Sunday, July 31, 2011

Arriving in Gaborone


We had a very funny booking that was the cheapest at the time (back in February), though was not very cheap: a United flight from Philadelphia to Dulles (made no sense) where we got our SAA flight to Johannesburg via Dakar and then on to Gaborone. We have not flown SAA for a while and we were, unfortunately, rather disappointed. We let some passengers off in Dakar and took on new ones but most of us stayed on the plane for more than an hour. (Question: what is that monument that overlooks Leopold Senghor International Airport?) Mave said she could see the outline of West Africa as we took off from Dakar in early morning – that was cool. Still, I think we agreed that an eight hour layover in Europe, when you can get out and walk around and get some decent food (and coffee!), is preferable to our quicker though more painful journey. We really did not eat anything for 24 hours and so were looking forward to the News CafĂ© at ORT International Airport in Johannesburg.

It took us a little more than 24 hours to get here and a little less than 24 hours to get settled in. At the Sir Seretse Khama International Airport – very much still under reconstruction - only two bags awaited us much to Mave’s dismay. But Avis was still open, waiting more than two hours to give us our hired Toyota Corolla. Our accommodations, a ‘cottage’ at Godi’s near Northside, are great. On Saturday we made five or six trips to Riverwalk Mall, to get our phones operating, get on the internet, do some shopping, have some food and drop off Mave for the evening teen scene extraordinaire and then of course back again to pick her up later! (And one trip to the airport where we retrieved the lost bag.) It is definitely winter time, most noticeable in the evening.

1 comment:

  1. Was it the African Renaissance Monument you saw?

    http://wikitravel.org/en/Dakar

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