HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY: Finally getting back to Brazil
BUMMER OF THE DAY: Do I need to even say-leaving my man in Addis Ababa
WORD OF THE DAY: On time
DISTANCE TRAVELLED: 18,554KM
As mentioned in my last blog, Zeme and I had to say our goodbyes in the car park of the International Airport of Addis Ababa. People not travelling aren’t even allowed in the departures building, so there were a lot of people in the car park saying their farewells. On my way to the terminal a small kid pulled on my arm and asked for money, but I just kept moving with my trolley to the entrance. Your baggage gets scanned before you can even enter the building, so I joined what turned out to be the slowest of the 6 queues to get all my luggage scanned and entry to the departure terminal. This was when I noticed the zip on the front of my handbag was open and after looking in, everything seemed in place. I normally have my point and shoot camera in that pocket but I had given that to Zeme as a thank you gift so there was not much else in there that I could remember. So I zipped it up and thought nothing more of it.
The airport was busy. There were 3 flights all leaving within 40 minutes of each other. There was a KLM flight, an Ethiopian Airlines flight and my Lufthansa flight. The Lufthansa check-in queue wasn’t too bad, there were about 6 people in front of me, so I didn’t have to wait too long to get to the counter. While we were waiting the guy in front of me went to get departure cards for him and his wife and he also got me one as well which was really sweet of him, so I was able to fill that in while I was waiting. The check-in chick was really nice. She was telling me how lucky I was going to Brazil and she asked how hard it to get a visa was. Well sister, I can tell you a story just how difficult it is and how my boyfriend didn’t get one in time, but I wasn’t sure she had time for the whole story and if it was just one of those questions to pass time, so I gave the quick answer and just said they are quite hard and you need to make sure you have enough time. I asked about my usual window seat and there were none left already, but she thought she was doing me a favor by giving me a bulkhead seat. You know the seats that are in the exit rows but in the middle of the aircraft. I personally hate these seats as you generally don’t get a seat pocket, your table and TV screen come out of your seat and you have to keep your bag overhead for takeoff and landings. I am not a fan of these seats but I do know how popular they are and that people ‘think’ they are great seats. So I smiled and said thanks as I didn’t want to seem rude. It is only an 8 hour flight and a night flight, so I am sure I will sleep most of the way anyway. My bag weighed 23.4KG so I am not sure where the extra weight came in as I only bought 2 scarves on the trip and arrived with a bag weighing 19.4KG, but it was no drama and I was able to check it all the way through to Manaus and I had my boarding passes all the way, so it was just down to the timely arrival of all the flights and it would be a perfect travel day. I had 2 x 5 hour buffers at Frankfurt and Rio which is always r=e-assuring and I also had a day buffer before the group was to arrive off the ferry in Manaus should something drastic go wrong with the flights. I am always prepared for the unexpected and there was no way I could miss the truck in Manaus as I would be in all sorts of trouble.
The immigration lineup was quite long but it seemed to be moving at a god pace and after only 30 minutes I was through and into the departure gates and duty free shops. I wasn’t sure if the shops would be open at 10pm at night, last time I was here they were all closed, but my flight was a 2am and it was the only departure, so this time with so many people around it was a different story this time. I had a quick look at the shops but most of the things were not ‘Ethiopian’. I saw bangles that I had bought in Namibia, giraffes I had bought in Kenya and baskets that I had seen in Tanzania. So knowing I had all that stuff I thought it best that I head through the last security screening to get to my gate. It is lucky I did decide to do this as the line was massive and it took me over 50 minutes to get through this process and once I was up I had to go through the scanner 3 times (my Ethiopian bangles that don’t come off were an issue) and then my bag got scanned twice and then I had to take off my plastic Croc shoes to rescan them. I had 2 people telling me to do different things at the same time, but they finally got their act together and I made it through security in one piece and everything intact!
