Our flight arrived in Amsterdam almost two hours late. Fortunately, our original layover was to have been a little over 3 hours, so just made it to the departure gate in time for the security checks began. (In Amsterdam, security checks are done at each gate rather than at the entrance to each concourse.)

Ready to leave the gate in Amsterdam

Our flight for Johannesburg left at about 11 am. The only time we could see the ground below was a view of the Sahara desert – sand for hundreds of miles around!

We arrived at the Johannesburg airport right on schedule at 9:15 pm and made it through immigration in record time. There was some type of camera in the immigration line that was used  for screening for ebola. We had to take off our glasses for that. We picked up all our bags and passed through the customs area even more quickly – no one was even there to check baggage!

Gottfried and Neal we there to met us after we went through customs. They had driven the mission Toyota Condor which had plenty of room for both us and our luggage. Mark got his first experience of riding in a vehicle on the left side of the road, although we think he was too tired to notice.  Within 15 minutes, we were at the TWR office in Kempton Park and settling into two rooms of the lodge for visitors located on part of the second floor.  After about 36 hours with little sleep, we were fast asleep a few seconds after our heads hit the pillow!