I didn’t write anything yesterday, because as far as I’m concerned,
yesterday and today are the same day. I guess that’s what happens when you
travel through the night and only sleep in airplane seats.
I went on a long
run yesterday morning (well, longish—only six miles, which is a short run back
home, but with the altitude and hills, I’ll call it a long run in Lesotho) and
then bummed around the hotel until the shuttle came to pick me up for the
airport at 2. After that, it was a quick check-in process and short flight to
Johannesburg, where I then had a seven and a half hour layover.
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| Three African airports... Yeah, let's go with the African luggage security system of plastic wrap |
The Johannesburg
international transfer system is interesting. In Maseru, they only gave me my
ticket for that flight, and said I had to get the remaining tickets in
Johannesburg. Well, I get to international transfers, and I see a line of desks
and agents, none of which were for Kenya Airlines. So I go through security,
thinking I’ll get my boarding passes at a Kenya Airlines desk at a gate. Wrong.
The gates aren’t airline specific, and they don’t have agents sitting there. So
then I went back to the unsecured area, finally found an automatic check-in
terminal, and checked in, changed my seats, and got my boarding passes.
By this time, I
had about six and a half hours left of my layover.
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| Zebra pelt, anyone? |
I went and got a
massage (because, why not?), exchanged my remaining South African Rands for
U.S. Dollars, and then headed to the lounge. Since I was flying Kenya Airlines,
which is a Sky Team partner, I couldn’t use my Gold Star Alliance card to get
in that lounge. So I paid $30 to go in another lounge, which had food, drinks,
outlets, and wifi, so I was okay paying. Unfortunately, they closed at 10,
which left me with two hours to kill before boarding.
Once I finally got
in the air, I was out for the entire flight, waking up once to realize that I
had missed a dinner service (who serves dinner at 1 am?) and that was about it,
and then arrived in Nairobi around 5:30 am local time. The flight to Kinshasa
didn’t leave until 8:30, so I wandered around, bought some hot chocolate (have
to take malaria pills with milk, after all), and met up with MAJ Lang, the
environmental science officer for U.S. Army Africa (USARAF) and my companion
for this trip, and we chatted until it was time to board. And again, I was out
for most of the three hour flight to Kinshasa (I did wake up for the food this
time).
It was the usual
scene at customs at the Kinshasa airport, a process I’m now unfortunately
familiar with, and then we got our bags and headed out. Unfortunately, we’re
not staying at the Fleuve Congo Hotel this time, which has me really
disappointed. It was pretty much the only decent thing about going to DRC, and
I was really looking forward to it. The hotel we’re in isn’t bad, but it isn’t
even in the same class as the Fleuve. I’m going to see if we can get moved to
the Fleuve when we come back to Kinshasa after our week in Muanda.
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| The pool at the O'Costelo |
After some
overpriced lunch, I took a nap, and then I navigated the hotel looking for a
decent place to connect to the internet (turns out, the only place that works
is the bar…) before an overpriced dinner. Neither MAJ Lang nor I was ambitious
enough to try to call motorpool to get a pickup to take us to a real
restaurant, so instead I paid $15 for a croquet monsieur (grilled ham and
cheese sandwich). Gotta love it.
I think all we’re
doing tomorrow is going to the embassy for the Regional Security Office (RSO)
brief, which is about all the security and safety threats in the area and the
rules to follow to not get hurt. It only takes about half an hour, so I have no
idea what we’ll be doing for the rest of the time. Oh, well. I guess time will
tell.
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