After yesterday's arduous gorilla trek, we decided to chill and relax. Who wouldn't enjoy looking out at this view?
And there are always the monkeys to amuse us.
Melissa had a massage, and for the third night in a row, we had dinner in our room.
The hotel manager came to us three times today to tell us our flight time had changed. It was originally scheduled at 8:45am. Then they told us it was at 10am. Then 9am. and then during dinner they came to say it was 9:30. Hmmmm. We decide to awake early at 5:30 and check the airline reservation itself. Sure enough, the next morning it still shows 8:45am. The consequence of missing this puddle jumper flight out of Kisoro is that we risk our flight out of Entebbe at midnight. You would think with a whole day we could find someone to drive us. But we have no notion of the roads between here and there. Moreover, missing this flight probably means we give up our business class "lay flat" seats on the way home. Not. Gonna. Happen. So we packed up and went to the main lobby at 6am when they turned the lights on and were in the car with our driver by 6:15am for the almost two hour drive back to the main town where the little airport is.
We knew that there were 4 other hotel guests that were supposed to be on this flight. When we reached the airport the staff said that the flight was scheduled for 8:45 and if everyone didn't show till 9:30 they would miss the flight. As fate would have it, the flight was delayed due to bad weather at Entebbe. So we didn't depart till after 10am and everyone made the flight. Whew. But had we hung out at the hotel, we would have just been stressing about missing the flight. Whereas hanging out at the little airport was just fine as they had big comfy leather couches to sit on.
After making our way back to Entebbe, we went to the same guest house we stayed in before for a bit of a rest prior to catching our midnight flight to Brussels. Nice to catch up on blogging, have a couple of decent meals before heading to the airport. Brussels air business class is fabulous. The lie flat seats were super comfy and we both slept the whole way from Entebbe to Brussels.
In Brussels we discovered our flight to JFK was running 4 hours late - so we had 7 hours to kill. The airport lounge is decent, but has no food for people who can't eat gluten. Eventually we decide on to-go sushi from the terminal because Melissa had coconut amino packs in her computer bag.
Flight to JFK was uneventful and smooth. They never even turned on the seatbelt sign once. We watched movies and generally tried to stay awake, hoping we can snap back onto North American time zone if we go to sleep at the hotel at JFK before our flight to PVR the next morning.
At JFK we had chosen to stay at the famous TWA hotel onsite at JFK. The place is a hoot. They have a museum of all the TWA flight attendant uniforms from back in the day. They also have the thickest glass of any commercial building - you can watch the planes taking off but not hear them at all. Our plan had been (when we were supposed to arrive at 1pm) to go up to the heated roof top pool and hang out watching the airplanes. Alas with our flight being late we didn't get to do that.
While we got to sleep at 8:30, Melissa was wide awake at 3am. Might as well get some work done... She went down to the food court which is supposed to be open 24-hours to get a little food - only to find the place completely without staff. Sigh.
We headed off to the Jet Blue terminal - which is directly accessible from the TWA hotel - at 6:30am. By 7am we were inside security having breakfast. Mimosas may have been involved. The flight home was uneventful and we cruised through immigration. And even the customs line to clear our bags was relatively short. After a quick trip across the bridge we caught a taxi home.
After 66 hours of travel, we are finally back home in Mexico!
https://www.packforapurpose.org/ sent us pictures of where our donations ended up.
Nteko Community School
Received By HeadTeacher.
Blackboard Chalks
Calculators
Erasers
Solar Lamps-2
Power Banks-1
Kikomo Health Centre 3
Received by - Dr. Julius
Stethoscope
Anatomy charts
Medical Hand Books
Solar Lamps-2
Power Banks-1