By Jerry Long, August 30, 2010
In this series of blogs I share the day-by-day journal from my archery safari experience with Dries Visser Safaris in the Republic of South Africa. The entries will likely contain more detail than some desire, but in keeping with dv’s Mostly Archery mission, I want to help you be more successful and I think the extra details will.
August 13th, 2010 – Travel Day 1
Note: There won’t be lot of pictures during the travel days entries. Please bear with me, they are coming.
I checked in with United Express in Milwaukee. I was planning to be quite solemn when it came to my bow case. It was larger than the 62 allowable inches (length plus thickness plus width), but to me this is a scam. I could find no airline approved compound bow case on the market that fit in this allowance. The counter attendant never said a word. She tried to get me to take an earlier flight to Chicago O’Hare which I refused. Conceptually, I wanted my luggage and I to be on the same plane. I am glad that I refused as its doors closed before I got through security. My flight was overbooked, but I made it safely onboard.
The SKB double parallel limb bowcase.
Upon arrival to Chicage O’Hare I navigated my way to the Dulles departure gate. Boarding this flight went well also. Once at Dulles I found the international departure gate for the seventeen hour South African Airway’s flight and settled in for the seven hour departure wait, perused the gift shops and scouted out dinner. I read and listened to the radio via my I-pod while making sure it was charged for the long flight.
At some point the counter called for us to change out our originally issued boarding passes for new purple ones. I did it quickly, but despite many calls others did not. Upon boarding these passengers had to go stand in line again to get a purple boarding pass.
Turns out I was seated next to Tim from Oregon who was also a bowhunter. We passed the time off and on by sharing stories. I had an outside aisle row seat and it turns out passengers can’t store stuff under the seat in front of them in this particular seat. That was an inconvenience since my pack was loaded with things like water, No Jet Lag pills, two I-pods, books and magazines. It ended up working out to store it in the overhead, but it was, again, slightly inconvenient. Doug at Gracy Travel had helped me choose the aisle seat since I get up to the call of nature a lot and, due to a left calf blood clot from 2007, I wanted to move around occasionally.
The meals and beverages were decent, filling and frequent. The personal entertainment system, consisting of a TV mounted in the back of the seat in front of each passenger, had plenty of good movies, music, TV shows, games, flight map and silly exercises to choose from. I read and never even got my I-pod out. Every two hours I took my No Jet Lag pill and walked to the back of the plane. The stewards and stewardesses were very accommodating. Having suffered a blood clot in my left calf in 2007 I had been advised by the Hunt Doctors to wear compression socks (I simply used some extremely tight-fitting soccer socks that also double for winter running) and ensure I got up and moved occasionally. I performed a series of upper and lower body stretches as well as some toe raises to get the blood pumping each time.
Each time Tim would get up and return he brought something back with him; juice, chocolates, sunflower seeds (which actually turned out to be instant coffee). That helped pass the time. The one-hour fuel stop in Dakar was uneventful. The associated fumigation was also not that bad.
happy hunting, dv
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