Getting to Africa… I don’t know if I made it easier or harder this time. Instead of one contiguous get-it-out-of-the-way nightmarish sequence of flights, like last year, this time it’s broken up into two pieces. First day, flying from San Francisco at 2:50pm and landing in Frankfurt at 9:45am the next morning. Then rent a day room at the Sheraton because the next flight isn’t for another 12 hours.

That means 12 hours where you can rest up a bit, right? Take a shower and sleep. Well, yes, but it also means that you are putting off for another day trying to get used to the time change, because we just got up and I’ kinda horrified to notice that it’s 8:53am back home (and 4:53pm in Frankfurt). Any thoughts that I was feeling like this (catching some sleep) was a good thing have gone out the (fortunately soundproofed) window and I’m just hoping that somehow I manage to enter into an altered state that actually allows me to sleep on this next 11 hour flight (Frankfurt to Johnannesburg)… in a cramped Lufthansa coach seat.

The toughest part is that we have to hit the ground running when we land, because we’ve got just 70 minutes between then and our next flight, and have been told it’s a difficult connection to make.

Wow. Tuesday-morning’s ride was so much easier, even as I was watching Kevin, Marcus and MarkP ride away from me on Kings! But you can’t ride your bike to South Africa, or Zambia, or Botswana. Hate that. I would be so much more comfortable if I could, or at least put me on a bike on a trainer instead of one of those awful airline seats. This will be the only time you’ll ever read me suggest that using a bike on a trainer is something I’d want to do.