We got to London just as the sun was rising. Once we dropped below the clouds, however, we never saw the sun again. In the terminal, we had a breakfast of champions - Pimms Cup, Potato Chips, and Malarone. Justin was finally able to get his email to work - he'd been gone so long that his password had expired, and he was able to set a new one using his computer. There were far fewer emails than expected, less than 1000 this time. We got on our plane around 9:00. Crystal was lucky, she had an empty seat next to her. Justin was not as lucky. He was one row in front, and had a Danish couple sitting next to him that were being jerks. Despite seeing Justin in the window seat, the husband (a pretty good sized guy) sat in the middle, and then proceeded to passive-agressively lament the fact that he had no room, as if Justin was going to magically shrink in the process.

Making matters worse, the captain kept coming on and telling us that there was some problem, and that we needed to wait another 20 minutes. Well, eventually those 20 minutes added up, and after about 3 hours we got off the plane. By this time, however, getting off the plane was stupid, as the problem was just about fixed, so having several hundred people get off the plane, get vouchers, use those vouchers, and get back on the plane took another 90 minutes. All told, we took off 5 hours late. The flight itself was fine, except the Danish people were still acting like jerks the entire time. Why they didn't just switch seats so that the lady was in the middle, we'll never know. We landed around 5:30 pm in Los Angeles, with good views of Las Vegas (where we'd be in less than two weeks) and LA on the way in. In the immigration line, we saw Snoop Dogg, which was pretty cool. He and Justin are right at the same height, with Snoop maybe being a shade taller because of the braids. The immigration process was much more orderly, and much quieter, than before, as they seemed to have overhauled it in the last year. But it was going really slowly, slower than anywhere else we'd been. When we got through immigration, our bags were already on the carousel, so we grabbed them and went to customs.

Usually customs is straightforward, but this time not so much. There were two lines, #4 and #5. They were the same length, and we got in #4. While in line, we saw that #5 was moving much faster, but we couldn't discern why. When we got closer to the front, we realized that it was because the gentleman calling people up was calling 5-10 people from line #5 for every person from line #4, for no good reason. If we didn't know better, we'd think he was trying to provoke some irritation. Well, he did, although not (audibly) from us. Several people called out from behind us "Hey, what about the other line?" or something similar. By this time we were second in line, so there wasn't much point to being upset, as the damage had already been done. But when the guy called about 25 straight people from line #5, Justin dropped the two heavy duffel bags he had in his hands. The customs guy saw/heard this, and told Justin "you keep that up, you're going to be in handcuffs!" Justin responded "I understand." Taking it one step further, the customs guy yelled at him again. He then proceeded to call no less than 50 straight people from line #5 while we just sat there. It was a truly embarrassing sight, especially since this was probably the first time in the US for numerous people in line, and their first experience in America was seeing a customs official threaten to handcuff a US citizen for no apparent reason, and then knowingly keep people in the customs line in trying to provoke a response. When we got home, the very first thing we did - before unpacking, getting some water, checking the mail, anything - was write a complaint letter to Customs & Border Patrol. Hopefully the guy got fired.

The drive back home was fine, except for us being more impatient than usual, as it was dark and we were headed into work the following morning. All told, it took about 44-45 hours to get home from when we left Ongava. Hopefully it will be much less than that coming back from India next year. At home, everything and everyone was in good shape, and no bad news like last year. Debo, and even Omar, were excited to see us. Omar actually walked at a brisk pace to see us, which is quite an achievement for him.

Overall we had a great time. We climbed the mountain we wanted to climb. We saw the wildebeest crossing we wanted to see. We saw the rhinos we wanted to see, both white and black. 14 separate sightings (and 11 separate animals) was way more than we were expecting/hoping to see. And 15 separate cheetah sightings (12 separate animals) was also way more than we were expecting. Aside from getting stuck in London and almost being arrested by US Customs officials (which both sadly occurred right at the end of the trip), there were no hiccups or bad times. Everyone we met was very nice, and the trip as a whole lived up to the (high) expectations we had for it.