After my hunt in August I will be flying from Harare to J'Burg, spend the night at Afton House and have them STORE my rifles and check in luggage with ammo.

Then the next day I meet my girlfriend who is flying from NYC and we take off to Elephant Camp at Victoria Falls. Three days later we return back to J'burg where she stays on the transit site for her flight back to NYC.

I meet the Afton House guys as we disembark from the plane, they rush me through customs, hand me my rifles and check in luggage and I check in for my flight to LA.

Now, the time difference between scheduled arrival of the flight from Victoria Falls and my LA flight departure is 3 hours.

Do you think that is cutting it to close and I should spend an extra night to make sure my rifles and luggage go with me? If I cut it too close that is what would happen anyway as I would not leave my rifles behind.

Or is 3 hours plenty? I don't have information about the lateness of Victoria Falls to J'Burg flights.

What say you?

You're talking about Africa and things running smoothly and on time.

The two concepts are mutually exclusive...

TIA

quote:

Originally posted by Opus1:
You're talking about Africa and things running smoothly and on time.

The two concepts are mutually exclusive...

TIA

Last week I was talking to an Australian friend.

He just returned from the US.

Either LA or San Francisco where he arrived.

He said it was the worst experience he has ever had in an airport.

The immigration hall was packed, and it took them hours to get through.

So it seems it is not only AFRICAN airports that need to get their act together.

I just cleared Customs in Atlanta (the busiest airport in the world) and it took less than 10 minutes - as usual. Flights were on time too - as usual. Funny how some places get it consistently right.

But the chances of everything going smoothly at JNB is a crapshoot.

Not surprised that everything in California is screwed up

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:
Not surprised that everything in California is screwed up

Yup! You are correct. I see it nearly every day.

Spend the extra night and be relaxed and skip the stress.
C

quote:

Originally posted by cal pappas:
Spend the extra night and be relaxed and skip the stress.
C

And enjoy some silly rules.

We arrived in Vancouver in the evening.

Our next flight was the next morning, so we had booked rooms at the airport hotel.

It was very nice.

We checked in and went down to have dinner - it was about 9:30 in the evening.

We were informed that the restaurant closes at ten, and would we mind eating in the lobby.

We said it was fine.

We left the restaurant and went to the lobby.

After we sat down, we were asked if any member of our party was less than 18 years old - they could see my daughter, who 15.

We said yes.

Then they said they cannot serve us in the lobby as that was against the law for anyone less than 18!

They had a bit of a discussion, and finally agreed to keep the respond just for us, after we said we were starving.

Problem solved.

Funny how certain laws are ridiculous!

In Texas years ago we could not buy pots and pans on a Sunday, after we bought some food to cook!

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:
In Texas years ago we could not buy pots and pans on a Sunday, after we bought some food to cook!

When I was 16 I worked at a grocery store, when I went to work there they were not open on Sunday because of a "Blue Law" that prohibited selling many items on Sunday. After about a year the law changed and nearly everything was available, I believe you still cannot buy a motor vehicle (car, truck, motorcycle, boat, etc) on Sunday in Texas. Seems pretty odd to me.

Th worst experience at customs i've experienced was at Seattle returning from a bear hunt in British Columbia. Two flights from Hong Kong arrived at about the same time and by the time the customs guys had removed all of the jars of fish heads, chicken feet, monkey peckers and such (they were filling 55 gallon drums with the stuff)it ended up taking us almost 4 hours to clear customs.

I get flagged upon entry into the States every time. One advantage is that I get my personal customs agent at the entry booth and skip the line of people having stuff to declare.