Warriorbern on the Move

After a dreadful series of flights on Kenya Airways to Mombasa last week, I started on this trip with some trepidation. My concerns were for naught really though. The inbound flight from Nairobi to Johannesburg arrived on time which gave me a lot of confidence that my flight would leave on time. In the end we left a half hour late but this was due to a passenger not having the correct travel documents and his luggage had to be unloaded. The wait in Nairobi was quite endless but I spent my time getting some exercise by walking up and down the departure gate corridors. There are only two so it was a bit monotonous but better than just sitting around. The flight to the Comoros departed quite late as the inbound flight was late. This meant that instead of arriving in Comoros at 23:35 we arrived at about 00:30. The Dreamliner arriving at OR Tambo International Airport There were ten of us that were arriving in Comoros for the same meeting and all of us needed to apply for a visa

Leaving Madagascar was not as straight forward as I thought it would be! I left the hotel in what should have been plenty of time so that I could check in for my flight, pass through immigration and security and then have time to relax before boarding. The hour long road trip to the airport was fine but when I got to the check-in counter the queue was already really long. I joined the queue and for the next hour and a half inched my way towards to front behind one of the most irritating queuers ever! This guy didn't always move when the queue did and going forward in a straight line seemed to be a bit challenging. Eventually I got to the counter and handed over my suitcase in return for a boarding pass. Theoretically the queuing should have been done but no, that was not to be. Next stop was the immigration line. Here I made the mistake of choosing the slowest line. I should have moved lines but stupidly didn't. The official handing my lot was processing only one person for t

What a relief after the last trip’s crazy delays on Kenya Airways to be back on South African Airways whose flights were all on time. Well actually that is not true – they left on time and both arrived early – always a bonus. Arriving in Tana is a bit of a trying experience. It takes forever to get through immigration and once through immigration you have to run the gauntlet of all the porters trying to take your suitcase to wherever you are going. I got a little cross though because I managed to avoid all the porters and found the driver of the hotel’s bus but when we got to the bus there was a smartly dressed man waiting there who took my suitcase, put it in the bus and then demanded I pay him. All this while the bus driver was grinning his head off! Well I just told the guy to get lost because I never asked him to lift my suitcase up on little step and his shouting at me for a tip was annoying. Eventually he got the message and moved on to another victim. So I started the long

I am really looking forward to going home tomorrow. Mombasa has been a comfortable last stop in the three-week trip but I am tired now and I miss my family and my pets. Getting to Mombasa from Zanzibar was interesting. While I was still at the hotel in Zanzibar I received a message to say that my second flight, from Nairobi to Mombasa, had been cancelled. There was no need to panic as I was sure Kenya Airways would have made a plan. When I checked in at the Zanzibar airport nothing was said about the cancelled flight but I was given two boarding tickets. I had been moved to a later flight which meant quite a long layover in Nairobi. The flight to Nairobi was good and we even got to see Mount Kilimanjaro just before the descent into Nairobi. I collected my luggage and made my way across to the domestic terminal. When I arrived at the baggage drop counter the person there said that there was a seat on a flight leaving in one hour and would I like to get on that flight. Of course I

It is the rainy season in Tanzania now and over the last few days Zanzibar has had its fair share. The roads have been completely flooded. The owner of the Abuso Inn, where I am staying, told me that the problem is that everyone throws their rubbish into the drainage system so the moment it rains everything backs up and the water can’t go anywhere. From my point of view the rain is both a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing because it is not so hot but a curse because I don’t have any rain clothes so the possibility of arriving at working looking like a drowned rat is very real. Furthermore, the rain has meant an increase in mosquitoes. Cloudy, rainy days but still a pretty view These little pests are so clever! I have no idea how they do it but despite mosquito mesh on the windows and a net around the bed; I have woken up every morning with at least three little guests in my sleeping area. Thank goodness I decided to take malaria prophylactics on this trip because other