An uneventful voyage, which I have come to appreciate.
Air Zimbabwe flies directly from Victoria Falls to Nairobi, sometimes. It has a bit of a problem with understanding that a schedule is like a commitment, and not like a suggestion. Yesterday they failed to fly, and today they changed the departure time to two hours earlier, which could have been a big surprise to anyone who arrived at the airport on time. Fortunately, the Zimbabweans knew to check. I didn’t book with AZ, so consequently I had to fly back to Johannesburg and then on to Nairobi. I wasn’t bothered, I had enough time for a leisurely dinner at the J’Burg airport.
That was the plan…the reality, as always, was different. We got to the airport…no plane. One of my colleagues offered to buy me a drink, so we went to the cafe. We decided not to eat because the plane was due to arrive “soon, very soon”. One beer and two cappuccinos after the scheduled arrival time, the plane was spotted flying over the airport. After a couple of circles it decided to land. Naturally, we then had to wait while they groomed the plane…which always makes me imagine a squad of monkeys picking fleas.
As we finally boarded the plane, an agent pulled me out of line to tell me that my connection was now very short (good-bye dinner) and that when I arrived I must run as fast as I can to make my connection. She clearly disregarded any evidence that I am not built for running. The cabin attendant helpfully moved me and two other people to the front of the plane so that we could be first off, presumably to give us a head start on the running.
When we arrived, I had to go through the same connections area that I spent many hours in on my way. This time I rushed up to the desk, and a lovely little man not only managed an immediate boarding pass, but rushed me to the front of the line in security and waved me on my way…to the end of a very long line that had to go through passport control. There were only two agents and the line went down the hall and around a corner and then doubled back on itself. I watched for a few minutes and estimated that it would take about 90 minutes to get to the front, and I had about 30 to catch my plane. The man behind me told me to go to the front and push my way in; feeling very unCanadian I went to the front and looked for someone official to give me advice. No one. The agents never even looked up from the person in front of them, and they were being very methodical. I was looking at my boarding pass, and looking at my phone and wondering what to do when a nice Chinese man asked me if I was OK. I told him my problem and he lifted up the barrier and said come with us. I somehow got swallowed by a tour group from Shanghai who were exploring Africa. He was the tour guide and the only one who spoke English, so I kept smiling and saying xiexie and nihao, which is about 50% of my Chinese vocabulary. People kept patting me and smiling, so I must have looked a little wild-eyed, but every time I’d say my two words they would nod and clap. If nothing else, I think I provided them with a little entertainment while they waited.
I finally made it up to the agent, who looked at my passport and told me to run, since they had already called my flight, and the monitors said “boarding”. For the first time ever, my gate was A1, the first one that I came to. The boarding sign was flashing but no one was moving, and the agent told me to sit down. We waited, and we waited. Finally they let us start boarding, but actually all that happened was we waited in the tunnel to the plane because the door to the plane was locked and no-one had a key. We waited and waited. Finally an out of breath and very harassed looking young woman ran up with a key and opened the door, and we boarded.
Arrived in Nairobi tired and hungry and feeling a little grubby to face the immigration line up. At this point I couldn’t decide whether it was really confusing or I was just not interpreting well. There was a line that said Kenyan Citizens, and one that said COMESA citizens, and clearly that wasn’t me. There were two more choices, on that said Other Passports, and one that said VISAS. I had an e-visa but that needed to be traded for a real visa so I went in the VISAS line. The woman behind me was from Nigeria, and she also had an e-visa so I felt reassured as the line gradually inched forward. After several minutes, a woman in a uniform spied our paperwork and told us we were in the wrong line…we should be in the Other Passports line. This was actually good news as it was a shorter line and our line had only progressed through two people while we were waiting.
Eventually I got to the front of the line. The e-visa has a barcode on it, but the agent had no barcode number. He had to enter all my information into the computer by hand and then write out my real visa by hand and then stick it in my passport and then stamp it with great authority. All the time he was asking me questions: “is this your e-visa?” ummm, yes. “Are you Margaret Law?” ummm, yes, (and only in my head, no, I stole this passport from a New York shoe store owner named Beverly). “Do you have a place to stay?” ummm, yes, strangely it’s the hotel that is listed on the e-visa.
Eventually I was set free to find my luggage, then my driver. Nairobi airport has been rebuilt since the big fire in 2013. The terminals are actually very nice but I suspect that the parking and road access were designed by a camel driver. After we got in the car it took up 32 minutes to get out of the parking lot because it was so congested. The hotel was nice, I had booked it on Expedia based on the pictures which is always a bit of a gamble, but this one actually matched the description. By then I was starving so I asked the bellman who showed me my room if food was available. He told me that his real job was in the restaurant, which was closed, but he could bring me some pasta. By the time I was showered he was back with a decent spaghetti carbonara and an apple. Then I found out I couldn’t pay him because I had no Kenyan money, so I gave him a tip in USD and he said we’d sort it out in the morning.