My departure gate was busy. I think we are going to have a full flight. Looking around at my fellow passengers there were 5 farangee couples all nursing an Ethiopian child throughout the lounge. It is nice to see that these children have been given a second chance in their short lives to grow up with loving parents, an opportunity for schooling, good health and opportunities that they may not have had if they had stayed in the orphanage in Ethiopia. I wonder what is involved in adopting a child from Ethiopia. My biological clock is ticking and it could be an option to adopt once Zeme and I have established ourselves. Anyway I’m thinking out aloud here, that is further down the track but will need to be addressed upon my return back. This is when I checked my phone and I had a missed call from Zeme checking to make sure I had got through okay and my flight was still on time, so it was nice to hear his voice one more time and sweet that he phoned. I had run out of credit on my Ethiopian number so I thought I might as well change back to my UK sim and that is when I reached into that front pocket of my bag and the penny dropped that my sim card case was not there. That’s what was missing when I zipped it up at the x-ray machine. I had all my sim cards from all the countries that I had travelled which wasn’t the big deal; the big deal was my UK sim card was in there as well. I normally keep that in my purse but I had put it in there as I knew I wouldn’t need it when we did our road trip. So I now didn’t have a sim card that worked. It is a horrible feeling when I rely on my hone for texting home and Zeme and friends and I just felt terrible. I also had 50GBP of credit on that sucker and now it is gone! I now wasn’t sure if that kid in the car park may have pinched it when he ‘asked’ me for money or if it did just innocently fall out somewhere from the car to the terminal entrance, but I will never know and now I was thinking on where I could get a new sim. My only chance was to see if I could get a German sim card when I arrived into Frankfurt as the South American sim cards have been useless and I didn’t want that to be my only option. Frankfurt was going to be my saving grace-hopefully!
So we boarded on time and I had an aisle seat in the bulkhead of 4 seats. As I sat in my seat a female hostee said that she saw me at the Trinity Church in the afternoon and I do recall 5 German tourists arriving as I was leaving, so they were some of the hostees on my flight. Small world and always nice to be friendly with the hostees. There was one of the adoption couples in my row and a spare seat next to me, so far. As the plane filled I was worried that the spare seat would be taken when one of the male hostees came over to me and asked if I would be kind enough to swap seats. I have to say my first question was to where and he said row 27, which is in that fantastic economy cabin that only has 4 rows so I had a yes on my lips when he sweetened the deal that I would be guaranteed a spare seat next to me! Woo Hoo you betcha, I’d be happy to help out. I swapped with a young family so that they could have the room for the bassinette for their baby in the bulk head and it was a win win as I would prefer a normal seat and the bonus of a spare one next to me was awesome. Hopefully this was to be a good omen for my travel day and welcome back my travel gods; it has been a while since we have seen you. The Lufthansa aircraft looked new and it was an A340-300 with a seating configuration of 2x4x2 and we had in-seat TV’s!!!! The male hostee was very grateful and said if there was anything I needed to just let him know, anything. Hmmmmm a double edged question? How about a business class upgrade maybe? Yeah I’m not gutsy enough to ask so I just said thanks and I’d let him know.
