Let's go - to South Africa

Wednesday, 30.12.15

M. picks me up at 2:00 PM and we're at Tegel Airport in less than 15 minutes. We had planned extra time and now there's no one around - that's a good start! My bag weighs exactly 23 kilos. We're heading to Munich at 4:00 PM. The connecting flight to Cape Town is quite full and departs at 7:05 PM. The gate display promises mild temperatures and sunshine - oh, it's nice to get on board...

However, we start with an abrupt stop on the runway. The pilot says he received an "engine problem" warning and returns to the starting point. That takes a while and then he has to wait about 20 minutes for the tires to cool down before he makes the next attempt. It's a bit unsettling, but they say that something like this can happen and it might be a false alarm if a plane has been sitting for a while... Finally, at 8:00 PM we're airborne and hope that it was just a false alarm.

The 11-hour flight somehow passes by. Unsuccessful attempts to sleep and end up listening to almost an entire audiobook and watching 1.5 movies.