Coming into travel days on the World Race, you know you are getting yourself into something fun. Continent changes (such as Europe to Africa) is something super special. For this travel day, we were going from Oradea, Romania to Cape Town, South Africa.
We leave our home in Oradea around 7pm on December 11 for the train station. We board a train which takes us to Bucharest, Romania in 12 hours, so we arrive at 8am on December 12. We then catch a bus which takes us to the airport.
(Family Force 6 Ready with all our bags to leave Romania)
We wait around awhile and then before I know it we are boarding an airplane which will take us to Doha, Qatar. 4 hours later we arrive in a small country known as Qatar, we are given lovely accommodations for the few hours during our layover. The next morning (now December 13) we are getting on a plane headed to Johannesburg, South Africa. This plane ride takes us 8 hours, but we are happy to be one step closer to our destination.
(Boarding the plane in Qatar)
Once in Joburg, it is now the task to figure out how to get to Cape Town. We suddenly realize that we have less than one hour to get to the bus station. So here we are running through the airport with our bags. We load them into a taxi and the driver takes off, speeding through the streets of Johannesburg. We arrive after the departure time for the bus, but luckily the bus is running later and before we know it we are loading our bags and getting on the bus ready for this ’12 hour’ adventure across South Africa.
(Nick is ready for this bus ride!)
Around 11:30 pm, I awake from a slumber and realize the bus is not moving. Being drowsy and everything I thought it was simply a stop for bathrooms or gas. I didn’t make much of it. It was getting super hot on the bus and I was restless. I awake at 2:30am and the bus is still not moving and I realize it is dark outside. We are not in gas station. It seems to be that we are on the side of the road with a broken down bus. What kind of luck is that?
After some time hanging outside the bus in the cool night air, I decide to head back in to try to get some sleep. I awake at 7:30am and the bus is moving! (it had been for about an hour). So we are on the road again! We were trying to figure out where we were at and how much longer we had, but all our guesses came up wrong. So the bus keeps going and time keeps passing. We make pit stops for bathroom and food, a security check point and even to a mechanic to check on the motor.
We easily pass the 24 hour mark for this bus ride. And we keep going. We see a sign and learn we are about 3 hours out of Cape Town. Getting closer. We assume we will arrive around 10:30pm. At 11:00pm, it is time to change buses in order to get into the city. After more than an hour later we are finally at our destination at the bus stop in Cape Town. How long was that bus trip exactly? That’s right, 29 hours! We get taxis that take us to our apartment (which the taxis stopped for gas and food at KFC which was a little scary). But we made it to our new home for the month.
So for this travel day, we began at 7:00pm on December 11 and continued until 1:00am December 15. That is a total time travel of…….78 hours!!!!!
(But let me tell you, all the travel was definitely worth it!)
Hiking up Table Mountain which is now a 7 natural wonder of the world!!
Check out this video Emily Bouche made about our travel days!!!