It was an uneventful flight. Being a night flight, they like to feed you and then out you to bed as soon as they can. I watched 1 movie The Descendants’, 2 episodes of Modern Family, man I love that show and my laughing out loud made other people laugh and then I hunkered down for the last 4 hours of the flight and got some beauty sleep. I woke to the smell of coffee and breakfast being served 1.5 hours out of Frankfurt and we landed on time at 5.30am into the 9th busiest airport in the world and the 3rd busiest in Europe and I can see why. I am not sure exactly where we landed but is was the longest taxi to a gate that I have ever experienced. It seriously over 15 minutes and that is no exaggeration. We must have landed somewhere near Munich I rekon, and we were hooting along on the ground as well. The airport was manic. Here were people everywhere and a lot trying to pass immigration and people cross walking to get to security; it was a bit if a schmozzle to say the least. Once we had disembarked, I needed to get my bearings, where was I and where did I have get to? I had a 5 hour connection, my flight didn’t leave till 10.45am so there was no urgency and I could take my time. I did find an information computer, so I jumped onto that to find out if there was a phone place somewhere in the airport. I was in luck there was an O2 shop check-in side and it opened at 8am till I worked out it was a Sunday and they didn’t open till 11am. Bugger, that option was no longer viable. I didn’t have to change terminals so I found an information counter that was staffed and he didn’t really have any idea at all, so I just joined the security queue to get re-scanned again so that I could get to my gate and the duty free shops. I got pulled up again for my Ethiopian bangles but when I tell them they don’t come off they are pretty good about it and just frisk me and I’m through. I wasn’t sure if t=all the shops would be open at 6am in the morning, but they were and I asked the newsagent if they sold sim cards which the reply was a no but to try the electronics shop, he was pretty sure they did. So I popped in there and they did sell them, so I was saved! It is one of those travel sims, so it’s not locked to one network, I could top up on line (Vodaphone I couldn’t) it would work in Brazil and I could call and text Ethiopia-what more could I want! It was probably a better option that what I had with my UK sim anyways, I just hoped it worked. The sim people always promise the world but when you leave and it doesn’t work it’s tough. It cost me 30EUR but for me I would have paid more knowing I was back in touch with the world again. I also bought some more memory cards for my camera and I also had to buy another point and shot camera, as the one I bought from the same shop 4 weeks ago I gave to Z. cameras in Ethiopia are so expensive, so it was my thank you gift to him and I knew I could get another one on my way back through Frankfurt. I was also entitled to a tax refund after all my purchases, so as I left the store I sent my first message to Zeme and I got a red cross and a message in German that I had no idea what it said. So I turned right back around and went back to ‘my’ dude and showed him the message and all we had to do was make a call to activate the sim card, so he took my phone, found the number to the store and called it and apparently I was back in business. I then got the ‘message delivered’ confirmation so then proceeded to text Shelly, Cheify and Kate in Brazil to check it and I got a response from all 3 but nothing back from Z. I am back in the telecommunication world again. So for those of you wanting my new number it is +49 178 292 2809.
This had helped kill some time and then I had to run around for the tax refund. You have to go to the custom and duty office to get a stamp to then go to the refund office to actually get the cash back. You had the option for cash or a refund to the card which they swipe there and then and I was 20 EUR richer after spending 184EUR. Still with plenty of time to spare I found a café at 7am in the morning and had 2 German sausages on rolls with a bottle of coke and I settle in there for 2 hours backing up my pictures onto my laptop and I even found some free Wi-Fi on my IPod where the airport gives you 30 minutes for free and then you can buy an hour for 4.95EUR or 4 hours for 9.95EUR which I didn’t think was too bad a price but I just used the 30 minutes and then stuck to the laptop and getting all my purchases out of their boxes and packets and packing them away. I felt bad having a coke at 7am in the morning but the guy next to me was drinking a beer, so it made me feel a whole lot better.
My next flight was from Frankfurt to Rio and I was preparing myself for the 12 hour flight. The departure gate didn’t look that busy so I was hoping to have a spare seat next to me for this flight, especially as it was a long haul one. The plane seemed brand new and I have totally been pleasantly surprised with Lufthansa. I flew them over 10 years ago to London and I remember then that they were old aircraft and not having much legroom, so it was good to travel on them to update my knowledge on them and I haven’t had a bad experience to date with them. Touchwood. The plane was an A340-300 with a 2x4x2 configuration and again we had in seat TV’s which was the bonus of flying into Rio and not Sao Paulo where they operate the old aircraft. I had my window seat in the 2 seats and I didn’t have to wait long for my seat companion to arrive. Damn I was hoping I would have that seat to myself. He was an Aussie guy and after 10 minutes they started to shut the aircraft we decided for him to jump to the spare seat across the aisle before someone else would take it and after a few false starts as 3 late comers joined, he was home and hose and we both ended up having spare seats next to us.
