Heading home attempt #2

You may recall that we had some fun with our flights to England on the Friday that we left.  And now the adventure continues!

Lost Purse

This morning (Sunday) we left for the Goa Airport at 8:00 am for a 12:00 (noon) flight.  Shortly after we got there and joined the line to enter the airport Michele realized that she had left her purse in the taxi.  Its about 1 hour back to Purple Valley to get the purse from the taxi and then another hour back to the airport.  There was just not enough time to do all that traveling and catch our flight as well.  Renea was traveling with us as well.  She is going on to Dublin from London while Michele and I are going on to Halifax. She traveled separately to the airport and joined us in the line waiting to enter the airport.

Flight delayed

When we got to the front of the line we discovered that our flight from Goa to London had been delayed by 12 hours.  It was now leaving at 23:30 in the evening rather than 12:00.  They would not let us into the airport, so we were trying to decide what to do when several airport people arranged for all of the people waiting for the flight to be taken to a nearby hotel for the day.  We talked to them about this and then we decided to take a taxi back to Purple Valley Resort. Michele did most of the talking and I stayed with the pile of luggage.

Were Back!

Annushka and Emand were very surprised to see us back at the resort.  They made us comfortable and helped Michele retrieve her purse from the taxi.

Need money!

On the way back to Purple Valley we stopped in Mapusa (pronounced map-sah) to get some money.  We needed to pay the taxi and get some meals.  Previously I had zero success with the ATMs in Mapusa.  This time we were lucky.  We got to an ATM that would honor foreign debit cards.  However the debit transactions kept timing out.  We switched to the Visa credit cards and were able to get some cash out.  I have been out of cash for 3 days.  Now finally I am able to pay Michele back.  She has been supporting me since Friday.  Its not fun being stuck without funds and no way to replenish them.

New travel arrangements

Renea had  a connecting flight to Dublin that she was going to miss.  She had to book another flight.  The one that she already had was not movable.

Both Michele and I have hotel rooms in London that we will not be using now.  Mine is fully paid for and I have no way of letting them know that I will not be there.  Michele sent an email to her hotel to let them know that she would not be there.  She is not sure if this will be enough to cancel the room.

Lunch

We went to Villa Blanche which is about a 20 minute walk down the road for lunch.  They had a Sunday brunching going on.  All you can eat for 400 rupes each.  That’s about $10.  We had a very nice meal.  Scrambled eggs, Tuna deviled eggs, coleslaw, black olives,  pickled onions, hot soup, chocolate cake, and on and on.

Michele has gone to the pool for the afternoon and I am writing this blog entry.

The New Plan

Our flight from Goa will leave at 11:30 in the evening and we should get into Gatwick airport at about 5:00 am.  We then go to Heathrow by bus which will take about an hour.  Our flight to Halifax leaves Heathrow at 11:00 am on Monday.  We should be able to make that flight and be in Halifax when we originally planned to be there on Monday afternoon.

I will try and do an update from the Heathrow airport if we have time.

Here’s hoping that nothing else goes wrong with the travel arrangements.