Postscript

Although our flights were booked on United Airlines, they were all subbed out to other carriers. So, we flew from Cape Town to Heathrow on South African Airlines, from Heathrow to Newark, N.J. on Continental, and from Newark to Toronto on Air Canada. It appears that our luggage may have become confused during the exchanges. Mardi and I received our checked luggage yesterday (Saturday), three days after our return. Ethan's bag has also now been located but is not here yet - they are trying to make arrangements to have it delivered. Since this is a holiday weekend, who knows?

I think the problem occurred in South Africa where the ladies at the gate reprinted our tags because there was an error on the ones we had been given when we checked in. However, I would like to blame Continental because they were the ones who misplaced my luggage on my trip to Peru.

One other note: Ethan bought a rugby ball in Hazyview (near Kruger) with South African Springbok logos. When we got to the airport in Nelspruit for our flight to Cape Town, security would not let him take an inflated ball through as a carry-on. We had no pin to deflate it so we had to destroy the bladder with a screwdriver so that he could at least come home with a souvenir. The flight stopped in Johannesburg and as we went to our gate to change planes, lo and behold they were selling the same balls - blown up! And we were past security. No problem taking them on the plane according to the sales person, but to be safe, we bought one that was not inflated.