27th July
BA6291
JNB-LVI
1100-1245
Comair Boeing 737-800
Seat 6F

Immigration was, as per my previous OR Tambo experiences, painless. I'm not sure if I had extreme good luck or if they've put more people in place but I wasn't waiting for more than 5 minutes on any inbound. I was also freed of the requirement to wait for baggage to come through, which also made life easier

However. Trying to find the Comair check in desks was relatively hard when sleep deprived, not least when every airport employee I asked wanted to send me to Terminal A (pro tip: Comair check in is all in Terminal B, and the sooner the authorities lose the international/domestic terminology the better, as SAA and Comair both have their domestic AND international check in desks in the "domestic" terminal). However once there I was able to rapidly get my boarding pass and head off to security

I spotted some snazzy new hand baggage scanners which seemed not to be in use- perhaps only at certain times or for certain flights?

The dude managing the scanner was highly amused by this idiot Australian taking liquids etc out of the bag. "No no no...we don't do that here". And so I was rapidly through

I hot footed it to the Slow lounge, which had another wonderful breakfast spread
Shortly after I arrived, the slightly handsy man from BA55 wandered in, with wife and kids in tow. He seemed to recognise me, and while his wife was off getting a drink approached me to ask if I had been on the same flight as him from London? And if I wouldn't mind awfully not saying anything to his wife? Hilarious.

I needed to go and make some emergency purchases so didn't stay in the lounge for a huge amount of time. Luckily JNB is relatively well endowed with reasonably priced clothing shops and some helpful practical ones like an outdoor sports equipment shop. As such I was fairly early for boarding, which was via bus gates servicing multiple African destinations and it all seemed to be a bit disorganised, seemingly not helped by multiple airlines using each individual gate (SAA to Antananarivo was boarding immediately prior to us and there were lots of people with clearly BA boarding passes heading up to the podium wanting to know if they were supposed to be boarding *right now*). I spotted the crew arriving and figured it would be another few minutes yet (the cabin crew, largely black African ladies with one Afrikaner looking bloke were all absolutely immaculately attired. The tech crew looked like they'd just been dragged off the sofa where they'd spent a fitful few hours sleeping after being thrown out by the missus- unshaven, unironed shirts and no ties- perhaps this is the norm here but I thought the contrast with the cabin crew was quite stark!)

When boarding started I was one of the first on board. There was (IIRC) a separate bus for priority boarding groups, and as a result I was one of the first on board
Club on these planes has a 2-3 configuration with a proper short haul business class seat. By the time boarding was complete it was about 2/3 full
I had snagged the first row of economy


Leg room was phenomenal, and I was glad as a result that I hadn't bothered to pay the 60% ish mark up to get the whole itinerary in Club

Yes that is socks with sandals. This is because I no longer had any sensible shoes with me and it was BLOODY FREEZING in Johannesburg in July

I do enjoy being in different places and being able to take in some more unusual planes and airlines- this was Air Malawi on their way to Blantyre and Lilongwe


I was also able to amuse myself with the safety card while the last few stragglers boarded

Mysteriously generic safety card

"If unable to evacuate through the overwing exits, roll up sleeves and strike a pose"

"If able to evacuate through the overwings, don't forget to run way screaming"

I spied an Air Zimbabwe 737 parked up as we taxied- unclear if this was serving JNB, undergoing maintenance or repossessed


Despite being short haul BA, there was a hot meal served and a full bar service- choices were chicken stroganoff or ratatouille pasta. I went for the chicken which was edible


We overflew VFA (airport) on the way in- apparently the service used to be JNB-VFA-LVI at one point? It is no longer so


There was a decent view of the Zambezi on approach but the falls themselves were not particularly visible from the air (it was dry season anyway and apparently the preceding wet season was not that great)




I was pleased to see that a parade had been organised for my arrival; then someone burst my bubble pointing out it was actually the Kenyan President here for an economic summit (rude!)


There was an SAA plane departing as we arrived but no other aircraft present. Even so it took over an hour to get a visa on arrival processed. Our plane was long gone by the time I was through immigration and the next plane (a regional jet from Nelspruit) was in
Again, the lack of checked luggage was a massive bonus here as once I was visa'd I was free to go whereas everyone else was off to the baggage hall to fight with unofficial baggage handlers

I exchanged some rand for kwacha, which wasn't really required as rand was accepted just about everywhere but it meant I had some kwacha to add to my collection
i not particularly forcefully negotiated a taxi to my hotel, which was about US$10. The taxi driver was kind enough to wait for me to snap a photo of Harry Nkumbula's statue


We passed a billboard for the economic summit on the way in. The taxi driver was not particularly charitable about the fact that it just happened to be held in one of the most expensive leisure resorts in the entire country, rather than somewhere politically relevant like Lusaka (ah Africa, never change!)


I was staying at the Victoria Falls Waterfront for 2 nights, as I was keen for being a little way away from the main drag, and also a waterfront property- note that despite the name there is absolutely bugger all view of the falls because that's about 10km downstream of here (I knew this when I booked but I suspect less discerning people have been caught out previously)
https://www.thevictoriafallswaterfront.com
I had an upstairs room in one of the riverside chalets, which was very nice indeed



Not sure if anyone can answer- what is it with housekeeping leaving the toilet seat up all the time in Southern Africa?

I booked in for a sunset river cruise that night, which left about 4pm given that it was winter. There were a couple of options, I went for the Makumbi (at US$60) rather than the Lady Livngtone (US$75) as they basically seemed to have almost identical offerings (https://safpar.com/activities/river-cruises/). In hindsight I probably should have gone for the pricier one as "my" boat was basically a party boat full of (mainly) British sixth form students doing something called "world challenge" and falling out with each other over who'd taken photos of who, and that boy in Miss Smith's class who looked at me funny when we started high school (etc), whereas the Lady Livingstone seemed to have attracted a crowd of retired people (much more my demographic!). Nonetheless, the views out were the same on both and my ability to block out annoying noises was becoming more developed with all these flights so a great time was still had by all

Would have been rude not to sample the local brew


Nile crocodiles- apparently "even more" aggressive than salties (is that even possible?!)



MASSIVELY EXCITING to see hippos for the first time- I think I may have squeaked!



Very exciting, my very first African elephant sighting on the way back