Day 23 - HOME! Reflections and Ruminations...

09:00
Welcome to First World Problems! I’m your host, Tim ‘stop your bloody whining’ Irvine…

I don’t love business class on a Boeing 787-8. Because Boeing have elected to make the aircraft feel as spacious as possible, the overhead luggage lockers are 5 feet above my head. I’m sat in the middle bank of seats, and it’s definitely several feet further than I can stretch from my seat. This is important, because it means that airlines have elected not to provide individual cooling vents for each seat. This is important, because it means I have to suffer the same ridiculously high temperature as everyone else. When I pop to the bathroom, I can see the cabin is set at 23C, which is basically the same to me as ‘slow roast.’ I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned this before, so apologies if I have - I take an anti-anxiety medication called Sertraline, one of the common side-effects of which is sensitivity to warm temperatures. I ALWAYS run hot, and 23C feels a lot warmer to me, than it might to others. This is important, because it means I use my hand fan extensively during the flight, drying out my eyes, nose, throat etc etc.

Anyways, I have a couple of glasses of wine to help knock me out a bit. It works, to an extent. I definitely feel sufficiently jaded to try for a snooze. I do the dance of the lie flat bed. Every single one of my travelling brethren has already put their head down for the night, so it’s dark, and I’m trying to be ultra quiet. I stub my toe on the footrest, and do a kind of silent crazy-hopping thing in place of loud swearing.

I get my head down, and don’t sleep immediately. I get a little frustrated. I feel too hot, so grab my hand fan, and try and engineer it so it’s blowing on my face and neck. This helps. I’m just about to give up, and go hang out with the cabin crew, when….

I wake up about 4 hours later. A decent enough return on investment. I can always nap at home when I get back - hopefully around 08:00. I nip to the loo, come back to my seat, and figure I’ll just give it another little try, and get fully another 2 hours. Result! 6 hours on a 9 hour flight is a smashing outcome. Vicki and I are off out in Brighton later, so a decent kip will set me up well for it…

Marita, who’s been looking after my section of plane all night (i.e. watching us sleep) offers me breakfast. When I decline, she offers me a glass of wine. I briefly consider it, but nah - arriving to passport control with dribbles of red wine down my t-shirt is much less my jam than it used to be… I go for some coffee instead, and then actually brush my teeth shortly before we start our descent into Gatwick.

We land maybe 10 mins later than scheduled, at 07:00. By 07:30, I’m out of customs, and meeting Andy for the fairly quick drive down to Brighton. Vicki pinged me last night to say she was setting an alarm for 08:15 to greet me home, but I think I’m actually going to be home earlier than that!

Sure enough, I creep almost silently into the house, greet the baby boys in a whispered hush, then hear my beloved wife shuffling around. I send her straight back to bed. 08:10 is no time for her to be up on a Saturday. Or ANY day for that matter.

I try to remember after my various trips to jot a few thoughts and reflections down. And so….

1) What a trip. One of the very best I’ve ever taken. An adventure, challenging at times, incredibly rewarding at others.
2) I don’t think I’ll ever get bored of sub-Saharan Africa. There’s so much more of it still to explore, and my list of places I want to return to is ever-growing. Already got a couple of trips in the gestation stage - to Tanzania, and separately to Uganda.
3) If I had to pick one of the three countries I’ve just visited to return to next, it would be Namibia. I’ve fallen in love with the wildness and wilderness of the place. A country of incredible extremes, wonderfully warm and welcoming communities, and an amazing range of terrains to experience.
4) The pick-up / tenting combo is fine, until it isn’t. Good bit of learning for me - the blend of tent and safari doesn’t work brilliantly. I’m very used to a safari experience where an early morning and evening game drive are interspersed with lazy naps and long periods of chilling out. I just don’t find that possible in temperatures in the late 30s, and a tent that feels even hotter. If I were planning a similar trip in future, I’d go for tenting for general day-to-day plans, but plan to stay in a lodge for game driving purposes.
5) One of the other guests at Ngepi Camp asked how much longer (given my age) I’ll want to continue this style of travel, and it gave me pause. The blunt answer is for as long as I enjoy it. I do think the balance of trips will change over time. To be honest, it already has. I stay in slightly nicer/more comfortable places than I would have, say - 20 years ago. As long as I still get a buzz from it, I’ll keep throwing some clothes in a rucksack for an adventure.

As Bugs Bunny used to say, that’s all folks. For now, I’m back in the buxom bosom of my beloved family. Next up - Florida and the Caribbean in January.

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