The passports, visas, driving licences, tickets, E-tickets, vouchers, copy emails and letters had all been checked three times. The aspirin, immodium, Rennies, clothes, cameras, camcorder, spare batteries, spare tapes, dollars all safely packed.
Kevin bundled us into the car, eager to get down to Heathrow. We were off on our little pilgrimage to Zambia, a country that we'd last seen in 1977 when Dave was two years old.
After several hours of mind numbing tedium in god-awful Terminal 4 we went through the check in - informing a finely trained product of BA and the UK educational system that Livingstone is in Zambia (thereby ensuring that our bags went where we did) - and after a drink climbed on board BA254 scheduled for Lusaka.
On the packed plane, surrounded by what seemed to be dozens of young Americans sporting T-shirts with religious slogans, we settled into our seats and looked forward to ten hours of half asleep boredom.
British Airways Boeing 737-6005TH JULY 2008
Crumpled and tired we all trooped off the Boeing into the warm Lusaka dawn and into the Immigration Hall where we formed into 3 queues - Zambians, Special Visas (this seemed to be all those young Americans) and Others; that was us and we were at the end of the line.
It soon became clear that there were no immigration staff on duty so we all stood there looking at each other for ten minutes before a young black woman in a Zambian Airways uniform appeared and asked if anyone was transferring to a Zambian Airways flight. We were, and she took our passports and waved us past the rest of the queue and through immigration.
We tried not to look too smug as we strode past the other poor fools still stood there.
Fifteen minutes later the other poor fools were smugly grabbing their luggage from the belt whilst we stood there fuming. Naturally ours were on the last trolley load. Out through customs and into the queue for Domestic Flight Departures.
Dave suddenly started laughing and pointed to the lounge inside. Amongst the crowd of mainly black people sat two blondes - Rob and Hazel Hussey; Rob was proudly sporting the bright green Robin Hood hat complete with large feather that we'd sent a few weeks before.
Strangely enough we had no difficulty finding seats next to them.
They hadn't pre booked and were trying desperately to get on the same flight to Livingstone as us. We watched in awe as Rob tried every trick in the book to get on our flight despite being told several times that it was fully booked.
He badgered everyone who looked like they had an ounce of influence and many who didn't. All to no avail and eventually they had to settle for seats on the next flight at 2.30pm.
Our flight was late and we climbed into what Sue described as ' something from The Flight of The Phoenix' - a small, scruffy Brazilian propellor plane -at about 9.15 am. for the hour long flight to Livingstone.
We were seated by the emergency exits and were given our personal emergency instructions by the stewardess - described by the pilot as 'the charming Blanche'.
An uneventful flight (except for the dubious chicken bap supplied by the charming Blanche) in bright sunshine and then we could see the spray from the Victoria Falls as the plane banked before landing smoothly at the tiny Livingstone Airport where Chadwick, a hotel driver, was
waiting to meet us.
Chadwick made a little welcome speech before driving to the Zambezi Sun, pointing out places of interest and a couple of giraffe by the road, before pulling up at reception where Dave and Pam Male who had travelled the day before via South Africa were waiting to meet us.
Ten minutes later we were downing our first cold beers at the outside bar by the pool.
Half an hour later Dave D. received a text from the Husseys:
'ARRIVING AT 11.30 ON CREW PLANE.'
Pictures below show the Charming Blanche saying goodbye and Dave D. Dave M Pam & Sue at the bar in the Zambezi Sun.
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