✈️ Day 7 – The Long Journey Home

 Our final morning in Brussels began early, long before sunrise. By 6 a.m., we were packed and ready, expecting a smooth trip home, but this day had other plans for us. Not long before leaving the hotel, we learned that our direct flight to Kigali had been cancelled. Instead, we were being rerouted through multiple countries: Brussels → Burundi → Nairobi → finally to Kigali. It was the kind of news that forces you to take a deep breath and surrender to whatever the day becomes.

The first part of the journey felt uneventful enough. We left Brussels on Brussels Airlines, made our stop in Burundi, and eventually arrived in Nairobi close to midnight. That’s where everything became complicated.

Because Brussels Airlines couldn’t issue us tickets for our Kenya Airways connection when we checked in, something that already had us uneasy, we landed in Nairobi with no boarding passes, very little time, and almost no airport staff around to ask for help. The terminal felt like a maze at midnight: dim, quiet, and strangely empty.

We walked the length of the airport more than once, searching for someone who could point us in the right direction. Eventually, after a long stretch of uncertainty, we stumbled upon the correct gate. But even then, the problems didn’t stop.

The staff at the gate couldn’t print our boarding passes because their internet wasn’t working properly. We stood there, exhausted, watching them try again and again to load the system. Finally, they gave us an improvised solution: they pulled up our ticket information on their computer screen and told us to take photos of it with our phones. No paper ticket, no boarding pass, just a picture. One of the staff members then walked us directly to the plane, explained the entire situation to the cabin crew, and only then were we allowed to board. It was surreal, stressful, and strangely human all at once.

By the time the plane lifted off, the exhaustion settled in fully. We had been awake and navigating this journey for almost 20 hours. When we finally landed in Kigali around midnight, relief washed over us, even though the day wasn’t quite finished yet. We still had to wait for luggage, find a taxi, and make the quiet ride home through the nearly empty streets.

By the time we unlocked our door, set our bags down, and crawled into bed, it was 2 a.m. What had started as a simple travel day had stretched into an exhausting, unpredictable marathon across four countries. But even through the fatigue, there was a sense of gratitude, for arriving safely, for the people who helped us along the way, and for finally being home.

Travel days don’t always go as planned. Sometimes they test your patience, your resilience, and your ability to stay calm when you’re already running on empty. But they also remind you what it feels like to step through your own front door after a long journey, and that feeling is always worth it.