Immigrating from South Africa to Canada - Our first trip back to South Africa

After several times of moving the date back we finally did our first trip back to South Africa after immigrating to see family and friends. The pandemic made it a tough first year and we were starved of our family and friends with borders finally relaxing a bit we took our chance. Unfortunately at that stage we still needed Vaccine passports as well as pre flight PCR tests which added to the cost of our trip, but seeing our loved ones made it worth it. We went at the end of February which, in my opinion, is the best time of year to visit SA until the end of March. Your super hot and humid regions are less so and places like Cape town sees windless days with gorgeous sunshine for the most part. The rain typically starts with or just after the Easter weekend. This time of year also slots in between school holidays and are not completely prime time so some deals might be available.

We were delayed by 40min in Vancouver before our flight to Toronto which arrived at 3am. We slept at a lovely airport hotel with a late checkout the next morning to board our afternoon flight. It snowed before we boarded along with rain. Once on the plane we soon realised there are issues. They were unable to push our plane back due to ice on the tarmac causing the vehicles to slip. This resulted in a 3hour delay which meant we were missing our connection in Amsterdam. While in the air they booked us onto an air Kenya flight, so it would not be a direct flight to Johannesburg. With a storm raging over Europe plenty of local flights were grounded and all the airside hotels were full. We found a hotel with showers to rent for 45min which we did to freshen up before wondering the airport for the next 7 hours like zombies. Luckily my kid made a friend which helped a lot.

Arriving a day late in Johannesburg, we pushed back our flight to Umhlanga by a day to catch our breath. We stayed at Umhlanga sands, a hotel resort I would highly recommend especially if you have young kids.

After a week it was off to the Eastern Cape, flying to Port Elizabeth then driving to Plettenberg bay. We stayed where I spent my summer holidays in my youth, Keurbooms forever resort on the banks of the Keurbooms river. It was a lovely week, over way to soon. After driving back we spent an additional day in PE to see more family before flying back to Johannesburg for the last 3 days, once again seeing more family. This was followed by a long flights back with no delays but also no sleepovers. We arrived at home at 10pm, ate pizza at 11pm and got to bed after 12am with work starting early the next morning

The trip boosted my spirits and I was ready for the new year.

Music:
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