WEATHER: In a plane and airports all day
HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Finally making it to Nairobi
BUMMER OF THE DAY: Missing my flight connection in Cairo
WORD OF THE DAY: You’ve missed the flight “No Way”!!!!
Today is departure day.
Today I say goodbye to new friends made.
Today we say goodbye to the River Baroness.
I knew that today was going to be a BIG day. We had to be out of our cabins by 8am this morning. We could stay onboard the ship till whenever we needed and lunch was going to be served at 12 noon, which we were welcome to stay for that as well if required. As I was on the group transfer at 10.30am, we had 2.5 hours to kill in the Monet lounge. I set up in ‘my’ corner and interneted for about the first hour, till to many people were on the Wi-Fi and slowed it down to a snail’s pace, so I gave up and decided to read my book instead. There turned out to be only 1 couple affected by the Air France strike, so they were heading to the airport with the 2nd group at 8.15am to see if they could get on another flight.
The coach transfer to the airport took 30 minutes and as all the people on my transfer were heading back to the USA, they were all dropped off at the same terminal, pretty much all catching the same flights at terminal 2E. I was leaving from terminal 1 and was the only one left on the coach. I didn’t realize just how big Charles de Gaulle Airport is with its 3 terminals and it was a fair hike to get from terminal 2 to terminal 1. The terminals are unique. Terminal 1 is a round building with all the check-in counters running around in the inner circle of the building. There is plenty of seating on the outer rim of the counters and then past the counters most inner circle has more seating, food café’s and money exchanges. The terminal also has plenty of charging points for your last minute charging requirements which was good, so I could juice up my IPod before heading up to the departure gates, as I had taken up a possie and booted up the computer to get cracking on my last Ethiopia blog while listening to some music. This helped kill 2 hours before heading to the Egypt Air check-in counter. Unfortunately I had forgotten to ask Beth to reserve window seats, so I got the next best thing and asked for an aisle. My bag came in at 22.8kg and I am back to having my Intrepid bag as my back-up carryon bag with things that don’t fit in my backpack. This will need to change though and I plan on going through all my stuff in Nairobi, taking out all the stuff I don’t need or need to send home and getting rid of that bag all together. Heading to Ushuaia next week, the check-in baggage is only allowed to be 15kg, so I need to get rid of what I can. I know I will not even get close to 15kg, but I need a cull anyway, so I will have time to do this in Nairobi.
There were several entrances to the gates located just past the inner circle seating, where escalators took you up 3 floors to the departure levels. It was like some sci-fi movie with all the escalators all crossing over each other with us travelling in a glass covered walkway. It was pretty cool. Once through immigration, my gate was another 10 minute walk away through some of the longest travellators I have ever travelled on, but still getting to my gate with plenty of time to spare.
We boarded the flight only a few minutes behind schedule, so at this point I wasn’t too worried, after 27 international flights I have seen the time that has been made up in the air no problems always arriving on time or just a few minutes behind schedule. My connection in Cairo was tight with only an hour and 15 minutes, but my bags were checked all the way through and I had my boarding pass, so for a fleeting moment I thought about a missed connection and then quickly took my seat and waited for take-off. Well we waited and waited and waited and I saw my connection time in Cairo dwindling down. We waited for 90 minutes due to a problem with the cargo doors, and now I had a problem of only having a 75 minute connection time. I felt just awful and quite strung out by the whole thing, knowing even if we made up time in the air, it was going to be close if we made it or not. I only have such a short time in Nairobi, so the time was precious for me and if I missed this flight I didn’t even know when the next one was but it would be eating into my time. I checked with 2 different hostee’s and they were both adament that the Nairobi flight would wait for us, it worked out there was a younger French gal sitting next to me also connecting onto the same flight, so we stuck together when we landed.
Egypt Air have great planes and I have enjoyed all my flights with them. We were on an A330-300 which had a 2x4x2 configuration and the flight was chockers. The down side travelling with long haul airlines in the same month is that the movies don’t change, so if you go crazy on the first flights, it only leaves the dreg movies on subsequent flights. One thing I didn’t notice before was that Egypt Air offer Wi-Fi connection in the air. It’s not free at a cost of 29.95USD for 26MB or 14.95USD for 13MB. I wasn’t that desperate to get onto the internet but thought that was pretty interesting to note.
