Monday, August 08, 2005
Getting To Africa
The first step was getting from Portland to Johannesburg.
This involved taking a flight from Portland to San Francisco, leaving at 7 pm on Friday night. At 10 PM we caught the red-eye from San Francisco to Washington (Dulles), arriving at about 6 am Saturday morning.
The waiting area for the South African airways flight from Dulles to Johannesburg was interesting. One group of people included a young man who was a ringer for Clive Owen, with the curly dark hair, the dark stubble, and the sleepy yet somehow leonine eyes. The illusion suffered a bit when, without being the least self-conscious, he reached deep into his nose, removed a wad of nasal mucous, inspected it, and flicked it to the floor.
At about 8:45 am, we got on the 747 for Johannesburg. We had bulkhead seats on the upper deck, sharing them with a woman who was a retired nurse educator. She was traveling with a group of 19 young women, many of them apparently couples if one is to judge by the public displays of affection. Her daughter was to marry her partner in a ceremony to take place in the Krueger game reserve.
Our first hints that we were not flying an American airline came with the first meal service. The food was actually good, and the silverware included a metal tableknife.
The flight from Dulles to Johannesburg was in excess of 18 hours. Every passenger was given a packet with warm fuzzy socks, an eye shade, a toothbrush, and toothpaste ("Aerodent"). Every 3 or 4 hours they would come through the cabin with a meal. The food quality continued to beat the pants off anything I've seen from American airlines. Every seat had it's own video screen and remote control, offering a selection of movies, TV shows, music, and video games.
We landed once in Accra, Ghana, to refuel, change crews, and take on passengers. Then we arrived in Johannesburg at about 7:30 am on Sunday morning.
The most interesting part of the process of passport and customs checks was going through the South African Police office to obtain the permit to bring in the firearms for the hunt. That involved presenting copies of passports, proof from US Customs of ownership of the guns, formal letters from the Professional Hunter explaining that we were invited to hunt particular species on particular dates, and a completed 12 page with the details of the rifles, serial numbers, ammunition, and personal information. The police compared the serial numbers to ensure they matched, and then without further customs inspections of any sort we wheeled our gear through customs and to the lobby, where Ivan was waiting for us.
Voila. We are here.
