11th of June – Skopje

Getting to the airport is very efficient since there is almost no traffic on saturday morning, the moslem „sunday“. Immigration is also very efficient and we are in the air at 08.55h. This is by far the largest airport we have been in africa and taxing is rather complicating. But as usual; the pilots are on top of things.

At exactly 09.30h we fly over alexandria and are leaving the african continent after 5 weeks and 1 day. Swim vests are under our seats and it is flying over mediterranean for almost 2 hours. Heraklion airport is pretty busy and full with vacation charter. The service here is european again: toilet, sandwich and refueling and off again within half hour!! We are not used to that speed and good service! Almost frightening. Climbing up to 26‘000 feet and further north towards european mainland, destination skopje.

Again fueling and immigration is most efficient and we take a cab to the hotel in downtown skopje. After a shower we stroll through the city; it is a small culture shock! Everything is paved, it is clean, the shops sell decent stuff, there are atms that work, people seat in street cafés and women don‘t wear veils. To the contrary: it is 29 degrees and they like to show off what they have. So we have some cokes in a coffee shop and enjoy the views.

While the pilots hang out, i stroll through downtown, the old moslem quarters and climb up to the fortress on top of the hill. The bridge is newly rebuilt, the moslem quarters look fairly new and the old wall of the fortress is brand new. This all is a reminder that skopje was completely destroyed by an earthquake in 1962. Macedonia was part of former yugoslavia and became independent only in 1991. They were really lucky since there was no war here. It is about half the seize of switzerland and its most famous citizen are alexander the great and mother teresa.

We watch the football game south africa – mexico in one of the open air cafés along the river. For once, captain tom is spot on and the game ends 1:1 as he predicted. Pretty amazing for a pilot! But after the game he goes straight (more or less) back to the hotel for a nap. For some unknown reasons to humanity, he has some problems finding his room.

We have dinner at the „old house“ with a wine from macedonia which is appropriate for guru; the imperator. It is really good and we enjoy the traditional food and good service. The temperature with 26 degrees is rather on the cool side.

Internet access is a problem here since the wifi is not up to speed. So i will try tomorrow.

12th of June – Grenchen

Despite the late dinner yesterday and the following night cap last night, everybody is up early. Our bodies have not adjusted to the one hour time change yet. We realize that we are in europe again; we are early at the airport and have to wait for our slot at 09.16h. In africa this would have meant  just take off and don‘t wait.

Climbing up to 24‘000 feet and cruise above the clouds. We fly along the croatian cost and see the island with hvar where we rode with wives and bikes last year ago. Thanks to tailwinds we are in split within 1 1/2 hours. Split is pretty busy when we arrive and full of scandinavian planes. For the last time we fill up our töffli, take off and fly over the adria towards italy, over the snow covered alps and then the final „final approach“ of our transafrica 2010: grenchen.

We touch down at 14.00h sharp; as planned. We are amazed ourselves but somehow it is typical for the entire journey: all worked like a clockwork and we never had a problem. We are all glad to see our families and friends who showed up in great numbers with posters and banners. Happy to be back home in the best place on earth!

Unloading the plane, park it in the hangar, say good-bye and home to the families! Definitely some of the best part of transafrica 2010.

We were ask by several people whether we could organize a „dia-abig“, where we show our pictures and tell about the whole thing. We plan to do that in the fall, maybe september. So please drop an e-mail to the webmaster, rainer or tom if you are interested and we will inform you in due time.

I put up another section at the end „conclusion“. It is not final – guess it takes some time to digest all the impressions and experiences of the journey. Well – i hope you like it and thank you all for following our transafrica 2010 on our web-page.

Last but not least we would say a big „thank you“ to our beloved wives for letting us go on such a journey for 5 weeks and look after the families during that time. Ladies – it would not have been possible without you!!

Last day of our transafrica 2010. This means flying north over some snow covered mountains in macedonia, the adria and finally over the alps. At 14.00h we touch down in grenchen and get a great reception by families and friends. Home sweet home!