Crystal got up early this morning, Justin slept a bit more.  We left the hotel around 08:30 to walk across the street to the airport.  We got through security quickly - they utilize current technology in Brussels, plus the layout of the bins next to the conveyor belt is much more intuitive and efficient.  We saw that the lounge we always used was closed for restorations, so we took an elevator downstairs to a “Pop Up” Lounge, but it looked overwhelmed.  Instead, we read the information sign indicating that there was another lounge (not a pop-up) at A/T 72, which we assumed was closer to where we’d be leaving from anyway.

It turns out that the lounge was on the other side of a small immigration divider (i.e., for flights outside the Schengen Area), but that’s exactly what we were doing, so this was not a problem.  The demographics on the other side of immigration noticeably different - it was just African flights in the T zone, and the demographics went from being 90/10 White to 90/10 Black.  It’s too bad we don’t find ourselves in this part of the airport more often, as the Sunrise Lounge at the T Gates was really nice.  The seats we had were near a TV, and we did our best to avoid watching the news, but Crystal saw a headline stating that Spain said no to war, so we were happy to see that.  We hoped our group would be totally quiet as to politics, but also figured over two full weeks - with a war going on - that was unlikely.

In the lounge we could see the pending departures, and there were many flights going to two cities - Nairobi and Kigali, Entebbe and Bujumbura, Lomé and Accra, etc.  We assume larger planes are necessary because of the distance involved, and also to have room for pricey first class sections.  But we also figure that there are many places that, on their own, are not busy enough to fill up an entire plane, so by having multiple cities that are in close proximity, this allows the flights to be largely full.  Crystal went to look for conditioner, and at first she didn’t find anything, but then Justin reminded her we’d already cleared security and weren’t getting on another plane for two weeks, so she went back and found something for the trip.

At boarding, they weren’t sure about our Togolese visa, which was a print-out of an online visa that had been approved.  We don’t know what else we could’ve done, so we weren’t too concerned, we just had to wait for a couple minutes whilst some supervisor checked things out.  In the end it was all fine, and we took our seats in Premium Economy.  We had no neighbors, and we were in the last row before a barrier behind us, so we figured it would be a pretty quiet flight.  Premium Economy was fairly equivalent to US domestic first class, and - at least for our flight - the price wasn’t too much higher than economy.  To our surprise, we got a personalized welcome from the flight attendant, which we haven’t had too many of in the past.  The safety video was like a music video, definitely one of the best we’ve ever seen.

Once in the air, we basically went due south to Accra, and the flight was pretty boring (in a good way).  We landed around 17:00, having gotten our hour back.  Roughly 75-80% of the plane got off there, which wasn’t a huge surprise, but it was a bit odd to see how empty the flight was going to be our last leg.  The flight attendants asked about hand luggage to make sure every bag had an owner (i.e., no one who departed in Accra left something on board), so thankfully we weren’t both in the toilet at the same time, as it would’ve been horrible to have had our bags taken off the plane while we were peeing.  We were on the ground for about an hour for refueling and cargo removal and whatnot.  It didn’t seem like anyone boarded the plane, but we weren’t sure if any cargo might’ve been loaded.

We took off again around 18:00, for an exceedingly short flight.  The only thing of note was a flight attendant that was spraying some sort of bug spray.  When we landed, we were the second and third people off the plane, and we went straight to the immigration area to avoid any lines.  We couldn’t quite understand the process at immigration.  There was a woman in front of us (who we’d seen at check-in in Brussels) who was in front of us.  Even though she was at the window, they asked Justin to come up, and they took his passport and piece of paper with the visa printout.  They then told him to step back and wait, which made no sense.  Our best guess is that they needed time to make/print a sticker for a Visa to physically insert into the passport.  Whatever the case, there were no issues, and it didn’t take too long.

We met Daniel from TransAfrica once outside.  Whilst we booked with Wilderness, TransAfrica was the local ground operator, and we remembered them from discussions with Bill and Peter on our Balkans trip in 2024.  Daniel told us about a welcome dinner at 20:30, and that we’d be heading to the hotel as soon as one other person arrived.  In the vehicle we met Abass and Sessy.  The other person we were waiting on was the woman from the immigration line and also from Brussels.  This was a bit of a surprise, because we’d been told that no one else was on our flight.  For some reason she was in a different vehicle for the drive to the hotel.

At the hotel (Hôtel 2 Février) we got checked in, and in the elevator up to our room we met the other person, a woman from the LA area named Taryn.  We told her we’d see her shortly at the welcome dinner.  In the room we decompressed for a bit, and got on the wifi.  We had noted in big bold letters not to use roaming in Togo, as the price was exorbitant, so wi-fi was the only option for catching up on emails and messages from friends/family.

At dinner we met the other 5 guests on the trip.  It was supposed to be 7, but our guide Sena - who we met at the dinner - told us they had bailed just a couple days prior.  The group jokingly surmised it was because of the war in Iran (because that is a long way from West Africa), but then we wondered if that might actually be their rationale.  So we were the only couple on the trip, with five solo travelers: Taryn from the LA area, Jane from the LA area, Hertz from the Bay Area, Brian from the Bay Area, and Stephenie from DC (but originally the Bay Area).  So everyone had significant ties to California.  Aside from one random comment about Spain being worse than in 1492 (we think in reference to them not wanting to assist Israel in its war or genocide), nothing too problematic was said at the first dinner.

Sena introduced himself, and we each briefly introduced ourselves as well.  Crystal got a local fish curry dish, which several other people got as well.  Justin got a Singaporean noodle dish, eventually.  At first they brought out something entirely different, which was hard to fathom since Justin had pointed to the dish on the menu and the waiter had repeated the name.  Fortunately when it came out, it was quite good.  We spent much of the meal chatting with Jane and Stephenie, who are friends.  Stephenie works - or used to work - for the State Department.  She, and everyone else, were quite tired, and understandably so.  At least for us, we were in the same time zone as at home, and we hadn’t taken any red-eye flights.  

After dinner we went back to the room and went to sleep shortly after arriving.  We did get an email from MIR asking for our travel insurance policy for our trip to the Caucasus in April, which we hope was just for their records, and not an ominous sign that they needed to gauge whether we would be covered if they canceled the trip.