Greetings from Namibia and welcome to our blog. We hope that family and friends will find these musings and photos informative and entertaining. We'll see how well we keep up with this, but for now, we'll just jump in with an entry:
What is Jet Lag?
Part 1: Movers
Sometime just before 8 AM on Friday, July 17, Elina woke up on a sofa in the room above the garage of our neighbors, the Volz, who we'd asked if we could crash there for a few days before leaving for Namibia. Starting Wednesday, July 15, the movers started packing up our lives and we'd had to move to the Volz' from Wednesday night. Shannon and I woke up on their futon, in the same room. I think this was the last calm moment before Friday's travel really began.
Wednesday and Thursday had been long days full of frustration. On Wednesday, the movers had packed up Barry's laptop and had to dig through many boxes to find it. A number of items we wanted in our pockets or to send by air (a limited quantity of stuff we'd see again in 2-3 weeks), wound up in a box marked for ocean (which we'd see again only in September). It sure didn't seem like our lives weighed nearly 10,000 lbs (5 tons!). It also sure didn't seem like we lived with such a load of unwanted items (which we sold, donated to Goodwill, or tossed). The day ended around 5 PM, with our lives reduced to a bunch of cardboard boxes, but with a lot of packing remaining.
On Thursday, we repeated Wednesday, seemingly even more hectic (hey, I know everyone reading has been through this), with goods marked for air/ocean/storage. They worked later, complained about the management of the process from the day before and asked if they could finish on Friday. And Shannon's passport had been packed in a box (ok, her fault), but that wasn't nearly as hard to find as we might have otherwise thought.
The movers returned on Friday at 8AM, saying they'd only need a couple of hours, but took until 2:00 PM. Finally, our lives, all packed up in boxes, suitcases, and bags--181 boxes for ocean, many fewer for storage, a dozen or so for air, 4 suitcases, 5 boxes, and a bunch of carry-ons.
At about noon on Friday, July 17, I dropped off Bismarck (our border collie) and Joey (our cat) at the offices of S. African Airways Cargo at Dulles Airport. $500 in blood tests and $1,128 in transport from DC to J'burg. The flight for them was the same as for the rest of our clan--5:40 PM take-off. Thus begins our story for these two.
Part 2: Car sold
At 1 PM, I got back home and handed over the keys for the car and all documents to the new owners of our RAV-4. I think Shannon's eyes were at least damp, if not outright moist--she really liked the color "flint mica"... I was just happy for the $14,000 check. (I was also hopeful that it was genuine and wouldn't bounce.)
Ok, the car was sold and the dog and cat were in crates and off at the airport. The house was mostly empty. (Did we really leave behind that much trash--there seemed to be a lot of little stuff we left behind--do shower curtain rings really have any value for the next resident?) It was 2:30 or so, the cab to the airport was called, and I was jumping in the shower when the cab showed up. It was far too small for all of us and our stuff, so a second cab was called. So, off to the airport.
Part 3: Dulles
Honestly, not much to report. By the time we got out bags and boxes checked in and rolled Elina in her stroller to the gate, with 2 laptops in various and assorted carry-ons, we were there just in time to board.
Part 4: Airports that start with "D"
Ok, so you're thinking, wow, these guys must be already jet-lagged and they hadn't yet left the ground. Ah, dear reader, let's add almost 2 more hours on the ground, in the plane, at Dulles, with Elina sandwiched between Shannon and me. Well at least the nice Indian woman next to me was able to sleep. Actually Elina was really an angel from Dulles to Dakar, sleeping for 4 hours out of about 8. Wait, you're thinking, Dakar, what the heck were they doing in Dakar? On the Dulles to Johannesburg route, Dakar is a re-fueling point, so that was an hour on the ground and Elina was awake.
What to say about Dakar? I don't know, I haven't been there since 1995. Nice place. We spent the hour on the plane, waiting for re-fueling, and being told to stay out of the aisles. Elina kindly fell asleep for another 4 hours out of about 9 and again being a real sweetie.
