A night in Moroni, Grand Comoros

I have some catching up to do as I have only just got back on the internet so here is my blog from Saturday as a start.

What an early start! I got up at 3am, had a shower and packed the last of my things into my suitcase. I dragged my stuff to the courtyard of the Minalove Hotel desperately hoping that my taxi drive would be there. I came across another taxi driver and two very drunk receptionists from the hotel (clearly they had been in the onsite disco). I got bombarded with questions about where I was from and where I was going. They had never heard of the Comoros so then they wanted to know where it was. It is not so easy to explain these things to a drunk person J. Fortunately my taxi arrived and I could get out of there.

My check in at the airport went smoothly and it wasn’t long before boarding commenced. The flight to Nairobi was only 40 minutes so there was no food served, just nuts and drinks. We arrived in Nairobi at sunrise which was not spectacular at all since there were too many clouds around. I had elected to collect my luggage in Nairobi and recheck it in for the flight to Moroni. There were three hours to kill so it gave me something to do.

Checking in used up one hour of the time! The queues were really long and the counter staff really slow but eventually it was done and I went through immigration. I only had KSh300 left in my wallet and used that to get myself some water and an unhealthy breakfast of two kitkats. KSh300 goes nowhere near to providing anything substantial for breakfast at the airport. I settled down to make the most of my last couple of hours with unlimited internet. The connection was really good and I managed to do some program updates, scooting around on Facebook and had a brief chat to my mother on Skype. The time passed very quickly and soon it was boarding time. Not that I knew where to go though, the boarding gate was only announced at the time for boarding. I had guessed where about it might be and so I was only two gates away.

The flight across the water was good. We flew in an Embraer 190 which even had in-flight entertainment. Not that I watched anything. I started watching Happy Feet 2 but then decided that since the flight was so short I would not see the end of it and that would frustrate me. By then too the early morning was starting to catch up and my eyes kept on closing. I was hoping to catch a glimpse of Kilimanjaro on the way but the mountain was hidden by clouds. The food was either very good or I was very hungry. Whichever way, I attacked it with gusto! It was after all the first real food of the day and it was already lunch time!

Clouds over Mount Kilimanjaro

There was no trespassing on French soil as the flight turned out to be direct to Moroni. There was a separate flight to Mayotte about an hour before mine. Obviously they had enough passengers to warrant the two flights. Not that my flight was full, I had no one next to me – always a bonus. Coming in to land was interesting. We plunged down from 35000 feet and for the last part did spirals the rest of the way down. It was a smooth landing which was surprising when I realised how hard the wind was blowing.

 The beautiful coast of Grand Comoros

Arriving at the airport in Grand Comoros

I got through immigration quickly since I already had a visa and found Ibrahim waiting for me. He wanted to know why I had got a visa in Pretoria when I would have had a visa exemption on arrival. If people would just communicate these things it would help a lot! Anyway it doesn’t matter, I had the visa and the project can afford to pay for it.

My suitcase was one of the first onto the carousel so I grabbed it and made my way to a small hiccup. The Customs people wanted to see my letter of invitation to the Comoros. Why!!!! I did not print it out because I figured the other letter applying for the visa exemption would suffice. Ibrahim managed to negotiate with them and they eventually let me through. This makes no sense to me whatsoever! What has it to do with Customs, if Immigration are happy to let me through then they should too and it wasn’t as if they even wanted to look in my suitcase. That never came up. After that though we went to the foreign exchange and I got some francs to keep me going until Monday.

The taxi took us to the Jardin de la Paix Hotel (this translates to the Garden of Peace) where I was greeted by name. It is really good for a hotel’s image when they do that. I was given a glass of juice to drink and then taken up to my room. The room is quite nice. It is big with three sections to it: the bedroom (with double bed), a little study area with a desk and chair and the bathroom. There was no electricity when I arrived so the room was pretty dark and hot. There is only one window which I couldn’t get open. I had a shower and then sat outside for a while on the balcony but my eyes would not stay open and eventually I had to through in the towel and have a nap.

 My comfy bed

 The area just outside my room - I would have enjoyed sitting out there because there was a nice cool breeze but the mosquitoes enjoyed me too much

 Some neighbours in the trees in the garden

The view from the balcony

I awoke just in time for the electricity to come on and it was a relief to sit in front of a fan. When the electricity came on I discovered that the hotel has wireless internet but none of the staff that were on duty knew the password. Eventually I did get the password but then it seemed that the connection wasn’t working. This is frustrating but that is how it goes. At least I know that when I return on Friday I should have a connection.

Off to bed now as I have to be up at 5am to get ready to go back to the airport.