After an uneventful departure from Indianapolis to Atlanta, Georgia, we boarded a Delta 747 for the grueling 15-hour flight across the Atlantic. After skirting some rather bumpy, turbulent weather near the western coast of Africa we eventually crossed over much of the lower portion of the continent and landed at terminal B at the Johannesburg International Airport. (As a side note perhaps someone can tell me why Delta serves pizza just before the morning arrival in Johannesburg? Even though we had come into this airport 15 or 20 times this time it looked all different. They are nearing completion on a new terminal in preparation for the World Cup Games in 2010.
The new customs area is large and spacious, as well as being swift and efficient. Almost before we knew it we were through it and out into the main terminal. Not wanting to leave the airport area for our overnight stay we decided to walk across the construction filled parking lot and stay in the Inter-Continental Hotel. Wow! What's a boy like me doing in a hotel like that? You almost felt like you should be wearing a three piece suit just to check in. And the prices. Wow! They were more than the cost of the three piece suit? But elegant? Yes, it was. Great meal. Great room. Great hot tub. Great price the next morning. Now how did they say we can wire home for more funds if we need to?
7 AM came early, or was it still midnight? It is now hard to tell since our minds say it is 7 while somehow we left our bodies back there on Indiana time, midnight! We packed up and crossed the ... you guessed it ... construction filled parking lot, and entered the rush, rush of early morning air travel. A fine meal overlooking the runways (far less than the breakfast would have been back over there in the palace) and we were on the way down the ramp toward A-1 where the overhead said our plane would be. Never mind the computer had just spit out our boarding pass and advised us our plane was at the other end of the terminal. We trusted the overhead board and kept going down A-1.
It turned out to be right. There was our plane. But it was time to load and there was no crew. In fact there were no check in people, just a rather large crowd not seeming to realize it was time to go and there was no one to go with. I think we are back in Africa. After all why would you get ready to leave until everyone was there that wanted to go with you. Forty minutes late we were the way. No one explained. No one apologized. No one seemed to notice.
Before long the gentle voices of Malawians around us on the plane began to lull us to slow the pace, relax the tension, and move into a different life style. I looked at my watch. Too bad. Won't need that much in the next few weeks. I moved my international driver's license from my briefcase to my jacket pocket. All too quickly I will find myself propelling us along a pothole filled, pavement starved, narrow gage roadway driving on the left side of the road. We are about to reach "the Warm Heart of Africa."
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