 and at 16h45 we were finally at Customs. My heart was pumping all kinds of custard remembering the Jhb experience. We were through only to stopped before we got on the plane by a guy in a suit who said that we had been taken off the plane because of the debacle upstairs. We were let on again but were not allocated seats next to each other, but I DIDN'T CARE. Thankfully after takeoff Debbie and I were moved around and got to sit together, mainly because I am not a great flyer due to my long legs.

The most important part was that we were off. We were however warned that the authorities in Luanda may not let us through because of the Visa issue. Things like you could be fined R50000 per person for trying to get into a country illegally was thrown about, but I heard nothing. I was happy to deal with hose issues. The lovely lady from TAAG told to go straight through the Transit lounge, in that way we would avoid having to go through passport control and we would be ENGLAND bound baby.  Ja right.