This flight was also uneventful and after feeding us a cooked breakfast I watched one movie, New Year’s Eve, and then went to sleep for 9 hours. I must have been tired and I love sleeping on planes as it kills the time like nothing else can. I did wake up as the sun was setting and we were at this point back flying over Brazil and it was one of the most spectacular sunsets I have seen from the air. The orange colours combined with the reds, the white clouds and the dark blue clouds made for some amazing photos. There is a whole album just of these pictures. What a nice way to be welcomed back to Brazil. Beautiful.
We arrived into Rio just after 5pm. 2 continents later I found myself back where I left exactly 4 weeks earlier but at the international terminal rather than the domestic. As my bags were checked all the way through after only waiting 30 minutes at immigration I walked straight to the ‘nothing to declare’ channel and was half way through when I thought about LA, where even though your bag is checked all the way through you still need to see it before connecting, so I doubled back out of the line and asked an airport dude and lucky I did as I did have to collect my bag and re-check it at the domestic terminal. BIG problem averted that was for sure. The Addis check-in chick should have told me that small piece of important information.
It was easy enough to walk and push my free trolley from the international to the domestic terminal as they are located in the same building. I found all the domestic check-in counters and looking at the flight departure board I couldn’t see my flight up there. I look for the flight number to start with and if I can’t find that I look for the destination as it may code share with another airline, one of them generally works. Well when neither of them worked this time I was getting this small niggling feeling of maybe my flight has been cancelled. There is a massive TAM counter (the airline I was flying) so I went over to them and asked if my flight number had changed. Well she tapped on her computer for like 10 minutes and then called someone else over who shrugged his shoulders and they both told me they couldn't see the flight either but to just go to check-in and they can let me know for sure. Um isn’t that your job? Anyway they must have a system so I just did as I was told. There was no-one in the check-in queue so I got straight to a counter as I was looking at the board wondering what other flight I could make thinking the worse when he took my Addis issued boarding pass and gave me one to replace it and it was on the same flight I had been originally booked on and my bag was taken and I had one more leg to get me to Manaus. Phew what a relief, I hate the thoughts that run through your head when you think your flight may have been ‘rescheduled’. Thank goodness I was in Brazil, thank goodness I had a day up my sleeve, thank goodness the flights are on the one ticket etc……..
My flight from Rio left on time for Manaus at 10.45pm and I was feeling surprisingly okay. Probably because I had slept for 13 hours on the other 2 flights. I have a growing suspicion I may have problems adjusting to a sleep pattern when I get to Manaus, but I’ll deal with that when that crops up. I have only gone through 4 time zones with a total of a 7 hour time change so you would think it would be that hard. We’ll see. This flight was only half empty and I had the whole row to myself. The aircraft was an A330 with a seat configuration of 3x3 and a 4 hour fly time. The announcements were all in Portuguese and when they served a hot toasted sandwiches at midnight the hostee said I was the only foreigner on board so they didn’t bother with an English translation so if I had any questions to ask her and she reconfirmed our arrival time into Manaus. I was sitting on a TAM plane and this was also a new aircraft. They had mobile and Wi-Fi facilities onboard for certain flights and they even had a special mobile phone light right next to the seatbelt light on the overheads when it was clear to use the service. This flight it was unavailable but what a cool idea and a sign of things to come on other airlines.
I finally arrived into Manaus at 1.30am. 36 hours after leaving Addis Ababa and already it seems like a distant memory. I am lucky I have new adventures to enjoy and help my time pass quickly, poor Zeme is back to dreary work and ‘normal’ life till his trip to Australia and my eventual arrival back to Ethiopia. At least he has something to look forward to. I had arranged through Mark for a transfer to take me to the hotel and he was there at 2am with a sign with my name on it and we drove the 20 minutes to the hotel who was expecting me which was nice at 2.30am in the morning. What a successful travel day and that is how it should always be.
So welcome to Manaus. The group is due in tomorrow morning and it will be great to see some familiar faces and to meet the new crew. I’m back in Brazil for another 11 nights and on tour for another 41 days. I plan to make the most of what is left of this amazing journey even though I will miss Zeme every second of everyday, it won’t be long till we are reunited.
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