Sunday started with a nice bike ride to the coast with Kevin, then at 7:30pm it was time to fly… to South Africa. It’s about as far away as you can go; I think the only place I could fly to that would involve greater distance might be India, but my wife has no desire to go there. Too bad; the number of movies over the past decade from or about India has certainly increased my desire to travel there. Plus, it’s cheap. South Africa is in the category of “reasonable” meaning cheaper than in the US but way more expensive than Cambodia. Everywhere is way more expensive than Cambodia!
But this is about South Africa, and that means two back-to-back 11 hour (ok, actually 10 flying) flights, first to London, then Johannesburg, followed by a two hour flight to Cape Town. The London flight was tolerable but still not something I could sleep on; thankfully, they have showers at the LHR lounge, which might me feel partly human. Karen does much better in this regard, although not quite as well as Kevin. I don’t think anybody sleeps as well, on-demand, as Kevin. The next flight, London to Johannesburg, that felt pretty long, partly because it was the second flight, and partly because there are no extra-legroom seats available, so more of a crunch factor.
Landing in Johannesburg, we had 5 hours to kill, definitely more time than my zombie state desired. Not enough time (or opportunity) to try and sleep, and besides, I needed to adjust to the new time anyway. We spent most of the time in the lounge, emerging about an hour before flight to buy a local simcard for Karen’s phone. In some ways that last yet short flight seemed the worst, perhaps partly because I didn’t take a shower while in Johannesburg, but mostly because it was just a whole lot of flying in a very short time.
No problem getting from the airport to our hotel/guest house (is a small hotel now a guest house?) via Uber. Uber is pretty amazing here; cheap & fast.
More sometime soon, but having some issues updated the diary. Best to check out my facebook page where things are uploading better.
