Mechanical hitch delays BA flight to London …
Passengers on a British Airways flight to London have been stranded in Nairobi since Saturday after their plane developed engine problems.
The flight has been cancelled twice—on Saturday and Sunday nights. The 350 passengers were told the jetliner had a mechanical problem minutes before take-off on Sunday.
Yesterday, passengers who spoke to The Standard said they had been seriously inconvenienced.
Seriously inconvenienced? No shit.
I managed to make it home a few hours ago. I’m tired. I’m emotionally exhausted but I did meet someone really cool and spent the last day with her and had a good time and hope that I get to see her again without the benefit of a cancellation. When you’re in the middle of a crazy situation being stranded in a foreign land, you tend to make friends quickly in order to keep sane. The funny thing is that this mystery girl is 3 days younger than me, born not too far from me, and was at the ICTR in Arusha the same day Scott and I went and we talked for about 30 seconds. Fun but odd.
I was rebooked direct through London on BA without going through Toronto, which was fine. First Class was relatively empty and the food was just dreadful because I’ve been eating the same damn airplane food for the last few days. I did watch “The Interpreter” and liked it a lot.
Tomorrow I go back to work. I was somewhat productive and cleaned out a lot of work emails and got a replacement SIM for my phone since it was stolen in Arusha (thanks a lot Mount Meru hotel – you suck).
“You can checkout anytime you like, but you can never leave.” – The Eagles
So again, we had another engine problem and couldn’t take off last night. This was slightly longer than the night before and I got to the hotel around 5:30am, so roughly 6 hours was spent on the plane. We did get some forward progress going – we did actually taxi away from the gate. But in the end we were brought back and we all got the sense of deja vu. The earliest I can be back in Chicago is on Tuesday evening – 2 full fucking days behind schedule.
I’m at a golf resort called the Windsor, so I’m going to go out and hack up the course with some Brits I met during my first night stuck. Might as well be productive.
So I’m stuck in Nairobi overnight. No kidding. We were on the plane for about 5.5 hours with engine trouble before they kicked us off and put us in area hotels. Right now I am at the Nairobi Serena and am paying crap rates for internet access.
Last night the BA crew also said that because of issues with catering, they only had beer and wine (which is an improvement from the flight down) so that means no Johnnie Walker Blue for me. Also, all passengers were getting coach food, regardless of class of service. Doesn’t say much for British Airways First class treatment.
And I get to miss a day of work as well. Fuck.
I’m beyond frustrated. This was supposed to be a trip of a lifetime and it’s turning into a complete clusterfuck. Too bad my serotonin has dropped so I’m too tired to do anything – not even scream or bitch. I’m too tired to cry. I feel alone and isolated.
We’re leaving Arusha in a few hours and I’ll have mixed feelings about the city. Sure, it’s dirty and you get harassed by touts trying to sell you everything from antiques to safari/Kili packages. But it’s also the home of good food (that we had to find after some digging). Our first night in town, we went to a barbecue (Khan’s Barbecue) at night that’s an auto parts store by day, which sounds bizarre but it was pretty damn good. First night back in Arusha we went to Pizzarusha, which claimed to have “the best damn pizza in Africa.” It sucked.
Arusha is also home of the UN’s International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, which anyone can come and visit. Scott and I went (after I twisted his arm to go along) to kill off time and we went to see the courts in session. The procedure goes like this – you check in with security, hand them your passport and then go through the metal detector and watch the courts. The security guy that checked us in was on a roll. He asked if we were Americans and we said yes, and then he replied that they don’t let Americans in but let Al Qaeda in. He had to be Canadian, because there was no discernable accent and that he was just on a roll and ripping on people. It was totally funny. The courts were pretty interesting because I had no idea what to expect. All the barristers were wearing wigs and it was like being in a British court. I just wish I knew more about Rwanda and could follow along.
Oh, and there is no gift shop at the ICTR.
We’re going to have lunch in a little bit at a place called Steers, which is super awesome fast food with killer burgers. Then it’s a 5 hour bus ride to Nairobi, where we kill off time until we get on our respective flights. I’ll be in my own bed 48 hours from now, but until then, miles to go before I sleep, as that asshat Robert Frost wrote.
We did a 4 day safari, starting at Ngorongoro Crater, which is freakin’ huge – something like 90km across. Then we did a game drive and got to see a large amount of giraffes, elephants, gazelles, lions and the occasional cheetah. We stayed at nice and expensive resorts, which somewhat sucked. The second day we went to Serengeti National Park and had another fun filled day of running around and snapping photos of wildlife. The highpoint of the night was at the hotel we ran into the Aussies (Tim, Wilma, Anneke, Uncle Bruce and my “mom”, Cybill) from Tasmania at the hotel, so we had drinks with them and spent the night telling offensive jokes. At the hotel, we were told to lock our doors and windows at night because baboons will come in and steal your shit. So we laughed it off and said that it was just funny. The next day on the way out of the park, we ran into the Aussies again and apparently Uncle Bruce left his window open and some baboon came in during the night and stole his big bag of trail mix. Sucks for him.
