'24 South Africa travel day(s) - and a visit to London

 

On Friday morning (2/9) I woke up with excitement and sadness about our upcoming 19 day trip to South Africa. Excited to travel and race on our mountain bikes at Xterra South Africa and PE Plett 4-stage mountain bike race but sad to leave Campy, our other senior Madison (cat, almost 16) and our 3 littles – Ella, Sylvi and Asher. Thankfully, Karel’s mom is staying at our house (we flew her in from Czech in early January) and she can keep everyone on their routine, they will be loved and they won’t be alone.

 

I started my morning by joining our masters swim group at Westside aquatic center from 7:20-8:45am. The group starts around 7am but I usually get in around 7:15-7:20. It was a spicy swim set with a lot of short intense sets, finishing with a little distance. I love swimming with others and we had a great group. I shared a lane with our athlete Yannick who is making a great comeback after breaking his collarbone in November from a bike crash. Karel swam 2000 yards at Furman and followed it up with an intense 1-hour SYSTM bike workout on the trainer.

We packed up the car, overloaded the furries with kisses and hugs and made our 3 hour drive to the Atlanta international airport around 11:15am.

I booked our travel in October. There was a lot to book with this trip so I will save that for another blog. But our flight was ATL to Heathrow (London) on Delta and then London to Cape Town on Virgin. I booked a flight to Cape Town that gave us a 11 hour layover in Heathrow so that we could explore the city as we have never been there before (well, never outside the airport).

We have a pretty good routine when we travel from ATL. We park in hourly parking ~4 hours before our flight departs. International flights usually board an hour before take-off. Arriving this early means we don’t have to wait very long to check in as there is rarely anyone in front of us in line – this time there were 2 people. We checked in our suitcases and bikes, dropped off our bikes at oversized luggage (which is by security) and then went back to our car to drive to off site parking.

I ask Park n’ Fly to book off site parking ~3 miles away. I book online in advance to save money. I was able to find a deal for $9/day and I got 3 days free as a “loyalty” member. After we parked, we boarded the free shuttle to the domestic terminal (since there are no shuttles from off site parking to international). We then go through TSA pre-check and board the plane train to our terminal. For this trip we were in Terminal E.

It was around 3:30pm when we arrive to our terminal so we had ~2 hours to spend in the Delta Sky Club lounge to work before our first flight. We also ate some food as we were really hungry. Our flight was delayed by an hour so we had 3 hours in the lounge – which allowed us to get a lot of work done. We left the lounge around 6:20pm and waited another 20 minutes at our gate before they announced that they were almost ready to board after waiting for something on the plane to be fixed. We finally boarded the main cabin and we were off to London around 7:30pm.

We were both really tired so we watched a movie (I watched Wonder – super cute), ate dinner and then tried to sleep for the rest of the flight (~5 hours). We slept on and off. I pre-ordered the vegetarian – dairy meal (as I always do online when I purchase the flight tickets) and the meal was really good. I’ve had this dish before but I really enjoy it. It was a curry dish w/ tofu, bulgur salad and fruit. There was also a piece of pita bread and a roll (I didn’t eat the roll, I was full).

We woke up to a light breakfast around 90 min before landing. It was ok. I didn’t finish my sandwich as I wasn’t too hungry. It was a veggie and cheese sandwich. I wish it had egg on it for more protein but I snacked on a protein bar later on.

After we arrived in Heathrow, we went through customs (which was really quick) and then left the baggage area. We didn’t need to collect our bags/bikes as they were going to our final destination (Cape Town). It felt really weird leaving the airport with only our carry on backpacks.

We went to Left Baggage after exiting the baggage area and checked our carry on bags for 15 pounds each. This way we could explore London and not have to carry our bags.

We figured out how to use the underground system and booked two tickets on the Heathrow Express – a 15 minute ride to Paddington station in London (round trip was 70 pounds). We lucked out that our friend Honza was in London for an INFINIT nutrition work trip and he is really familiar with London so he was our tour guide. I had also reached out to a past athlete of mine who lives in London and a current athlete of mine who used to live in London for suggestions. Once we arrived in Paddington we took the underground to Piccadilly Circus station.

