4.27.13

5:30 am. Wake up

6:30 am. Packed and ready to go

7:00 am. Our contact realizes that the van that is supposed to pick us up is a no show

7:05 am. Our contact finds another mode of transportation for us

7:30 am. First group loads in van and leaves our team house

7:45 am. Second group loads van and leaves team house

7:50 am. Both groups arrive at Shop Mor (grocery store) in Nsoko

8:01 am. All 14 of us load van at Shop Mor

8:08 am. Van leaves Nsoko

9:30 am. Van arrives in Mazini to meet three other teams

9:35 am. Load bus with the other teams

9:45 am. Bus leaves Manzini

9:50 am. Bus stops to get gas—or atleast sit in the gas station parking lot. We never saw any gas being pumped.

10:00 am. Bus leaves gas station

10:44 am. Arrive at Swaziland border

11:00 am. Made it through customs and walked to South Africa border

11:10 am. Arrive at South Africa border

11:20 am. Through customs

11:25 am. Get on bus

11:26 am. Bag of doritos and a coke for lunch…lunch of champions

11:45 am. Leave border heading to airport

1:45 pm. Stop at gas station—this time the bus actually gets gas

2:09 pm. Bus pulls out of gas station

3:30 pm. Arrive at airport in Johanesburg

4:00 pm. Squad finds observation deck to camp out for the night

10:30 pm. Made our “camp” for the night in the airport

11:00 pm. Go to sleep for the night

 

4.28.13

6:30 am. Awaken by security telling us we can no longer sleep on the observation deck

7:00 am. Pack up and head out to find breakfast

11:00 am. Head to check in at Qatar Airlines

12:10 pm. Checked in

12:30 pm. Lunch

1:35 pm. Back to gate ready to board plane

1:45 pm. Start boarding plane

2:00 pm. Got to seat (did the usual seat shuffle. We always have to switch seats with other Racers to sit next to each other)

2:45 pm. Flight left Johanesburg

(one hour time change)

11:11 pm. Flight lands in Qatar

11:30 pm. Load bus to take us to customs

11:43 pm. Arrive at customs—feel a little awkward not wearing a head wrap thingy.

12:54 am. Through customs

12:55 am. Load another bus to take us to hotel

1:15 am. Arrive at hotel (because of our layover the airline put us in a hotel for the night)

1:25 am. Eat “dinner”

3:00 am. BED

3:30 am. Timothy finally falls asleep

 

4.29.13

5:00 am. Wake up after our “nap”

5:15 am. Downstairs in lobby

5:30 am. Breakfast

5:43 am. Load bus back to airport

6:09 am. Arrive at airport

6:15 am. Made it through customs

6:24 am. Arrive at gate

7:46 am. Load bus taking us to airplane

8:02 am. Board plane

8:40 am. Plane leaves Qatar

1:14 pm. Plane lands in Bucharest, Romania

2:00 pm. Through customs with bags

3:00 pm. Ate lunch

5:00 pm. Load another bus to take us to our hostel

5:15 pm. Bus leaves airport

8:10 pm. Arrive at hostel in Brasov, Romania

9:00 pm. Ate supper in Brasov.

10:30 pm. Finally pass out in our beds (We had roughly 7 hours of sleep in 3 days)

 

Total Travel: Roughly 65 Hours of Travel