Yesterday we had a half day safari and made it up to Lake Manyara Resort, where we had the exciting views of baboons EVERYWHERE. About two dozen hopped into the backyard and decided to hang out near the pool. I went upstairs to take a nap and ended up watching them no more than 15 feet away outside my window. Scott decided to serenade the baboons and he only lured a very young French girl next door instead (who was either staying with her dad, or she has a really poor taste in men). Today was a short drive around Lake Manyara and we came back to Arusha to spend our final day here before we start the trip back to the US, starting with a 5 hour bus ride from Arusha, across the border at Namanga to Nairobi – then lots of hours of flying. Sounds like fun, eh?
I mailed out a grand total of 70 postcards. Deanne got hers in the UK already so they should be in the US very soon.
The adventure is almost over. Time for another one when I get back…
ps: I know my blog posts on the road are lame – but I promise a full writeup when I get back.
So I got altitude sickness about 90 minutes away from Gillman’s Peak and didn’t make it to the top. Scott did, and I’m proud of him for it. Our bodies are sore as hell and my feet look like pulp (I took pics and will post when I get back). We got back late last night after a grueling and painful 20km downhill descent, then a 2 hour drive back to Arusha.
I don’t think of myself as a failure for not reaching the top. I did jokingly beat my “girlfriend” and main competition, a 10 and a half year old Aussie girl who was cute as a button. I couldn’t hold food down and was dehydrated and in the end, the altitude got to me. When you can’t walk in a straight line and your body goes to shit, it’s time to pack it in. The good thing is if/when I come back, I know what I did wrong and can correct my mistakes. But still, it was worth doing and I enjoyed it immensely.
Time to go book the safari and mail out some postcards. I’ve sent 50 out already. Shit.
Well, the last 24 hours have been pretty interesting. We took a city tour and saw the Railroad Museum, the National Museum and managed to hang out. I also managed to get my ass handed to me at the Jockey Pub because I failed to drink a yard of Tusker beer in under 3 minutes. And at a whim, Scott and I headed towards the airport to see if our luggage arrived since British Airways was kinda useless in providing information. After running around the airport, we finally managed to get through security and found our luggage. It was the best day ever, or so it felt like. So instead of pushing back the departure to Arusha until tomorrow, we left bright and early this morning for the 5 hour ride across the border through shitty roads in a cramped shuttle bus. It sucked, but it was still kinda fun.
Arusha has more touts than Nairobi did, which is practically impossible. Everyone’s your best friend when they have something to sell you.
We leave tomorrow bright and early for Kilimanjaro. I’d wish myself luck but I wouldn’t know what to do with it. Next post should be Sunday.
Scott and I are continuing our tour of Nairobi’s internet cafes, ranging from shitty to acceptable. Yesterday we chilled and went to Carnivore for dinner and found out that our stuff didn’t arrive last night. Carnivore was pretty awesome, with eating good camel, ostrich, crocodile and some lesbians*.
Today we made our daily rounds to the internet cafes and Scott managed to get a hold of someone at the airport who said that our luggage made it to London and *should* be on tonight’s flight. Meanwhile, we’ve told our friends at Canadian Himalayan Expeditions that we’re fucked for another day. If stuff arrives today, then we’re Arusha-bound tomorrow. If it doesn’t, we’ll either shack up with some shady safari outfit or we’ll go to the AFEW Giraffe Center and Karen Blixen’s house.
We did actually see some sights today, from the National Railway Museum, The Snake Park, The National Museum and the highest point in Nairobi (well, second highest, but whatever) and just got to drive around. It was pretty interesting. Scott and I are big marks for touts and since we’re both nice and passive individuals, we’re ripe for the picking.
*Just kidding on the lesbians part.
Scott and I agreed that we should call abort on the Kili hike so instead of a pickup tomorrow, we’ll be picked up from Nairobi on Monday. This increases the likelihood that we’ll have our stuff by then, which is a good thing because I’m tired of wearing the same pants 4 days in a row. I did pull a rookie traveler thing and not pack socks/underwear but found a place near by that sold very bad Nike and Calvin Klein knockoffs.
Yesterday we went to Nairobi National Park and got to see 3 of the big 5 and took lots of pictures of rhinos, giraffes, ostriches, gazelles and baboons. It was good fun and we had dinner at a place called Tamarind, this kickass seafood place. Tonight we’re off to Carnivore for dinner and we’ll head to the AFEW Giraffe Center tomorow and take a half day city tour.
We are also playing a game when we are here. We are noticing an inordinate amount of couples where the woman is cute/hot and the guy is a douche or a tool. So far we’ve counted 11. It’s amazing and we’ve been joking that we should have seen if the pickup line “hey baby do you want to go to Africa with me?” is a valid pickup line.
We’re taking this all in stride, which is about all you can do. It still sucks ass.