So after a 4 hour and 20 minute flight we landed in Cairo at 9.30pm and our connecting flight was due to leave at 9.30pm. We hauled some serious arse the second we got off the plane, running like mad women through throngs of people to the checkpoint that was to let us back to the gates and our plane, and this is where the first blow of bad news was received, we were stopped and told to visit the Egypt Air counter next door, which could only mean bad news. This is where the devastating news was delivered that the damn plane didn’t wait for us and that we had missed it by 13 minutes. This is the first flight ever in my LIFE that I have missed, whether by my own means or airline connections and my first feeling was devastation until the guy in the same breath said we had been rebooked on a Kenyan Airways flight that leaves at 11.25pm. WHAT!!! That is AWESOME!!!!! That was less than 2 hours away! You beauty. When we had arrived at the counter, they had already revalidated our tickets reflecting the changes and we had new bag tags as well already attached to the new e-ticket! It was good to know that they knew what was happening, plans were in place and we were still on our way. There was also a business class passenger also in the same boat, so there were 3 of us all waiting for what to do next. So we had new e-tickets but no boarding passes. We had to wait to be taken, as we had to change terminals, so thinking we had time on our side we weren’t too worried, but with changes comes paper work from all different departments and we had to wait 20 minutes at the service counter, before getting taken to where the bus shuffles people back and forth to terminals. We had more paperwork to be completed by security there, as we were boarding pass-less, this took another 20 minutes and then to our surprise a guy walked in looking for us and we got into a VIP minivan to transfer to get us to terminal 2, which we could understand why they wouldn’t let us walk it, it was just too far, so we got dropped at the doors, waved through by the first security and then second security took our passports and told us to take a seat as he made a phone call, telling us the Kenyan check-in desk was now closed, so while we waited a guy came and took our passports and e-tickets and ran off with them and told to take a seat. The time is now 10.30pm and our flight leaves in an hour. We stated to get a little antsy, we checked with the security guy a few times and at 11pm, our guy returned with boarding passes in hand and we were allowed through to the gates. They had just made the first call for boarding, so we were home free. But let me tell you it was a very stressful process and any other time it wouldn’t have mattered so much as I have given myself buffer days just for this type of thing happening, but once again my time was precious in Nairobi and it has worked out I have only lost 3 hours.
So Helene and I were seated together for the next flight and not until we were strapped in and the hostee was going through the flight plan that we were not on a direct flight but we had a stop in Khartoum in Sudan for 45 minutes. We had to look in the airlines magazine to see where the hell it was, and at the end of the day what did we care, it gets us to Nairobi with only a slight delay, so we weren’t going to complain. The Kenyan Airways plane was a lot older than what I had previously travelled on this route (done twice previously) sitting in a Boeing 737-800 with a seat configuration of 3x3. There was no in seat entertainment but they did run the same movie I saw 3 weeks ago on the small screens that drop every 5 seats. By this time Helene and I are knackered and pretty much slept the 2 hours and 25 minute flight. We arrived into Khartoum at 2.10am, where we were not allowed off the aircraft; with passengers departing and new passengers collected we were back in the air at 3am. We were served a sorry looking cheese croissant and a few biscuits which I didn’t eat and slept again for the next 2.5 hours of the flight to Nairobi.
So at 6.30am and 24 hours after waking up the previous day we finally landed in Nairobi, Kenya. Now that is a travel day. That is the biggest day I have had all trip, but I have a bigger EPIC day coming up in less than a week, but I’m not going to think about that just now and just be happy I am finally back in Africa.
The downside of getting in at 6.30am, as we disembarked the flight, you could see at least another 4 aircraft landing, people disembarking from other flights which in turn made the visa processing line so much longer than what it was last time I was here at 3.30am with only the arrival of 2 flights. So we just had to be patient and wait our turn. I got a really nice lady Rose, and she asked if I had arranged a transfer with the hotel. I told her I hadn’t I was just going to catch a taxi and she said she could arrange Patrick to come and get me; he could be ready and waiting out the doors of customs with a sign with my name on it. I checked the price and it was the same as the price I had been told a taxi would cost. So if I can’t trust the customs lady, who could I trust. I told her that would be awesome – thanks so much.
After a 30 minute delay with a broken baggage carousel, yes we are not home free yet, Helene and I exited the customs area and there was Patrick with a sign in his hand with my name on it. We made a few phone calls to Helene’s transport people to make sure she was going to be okay and Patrick walked me to this swanky looking vehicle with a driver, I reconfirmed the price to make sure we were all on the same page and then I was whisked away to my hotel. Well I should use the word whisked very loosely as the traffic was a NIGHTMARE. Last time I was here at 4am in the morning the journey took 20 minutes this time at 8am on a Monday morning the journey time was 90 minutes. Yes 1.5 hours!!! But TIA people. This Is Africa and what could we do about it? I was just thankful I was here.
Welcome back to Nairobi. I would love to tell you all why I have made the trip, but I am just not quite ready to reveal those details just yet. Let’s see how it all goes and then I may be able to let you all in on my secret I am holding close to my heart.
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