We walked into the airport and were immediately spotted by every porter in the building.  Can’t imagine what about us, except for literally everything, said “Americans (i.e., rich and dumb), come take our money!”  So despite not having luggage which needed porting, they helped us anyway.  We admired the chutzpah of it.  I mean … you try and extract tips from a person for something, but not actually do that something.  In the elevator the guy asked us how we were and without pausing for an answer said, “My life is terrible.  I don’t make a salary and just rely on tips.”  The subtlety was sublime.  So it cost us $20 to get from the entrance to the security checkpoint.   Per foot, that’s probably like 10 cents.  Fortunately, we never had to press a button or read a directional sign.  A second helper even got us our boarding passes from the automatic kiosk.  

This happens to us more often than not during international travel.  I think Americans are known for throwing money at things for no good reason.  Look at “democratizing” Iraq, which only cost, what, a gazillion dollars?  When Americans travel, the world knows and her people come calling.  It’s easy to feel taken advantage of, but Rebecca and I don’t make it about us.  We just sort of chuckle at the theatrics of it.  Depending on whether or not we have any cash left, we’ll have to be very judicious about asking for directions in the airport next time.   

From Johannesburg we flew on an Embraer regional jet from to Hoedspruit.  I’ve flown a lot on these jets to and from North Carolina, and this poor plane made noises I’ve never heard.  You know that point after takeoff where the pilot throttles down the engines to cruise?  It never happened.  When we began our decent, he pulled back the power a little but really just pointed the nose down.  This meant we picked up enormous speed as we descended.  You could hear the air screaming by the plane.    When the pilot dropped the landing gear, the entire airframe groaned in protest.  We hit the ground and didn’t slow down till the very end of the runway because we had to back taxi on the runway to the terminal.  It was odd not hearing the roar of the engines reverse thrusting.  The brakes began squealing in ways that would make a NYC subway train blush.  It was a subtle combination of yearning for simpler times with notes of a high-pitched, anguished wail from the loss of a loved one — think spouse grieving by a graveside in an exuberant display of grief.  I honestly thought weren’t going to stop in time.  At the last second we jerked around to the right and hit the u-turn.  

And Airlink is the safest airline down here! Needless to say I highly recommend this experience.  Once you’ve survived how much abuse an airplane can actually take, you realize how tough these machines actually are and how in the U.S we rarely push their limits.  After climbing down the stairs, I looked back at the jet for a second and said to myself, “That’ll do, plane.  That’ll do.” 

Hoedspruit is a cute and well-manicured airport, nicer than most I’ve been to in Caribbean and Central America.  It took an hour to drive to the lodge.   

But really we all want to see animals and not hear me talking.  So, below are some pictures.  I’ll likely send a second batch later today.