EZE - SAO - JHB ...

Things got off to an early start on Saturday morning; everyone’s alarms were set within about 10 minutes of each other so the apartment went from sleepy to action in no time. We ate breakfast together to give our trip a good start, loaded up the van, and headed to the airport. Diego’s mom had left Pergamino that morning to come to the airport and say goodbye but because of the soccer game she didn’t make it in time, and had to say a tearful goodbye over the phone as we waited in line at immigration. Everything went smoothly, until the Duty Free shop where the boys couldn’t control themselves with the cheap perfume and electronics. Despite my repeated warnings that we were low on time, they perused everything until finally Sylla got the hint and we decided to head out. Diego was paying for his perfume and suddenly there’s a flight attendant: “TAM Sao Paulo? TAM Sao Paulo? Last call. You have to run!” So the boys paid for their things and we started running through the airport – of course the gate was in some obscure, far-off corner. We’re running and running, we finally come up on the gate and, holy crap, there’s still people in line to board. That was a good laugh and we got on the plane just fine, where we proceeded to wait at least an hour before taking off.

TAM was great; they gave us little candies before the flight started (to get our blood sugar up after the marathon through the airport, haha). The flight was around two hours and we got full meal service (take a hint AA!), a nice pasta. We all had personal screens with games and movies, I watched Pirates of the Caribbean 3, which I still don’t recommend to anyone. We arrived in Sao Paulo, went through security, and lo and behold, another Duty Free shop! Luckily I’m not wooed by those things, I took the opportunity to look for our flight info on the screen – not there. I checked the time, it was 17:55 and our flight departed at 18:30! That was enough to get the boys moving. So we’re running through the Sao Paulo airport now. We went to the TAM counter and they told us terminal 2, which involved: going up some stairs, running down and through various corridors, going down some stairs, running through more corridors, running through a Duty Free shop – they’re everywhere – and of course our gate was the LAST one in terminal 2. Once again, we arrived to a long line of people waiting to board. We stood in line for a minute until I remembered we had to check-in with the airline. So I took the boys up to the counter where we got everything sorted out and boarded the plane. What would they have done without me??

Definitely the least comfortable 9 hour plane ride I’ve ever had. The seats barely reclined at all. The service was great, until the stewardess threw away Diego’s mate thermos he bought at the Buenos Aires airport (language barrier). Anyway, now I’m in Johannesburg at the airport. Diego went out to explore the city; I stayed here at the airport, in part out of solidarity with Sylla (he couldn’t get his visa in time) and in part because I was worried about not being able to make it back to the airport for whatever reason. Which is guess is a moot point because if Diego doesn’t show we won’t be getting on the plane. Anyway, I kind of wish I had gone with him to see the city, even if I’m not a tourist, because just being in the airport is completely intriguing with all the different kinds of people and cultures milling about. Already, I’ve had to come to terms with a lot of misconceptions I had about Africa. I’m excited to be here and would like to come back to South Africa with more time.



The next flight leaves in about 10 hours – hopefully we won’t have to run to catch it!