Biltong or Bust
We left early this morning for JFK. Found a new off airport lot (Park Plus) that was terrific. Arrived at Terminal 4; good news - could carry on all of our bags. Swiss Lounge offered a selection of 0 champagnes. You could score a beer if so inclined. Had enough time to grab a shower in the lounge before we left. Floor super slippery - stayed on towel to avoid falling. Boarded on time and lifted off around 11:30. The South African nonstop is the way to go - very good in all respects. Only problem is getting a competitive fare vis a vis the Europe stopover routings. I scored the holy grail - frequent flier tix - and am very grateful.
Meet and greet was perfect on arrival. We are holed up at transit hotel for a few hours, then get boarding pass to Kigali for a 3:45 pm departure (tho the transit visa officer remarked "that flight is ALWAYS late"). We'll find out soon enough. We overnight in Kigali (hoping Theo our driver from last year's gorilla trip will be there to meet us) and get up at 4 am or so to make our 6 am Coastal Air connection to Sasakwa. There IS no easy routing to get around Tanzania, it seems. Going through Dar is a 7 + hour elapsed time light aircraft flight via Zanzibar, including 3 hours to cool your heels in Arusha.
Gary will be unnecessarily cranky if I don't stop typing soon. More later, and can't wait to see the whole group in Joburg on the way to Federal Air and more adventures.
Editing to add: what's biltong? See the wikipedia entry here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BiltongCheers (soon to be Pleasure), Anne
