Saturday – From Johannesburg
The alarm went off at 4:00am this morning. Both Anne & I had to get ready and be on the road by 5:00am; I had to be at the airport by 5:30am and she was dropping me off before heading directly to work. My flight was at 7:05am to Atlanta and then, after an hour layover, I was off to Johannesburg, South Africa.
I’ve made it as far as Jo’burg. The flight from Atlanta to Jo’burg was slightly more than 15 hours. Oh. My. God. That was a long flight! The aircraft was a 747-400, and the coach seating was 3 – 4 – 3. I was in a center-aisle seat and had no one next to me. I managed about 5 hours sleep as best I can tell. Otherwise, while I was captive I watched the second Harry Potter movie, the most recent Bond film, read a bit, and listened to a Dianna Krall CD. I’d love to get a peek at how the entertainment systems of the new airplanes are put together to be able to basically deliver programming on demand to about 400 people concurrently.
Just before we landed, the pilot said how many litres of fuel we burned through on the flight. I don’t remember the amount, but it was staggering. He said it worked out to about 5.4 litres per person per mile (I think). Actually, the flight was 8,449 miles, figure 400 people on the plane, and that gets you about 18 million litres. A staggering number, to be sure, but that can’t be right. That would be almost 4 million gallons. It must have been 5.4 litres per person per hour. Still quite a lot of gas. Oh, when at about 200km out from the airport, the pilot cut the engines back to idle and we just glided in for the landing.
Right now, I’m sitting in front of a window at a café in the Jo’burg airport watching the swallows fly around and drinking a bit bottle of mineral water. I’m not out of the woods yet. It is 9:50 now and at 12:15 I board my flight to Malawi. That’s another 2 hours in the air, then all the necessary baggage claim, customs, etc. Someone from the Embassy is supposed to meet me and get me to the hotel, so that’s one less thing to worry about. First thing on the agenda when I get there is a shower. Since I’m south of the equator for the first time, the second item on the agenda is to see which way the water spins down the drain! As usual, if I can make it through most of the afternoon I’m sure I’ll be okay with jet lag. I’m going easy for the rest of the day, but I’ll have to do a little work tomorrow to prep for my first meeting on Monday.
So at this café, they accept at least 4 currencies: Pounds, Marks, Dollars and (of course) Rand. I still think it is a shame that shops only accept dollars in the US airports.
The people sitting closest to me on the flight were a family of four coming to South Africa for a bit of business and pleasure. It was a mom, dad, young daughter (maybe 5?) and 85 year-old grandma. I was alternately next to dad & grandma throughout the flight as they shuffled seats. Grandma had done some traveling in her younger days in France, Syria & Lebanon. We enjoyed talking about our respective travel experiences and she repeatedly admonished me to no stop writing when I travel.
Man, I still can’t believe that I’ve been going for almost 24 hours at this point, and that the one flight was almost 2 business-days long.
Item number three for when I get to Lilongwe has to be to get a book to read. I still don’t have a good read for this trip.