33 Hours Later

So I decided to leave Maputo and head home. On Monday the weather was still the same overcast skies and warm, humid days. I went to the fancy Hotel Polana and had their breakfast brunch which was really really good. And it has a view of the entire bay and harbor. I saw the streets start to come alive after being so empty all weekend. There were lots of men and women selling produce laying out on sheets or boxes, mostly greens and tomatoes. I showered and shaved and took a cab to the airport. The flight to Joburg was an hour and was maybe a third full. They put me in the exit row and the flight attendant went over all the security needs and how I should be responsible to open the door in an emergency. I think I was also one of the few English speakers on the flight, too.
Back at the Joburg airport I had about 5 hours before catching the flight to Washington DC. I walked around and had lunch and then went to the gate. I got an aisle seat and the women in the window decided to look for another open row so she left the two seats open to me. This was good because its an hour flight from Joburg to Dakar, where you refuel and change crew, then continue on to DC for another 8 and a half hours. Then I looked at the front of the section and saw Dave Chappelle was sitting about 15 rows ahead of me. A few people recognized him, including the flight crew. We flew over Namibia and Angola, then out over the Atlantic before coming back on land over Ivory Coast, Guinea-Conakry and then into Dakar, where it was midnight, but still hot and humid. A few people got off the plane and a few got on, but not more than a dozen. I was really tired at this point and was ready to fall asleep. I think I dozed for about a half hour and then was wide awake again. I looked out the window about an hour or so into the second leg of the flight and saw lots of lightning. I've never been on a a flight that was struck by lightning, but now it seemed very close to happening. The entire sky would light up and I could see clouds all around and below the plane. I started to think about how all the Atlantic Hurricanes and Summer storms begin right there off the coast of West Africa. At one point I saw another small plane headed in the other direction and then I bright shooting star fell toward the ocean and quickly disappeared. It was quite a sight. Otherwise the flight was pretty uneventful. We landed at Washington Dulles just before 6 AM, then I cleared customs and immigration and hopped on a bus to Washington National airport and got on the Alaska nonstop flight back to LAX. I couldn't sleep much on that flight either and I kept thinking that I started at 11AM in Maputo and then arrived LAX about the same time the following day, although with the time change I had been traveling for about 33 hours. And that's one of the shortest routes back home. Even with all the flying I've done, its still amazing to imagine how big the world is and how long it can take to get where you want to go.
I did enjoy Maputo after all. Surprisingly, the city started to grow on me and I don't want to live there, but after awhile I started to notice a few things that I liked. And I would like to see more of Mozambique, but its a big country and I don't want to explore the smaller towns and beaches by myself. So I would definitely go back. But I was ready to go home and sleep in my own bed and enjoy more of time off at home, relaxing, going to the movies, sleeping in late and reading the LA Times with a fresh cup of coffee. Mozambique has a strange history with Portuguese rule, Soviet and Marxist influences and then a lengthy civil war, it reminded me of another former Portuguese colony: Angola. I'm not going to Angola though.