I completed all of my planned activities on Saturday (and spent the last of my money) and didn’t have much planned for Sunday, but I was going back to Harare in the early afternoon so that was fine. I had plenty of time to hang out, pack up, walk around town and get back to the hotel for my 1 pm shuttle to the airport. While I was eating breakfast, a drive from my tour company came to get me. He said he was there to take me to the airport. Again, I had no idea what he was talking about and I explained that my flight was at 2:30 pm and my ride to the airport was supposed to be at 1 pm. He asked “are you sure?” and I nearly got upset that he thought he knew my plans better than I did! But I assured him and sent him on his way (little did I know…).
The morning went by quickly with a brief walk through town and visiting the Victoria Falls Hotel one last time. The driver was a bit early picking me up, but I didn’t have anything else to do so I headed to the airport.
When I got to the Air Zimbabwe check in desk, they woman at the counter told me that my flight left at 10:15 am!! And there were no other flights that day! I was shocked and outraged. She told me that they called “every single customer” and that everyone else got on that flight. That was a total lie since there were 4 other people there with me with the same problem. I was so upset but when I said that, the woman looked at me blankly for five seconds then turned away. No apology or anything. This country is not known for its customer service.
Luckily, they put me up in the Rainbow Hotel for the night and provided transport to and from the airport, dinner and breakfast. And the hotel was quite nice; it had internet and a swimming pool with a swim-up bar. Since I had a lot of work to do on Monday, I spent most of the afternoon and evening working on that in my hotel room, but I watched part of a movie and had air conditioning which was nice.
Although it wasn’t great, there are worse places to be stranded than Victoria Falls!