I had a list of what I wanted to see and we tried to check off all we could in 4 hours:

Trafalgar square
Downing street
Buckingham palace
Westminster Abbey
Hyde park corner – didn’t get to
Piccadilly circus
Leicester square
Covent garden – didn’t get to
Tower Bridge
London Eye
Big Ben

The weather was cool and it was on and off drizzling but thankfully we were able to see a lot.

Although we were really sleepy, it was nice to walk around before our long flight to Cape Town.

We ate lunch at Sabar – a vegetarian/vegan Indian Restaurant. It was delicious. 

We took the Central Line back to Paddington. It was really easy to access the underground as all you do is use a credit card for wireless payment and scan before and after riding the underground. We took a taxi to see the Tower Bridge as that was a few miles away from everything else that we saw. 

I had a hard time keeping my eyes open on the train ride back to the terminal. We picked up our carry on bags at Left Luggage and then walked to departures. I received an email when checking in for our flight on Thursday about reserving a time slot for security so I reserved 3:45pm (with a buffer of 15 min before and after). We ended up arriving around 3:45pm so it worked out perfect. I suppose this would save time during really busy times of the year. We didn’t have to wait very long and I don’t think the regular security was that busy.

After going through security, we went to the Club Aspire lounge (with our priority pass membership) and had a light snack and worked a little before boarding our 11-hour Virgin Atlantic Flight (premium economy) to Cape Town.

After experiencing Virgin Atlantic Upper Class last September in route to Italy for XTRI Icon, I fell in love with the airline experience. As part of the award ticket (credit card points) that I booked to Cape Town, we sat in premium for 11 hours from London to Cape Town. The seats were large and comfy, the recline and foot rest was great, the food and service was amazing and the movie selection was great. I finally watched Barbie (which I loved!) and I also watched No Hard Feelings (which was funny). Karel likes to watch more serious movies – he watched Oppenheimer, which he said was really impactful.

Karel slept on and off throughout the flight. His back and leg were bothering him which made it hard for him to sleep. I was able to get some good sleep throughout the flight.

We arrived in Cape Town around 7:30am which was a bit strange to arrive so early in the morning for an international flight. We went through customs (which took about 20 minutes) and then got our luggage. We were happy to see that our bikes and luggage were there after the 11 hour layover in London (we were a bit worried about the long layover). We walked across the street to the rental car and picked up our SUV from Sixt. I booked online from one of our credit card portals and while I got a great deal, I think I’ll avoid using Sixt in the future as we have used them twice and the SUVs that we have received have been really small with little trunk space. We were able to fit in all our stuff but it was a tight squeeze.

Karel did well with driving on the left side of the road (and right side of the vehicle) and we made our way 35-minutes to our Airbnb in Gordon’s Bay. 

We arrived to our Airbnb around 10:30am on Sunday. It was nice to be back at the same place where we stayed last year. After unloading the car, we walked to the SPAR grocery store a few blocks away and got a few things from store. After eating a light lunch, it was nearing noon local time and we couldn't fight it any longer. We took a nap. And I slept for 5 hours! 

After waking up around 5pm, I did some mobility and went outside for a short 3 mile run around Gordon's Bay. It felt so good to run in a sports bra and feel the warm dry air. The beach was packed. It was around 80 degrees in the evening. Karel met me at the beach and he did a shake out swim in the ocean for 20 minutes. The water was a little cool but he got used to it. 

After eating dinner around 8pm and Skyping with Karel's mom at our house, we went to bed around 9:30pm and went to sleep. Although our place doesn't have AC, we stayed cool with fans. I was surprised I slept so well after a 5 hour nap but I guess I needed it. I woke up around 6am on Monday. 

After 2 days and 44 hours of travel, little sleep over two nights, 4 hours in London and 19 hours of flying, we can officially start our race-cation.