Wednesday, June 8, 2016

June 4, 2016 through June 6, 2016 - Traveling to Johannesburg, SA

Leaving Albuquerque at 6:20 pm on a Saturday, the Sunport was a breeze, not a single person in line at check-in or security. Of course there was the issue with the gate attendant not really knowing how to confirm in the system that we had all the required  documents so it would print out our boarding passes. Once that was cleared we were on our way.....

Our biggest concern for the trip out was our 1 hour layover in Dallas that was going to require changing terminals from domestic to international. In addition, the flight to Dallas was on a small commuter plane and they had us gate check a couple of our carry-ons even though the flight was essentially empty. In reality, all of our transfers went pretty smoothly and the trip was uneventful, though strange to take 2 overnight flights in a row, leaving Dallas at 10pm and leaving London at 7pm. Our flight out of London was on one of the newer Airbus A-380's, a huge double level plane (not like a 747 which is only double level in the front half), so big that the wings bow down ward when not in flight .....
Once we arrived in Johannesburg at 7am on the 7th, the goal was to avoid sleeping until that evening. I made it to the hotel and passed out face first on the bed for an hour or 2, I have no idea. Once up again we walked back to the airport to grab a late lunch.....
 
and took the GuaTrain into Sandton to walk around for a bit .....
One of the first things I noticed when we got off was someone walking into the station with a Krispy Kream donut bag and just outside the station entrance there it was green sign and all, alas I did not get one.


We headed to Mandel Square at the recommendation of Greg (who being an engineer, the last project he worked on in SA before they moved back to the US was the GuaTrain system) and Magdel. Mandela Square is not nearly as cool or cultural as it sounds, basically a high end shopping center, but there was a cool statue of the man .....
Though perhaps they are trying to make a statement with the locations of their restaurants ..... notice the one in the front in relation to the next one behind it .....
After that we all crashed out for the night looking forward to heading into Kruger National Park the next day.

No comments:

Post a Comment