As we alluded to in our blog sneak preview, we had an adventurous beginning to this trip.
We settled in easily at our usual Johannesburg layover spot—The Airport Game Lodge—on Tuesday evening. It was quite chilly perched out on the patio after dinner working with our new satellite modem. Purchasing the satellite is the result of much research into our internet options in Africa. The technology available in Zambia is not near that of the U.S. and is very costly. We asked Tom, one of the Harvard students who are joining us on this trip, to look into options that would bypass the Zambian system. Many email exchanges and research phone calls later, we find ourselves the proud owner of a small gadget (about the size of a laptop computer) that we point towards the sky at a very particular angle and direction and, voila, pretty high-speed internet. We are quite excited that this will allow us to keep you closely in the loop on this journey.
We sat out on our deck, training ourselves on the nuances of the system. Around 9:00pm the cold won out and we called it a night.
Dave with the modem.