I was scheduled to fly out of Arusha to Harare, Zimbabwe via Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Why did I pick this crazy route? (Look on a map. It's crazy.) Because it was the cheapest. In the future, I will weigh my sanity heavily when I compare it with the cost of a direct flight.
Our plane needed a part that they couldn't get until the next day so another flight was diverted to pick us up. The problem--lots of double booked seats, including mine. When we finally got it sorted it out it was after 8 pm (for a 5 pm flight) and I was squished in the middle seat at the back of the plane. How many people who know me understand what this means? I was not a happy camper.
We arrived in Addis around 10:00 p.m. and I had to go to baggage claim to get my luggage because some idiot (= ticket agent) in Kilimanjaro didn't tell me that it was NOT a good idea to check your luggage to Addis but check it all the way through. Of course, you can guess, I had no luggage.
I went up and down, in and out, around and around talking to everyone and anyone who would listen to find the suitcase with no luck. Meanwhile, other passengers were waiting to catch mini-buses to the hotel where we were going to stay until the flight the next day. (Oh yeah, did I mention there was a 13-hour layover between flights and we had to be shuttled to a hotel to stay for 7 hours until we departed the next day?) I filled out a missing luggage report and then waited outside on the curb for the bus.
At midnight, we finally checked into the hotel and I found the room to be really nice, thank God. I probably would have lost it if it had been a dive. I took a long, hot shower and didn't realize until afterward that the spray was going out on the floor because there was a large gap between the shower and the wall, and I ended up with an inch of water all over the bathroom. Stupid design. Not my problem. Towels to floor, teeth brushed, into bed.
A few hours later, I am rudely awakened by a hotel person trying to get into my room to wake me up. He would have actually come in to the room if the chain hadn't been on the door! Good Lord. It was only 5:20 a.m. and the flight wasn't till 9:00 a.m. He said he had to get some people up extra early because they didn't have enough buses for everyone to leave at the scheduled 7 a.m. pick-up. Did I look like someone who wanted to volunteer for the early time slot or just someone who wouldn't punch him in the nose for waking them up an hour early? Clearly, I must not have looked irritable or intimidating enough at check-in.
Got to Harare and waited for the bag, but again, nothing. I saw that my phone was dead so I couldn't call my ride, Carol, to tell her I was here, after arriving late. I walked around baggage claim looking for an outlet to plug in my phone, found one, and sat waiting for it to boot up. Called Carol. Her number was not in service. (Common problem as the network often goes out or doesn't work properly. Found out later, she lost her SIM card on the way to the airport.) Checked the luggage carousel again. No luggage. Wanted to cry. Sniff. Sniff. Went out of the airport and saw Carol driving past. Luckily she saw me and stopped.
I had no medicine, no clothes, no toiletries. My Zim phone was in my lost luggage. (I know, I know. For being a frequent traveler, I didn't plan this very well at all. My mind was elsewhere. On a man, of course. That's a different post.)
When we arrived home we found out there had been an attempted robbery, but the maid scared them off. Carol lives in a nice 4-bedroom house surrounded by a huge garden and high electrified walls. (Most residences in the low-density areas have electrified or barb-wired walls surrounding their homes, an unfortunate necessity in many Zimbabwean towns.) Oddly, the last time I was here, she had an attempted robbery too. The maid said the men were the same ones who had pried open the electric gate and come in the last time. It was so coincidental that we thought maybe they knew I was there with lots of cash, but how could they know when it happened while she was picking me up at the airport?
The next day we went to the pharmacy to try to get a small supply of the medications that I take. It still baffles me how they give you prescription drugs without a prescription. I caught a reflection of myself in the glass and had to laugh. I was dressed in borrowed, pleated Banana Republic shorts, probably from the 80s when Banana Republic had giraffes sticking out of the front of their stores. The legs were so wide I could have parachuted in them.
We couldn't get the medicine at the first pharmacy and had to go across town to a bigger one. There I spent $46 on a 5-day "emergency" supply. The pharmacist suggested we go to the Ethiopian Airlines office to get reimbursement. Great idea except the airline office was in downtown Harare--not an easy place to go because it's far and they "clamp" vehicles a lot. (Clamping - it's just what you think it is.)
We made the trek downtown and hassled with the airline people for a while until they handed over $75 cash. While we were there, the manager called to see if my luggage had arrived and it had just come in. Ahhhh.....Murphy's Law -- gotta love it.
Back to the airport to pick up my luggage, and soon discovered that my Zim phone had been stolen. We then went to the local Econet to get me a new phone, but it was crowded so went on to another one across town. I finally got the new one and I thought we were done with Murphy but no, there's more.
All I wanted after this craziness of the day was to take a long, hot bath but as we were eating dinner the electricity went out, so that ended that idea. When the power goes out, it shuts down the water pump so you can't get any water into the house. Consequently, Carol keeps buckets of water around the house for "flushing" the toilet, and lots of bottled water for drinking. (Oh, and lots of candles.)
I lay down on my bed to wait for the electricity to come back on so I could bathe, but fell asleep. I woke up about 2:00 a.m. with some very unpleasant symptoms that traveller's frequently experience. (Although I've never been sick like this while in Africa. Must have been the visit to Tanzania.) I was vomiting and everything, which was bad enough, but the electricity was still off, so here I am at 2:00 in the morning, violently ill, dumping buckets of water into the toilet to wash everything away. It was then as I was paying homage to the porcelain God that I was certain this had to be the worse trip I've ever had.
In the morning, Carol took me to a doctor, her neighbor two doors down. $50 later and I had 3 prescriptions to fill. Back to the pharmacy.
There was a bright side to my stay in Harare. It's always wonderful to see Carol and I was finally able to get out to Batsiranai to talk to the ladies about the project. We talked about some of the ideas I had in my 17-page Marketing Plan I did for them last year. They're still very keen on the whole idea, and we discussed several options for how it will work between the two sites: Harare and Vic Falls. Next step is to draft a proposal of how the operations process so they can understand it better.
Here is a video of a song they sang for me as a thank you for the work I am helping them to do:
https://youtu.be/rksxI-ndUpI It was so touching and I was quite moved by their gratitude.
I figured with all I'd been through the past few days, I would splurge on an airline ticket to Vic Falls rather than go by bus, which most likely, would be one with worn shocks, bumping over pot-holed roads for 12 hours. No thanks. We tried to get a ticket online but it was twice as expensive ($240 vs $140.) Same if I purchased it at the airport. They said the best thing for me to do to get the cheapest fare was to.....go to the airlines office downtown. Here we go again...
I did finally make it to Vic Falls. Write soon.
