This is not exciting and probably not remarkable enough to even waste print. It is simply the drudgery of getting there. We put our feet on South African airport concrete about 5 PM (South African time or 11 AM EST). Leaving the USA was easy (no TSA hassles), getting to Johannesburg was a long, long drag and arriving was uneventful (customs a non-event).  Monday afternoon, a short flight from Orlando to join the ”human herd” at the Atlanta airport started our trip. The second step was boarding a Boeing 777 and spending the next 16 hours exchanging air with 300+ strangers (sounds appealing, doesn’t it). The pilots warned us before we pushed off that we would fly a little zig-zagging course over the Atlantic to avoid those nasty little hurricanes that are kicking up winds and that we could encounter some bumps. The ride had a couple of bumps but was good.

With the outrageous number of frequent flyer points Rod has accumulated (high mileage causes premature facial wrinkles), we managed to blow an outlandish number of them to fly Delta’s Business Elite, with the pod seats providing you with your own private area and a fully reclining seat that makes a hard but flat and acceptable bed. We timed our short sleep to wake up in the morning on Johannesburg time, so that we could push ourselves to adapt our sleep patterns to local time.
Johannesburg’s Tambo airport is modern and clean and has about the same number of car drivers as Chicago O’Hare, all attacking you at arrivals, to use their car service.         Tambo is 19 miles from center city Johannesburg and we had decided to make it easy and check into the InterContinental that is 100 steps out of the door of the airport. The price is not comparable to a Holiday Inn Express but we feel pretty smart for not going through the hassle of driving into Johannesburg, which apparently has little to see, particularly for the 13 hours we have before our next flight.

Tomorrow morning, we fly to Richards Bay, join our Oregon friends and a driver will take us about 60 miles to the Zulu Nyala Game Lodge. Hoping there is a tolerable internet connection that we can access, we look forward to starting the interesting part of this trip.