Our flight out of Zanzibar this morning was at 4:20AM. The bad 4:20. Working backwards to allow time for getting ready, a short taxi ride, and getting there 2 hours early meant our alarms went off at 1:45AM. At this point is it an early flight or a very late flight? Either way it was painful.

Despite checking in yesterday, we have learned by now not to trust digital boarding passes at African airports, so we got in line to get one printed. When we finally got to the front we were told we could not have a boarding pass without proof of an onward ticket out of South Africa, which we did not yet have. This was the first we had heard of this requirement despite all our visa research. It seems to be an airline thing and not a government thing. I’m not sure why Ethiopian Airlines cares and upholds this but they were adamant about it. I bluffed and said that we were considering driving out of the country, but they wouldn’t accept that. They needed a confirmation code of a flight. So, at 3:18AM while at the ticket counter I bought three one way tickets from Johannesburg to Atlanta. They accepted this even though it was very clear that I was just doing the dance. At 3:40AM, once we were through border control, I cancelled them all. I love bureaucracy and arbitrary rules!!!

We waited in more lines and filled out written paperwork to leave the country. We showed our passports at four different checkpoints. Once again I was annoyed by the charade of process for process’s sake. While I’m on my soapbox, another thing that drives me nuts is complete disregard of queuing. People kept cutting us as if it was normal and expected. A man butted in and pushed my suitcase, which was already on the conveyer belt, backwards so he could put his own on.

Our first flight landed in a very rainy Addis Ababa. We walked to our connection and got to the gate at boarding time. Millie doesn’t sleep on planes so at the point it was 9AM and she had been up since 2. She was accordingly whiny and wanting to be held. I looked over and Nick was standing with her, both of them with their eyes closed.

We waited in line for a while and then were told that the flight was delayed. We sat down for 45 minutes while Millie slept, and then finally started boarding. Again, chaos and cutting.

The second flight was 6.5 hours. Our #1 rule for flying is: there are no rules. So Millie watched her iPad the entire time. As usual, I have such mixed feelings about it. It keeps her quiet and entertained the whole time, and saves us from having to either actively play or listen to complaining for hours. However, it also keeps her from sleeping. I could tell she was exhausted and suggested she put it away to try to sleep, which she obviously fought. She told me “but if I am asleep I can’t watch it and if I wake up when we land then I can’t have it anymore”. It is scary how addicted she is to it. Sometimes I wonder if we’d be better off just leaving it behind somewhere. Other times I wonder if her intense behavior around it is because we do put pretty strong limits on it – if it wasn’t such a precious commodity, would she be more willing to put it away? Anyway, we didn’t want to cause a scene on the flight so we just let her stay awake. For the record, she was up at 2AM and slept only 45 minutes on Nick until we landed at 4PM.

As we were coming into land I watched out of the window and marveled at how beautiful Cape Town is. Green, mountainous, and on the ocean.

We got through border control without being asked about our onwards flights. We stopped in at a little grocery store and then went to our Airbnb. Predictably Millie passed out immediately.

We had a simple “picnic” dinner on the coffee table and an early night.