Our flight would leave Cincinnati airport at 2:13pm. We made sure we arrived at the airport a bit early so we could have lunch at Max & Erma's. One last American meal before being out of the country for a bit. We encountered this cute bar stool while waiting for our food.
We left Cincinnati on time and arrive in Atlanta at 3:45pm. We had 3 hours and 15 minutes to find the International Terminal and the gate for our plane. We watched as the other passengers arrived. The tour we were taking would have 37 people on it. 34 of those people would be arriving from Salt Lake City. People watching allows us to guess who the other people would be on our tour. We saw Alan McKay, our tour guide, enter the area. It is always good to see him. This would be our sixth tour with Alan. Hugs abounded. Quick catching up. Then I took these two pictures. Proof we were really leaving for a totally new experience.
Departure was further confirmed and we felt better know our luggage was actually on the plane.
As good fortune would have it, we were in a three seat row with one of us having a window and the other having the aisle seat. We watched as the final passengers boarded and knew when they said the door was closed that we had an empty seat between us. Yippee!! Since the flight from Atlanta to Johannesburg was 15 hours and 39 minutes that extra seat was a welcome blessing. We settled into our seats and a menu was passed to each of us to select our dinner choice. We would be served dinner 1 1/2 hours into the flight. Then the lights would be turned out and everyone is encouraged to sleep. Ha...Ha...Ha!! During the night we would be served a 'snack' which was a meal in itself. Then before landing we were served another meal. Lots of water was offered throughout this long flight.
There is a 6-hour difference between South Africa and Eastern Standard Time. They are 6 hours ahead of Kentucky. We arrived Wednesday, August 14th, at 5:35pm...exhausted. This is the first view I had from the airplane window of Africa.
Our hotel was right outside the airport. So we all walked across to the hotel and got our rooms for the night. We had WiFi at the hotel. But, we received an alert that AT&T does not service that area. We anticipated this when we got to Kruger but we thought we would have WiFi until that day and somewhere again on the way back to Johannesburg. Claude used the WiFi at the hotel to let family know we would be out of touch until we returned. If there was an emergency, they could call Alan's office and they would reach him to get to us. After that, we set our phones to airplane mode for the rest of the trip. This was actually very liberating. We had to set the alarm on my phone. This is always interesting. I have my phone set so the local time shows up as well as Kentucky time. I always have to relearn which of those that alarm works with. Turns out it is the Kentucky time so I had to subtract 6 hours to figure out how to get the alarm to go off at the right time for a South Africa wake up. After a quick practice run with the alarm so I was confident I had it right, we turned out the light for a few hours of rest.
I'll continue this blogging about our trip with each day as its own entry.
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