Part 5: Johannesburg
So, it's now about 5 PM Johannesburg time on Saturday and we'd all been up since about 8 AM on Friday--total time something like 29 hours without meaningful sleep. (Some of you may consider time spent sleeping on a plane as sleep, but I don't--too uncomfortable, too little neck support, too many people snoring.)
I don't suppose too many people land with 9 bags and carry-ons, because it took me 3 baggage trolleys to get it all to a place to store it for the night. I actually had to get special permission to pass back into the baggage area in order to get more bags and pick up Elina and Shannon. The baggage storage people were happy to see us---they charge by the bag...
We slept at what has to be one of my more unusual hotel experiences. About 3 miles from the airport is "Emporer's Palace", a casino formerly associated with "Ceasar's Palace", and connected to a conference center connected to a hotel or two. We stayed in one of these hotels. S. Africa has really nice weather and, ok, it's now winter in S. Africa, and a bit cold, but the area between the hotel and the casino is all enclosed, with the roof painted like the daytime sky and Italian-themed and full of restaurants. Lots of kids are running around outside the casino. Just bizarre, but I do recommend it to my pals going through J'burg. It's the Metcourt Laurel.
Elina was really tired and fell asleep in my arms, while we waited for some fast-food grilled chicken for her (Nando's to those in the know) and while Shannon was waiting for me in the Indian restaurant. Who remembers the meal? Well, I do remember that the vats of Indian food at the buffet were motion-sensitive and the serving dishes opened automatically when you reached for them. Really bizarre.
At some point, we were all in the hotel room and fell asleep. It's like that when you have an overnight stop on a long trip. Sleep descends on your body while it's getting comfortable for the first time in a horizontal position in more than 24 hours.
Then at some point, we woke up. Apparently, that point wasn't early enough. When we got back to the airport, retrieved our bags, and paid for excess baggage (only 1 bag considered in excess this time--it's unclear why the lady was so nice about it), we were told, and this takes the cake, that because of weather problems that the plane would have to fly lower, and, as a consequence, would use more fuel, and, as a consequence, we, along with 17 other passengers, would not be able to board and would have to wait for the 1 PM flight. We tried to argue a bit but the lady then pulled the "you were not here 2 hours in advance" card. Ok, she was right--we were only 1:45 in advance and the reason we got to the counter so late was because I was in line to pay for the excess bag for 20 minutes and because the SA Airways staff had told Shannon that she should not go ahead and check in or stand in line. Very disappointing, but, like so many things, it was out of our control. Hey, they offered us a free lunch, kind of.
As most of you know, I do travel a lot, so, although I usually travel on a bunch of different airlines, "consolidation in the industry" left me a gold card holder on United/SA Airways/14 other partners, frequent flyer program, so we got to enjoy the lounge, sort of. Seems that the lounge was closed and a new one being created, so we got the temporary lounge, but it had no bathrooms, so we opted for the "premium" lounge, whatever "premium" might mean. Not bad actually, but not exciting either.
Finally, we boarded a bus. Wait, a bus? Yes, for short flights, you take a bus to a plane, then climb the stairs to board. Fun, huh? With a stroller and all those carry-ons I mentioned earlier.
It only took about 1:45 to reach Windhoek.
Part 6: Windoek
We arrived in Windhoek, got off the plane, all in good spirits, and rounded up the baggage and boxes with no incident.
I went off to find the dog and cat and got them too, with no incident.
We all piled into a car with a smaller trailer attached (we'd told them about the baggage in advance) and Shannon sat in the front with the cat in his crate on her lap.
The picture defines "jet lag" better than anything I could otherwise type. (Careful viewers will note that Elina fell asleep on Bimarck. Bismarck was so happy to be out of his crate and off the plane that he just let her lie there. Bliss.)
Total time from waking up Friday to reaching our hotel in Windhoek: ~52 hours
