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Published: January 20th 2013
About Saturday lunchtime (19th) I said to Joe I have a bad feeling about this trip, I cant put my finger on it but it doesn't feel right.
It all started when my flight was delayed by an hour due to "waiting for first available plane?". I spent some time at the airport wasting time as you do, and I lost my boarding pass (only me!) so in a panic I contacted customer services and they arranged for me to have another one.
I felt a glass of wine was needed at this point so I stopped off at Terminal 5 Wetherspoons where the bar man gave me a whole load of sarnies as it was the end of the day... "hmmm - these might come in handy" I thought - how right was I!
A member of the crew was sick so the plane was delayed by another hour while they removed her and her luggage and the plane finally took off, it was uneventful except for the bloke behind me coughing his guts up over me and until about 45 minutes before we were due to land, "Hello this is Captain Jack speaking (yes really!) I am afraid I have bad news about the weather in Freetown, it is too foggy to land, we are diverting to Liberia and we dont know how long we will be there"
I woke up a friendly croation guy sitting next to me to break the news to him, he wasnt too worried, but we both worried about our lifts in Freetown. so off to Liberia we went and we sat in the airport for 2 hours while we waited for the fog to lift and I ate one of my sandwiches. When we finally flew to Freetown Abdul and Mohamed were waiting for me and had been since 5am.
The next part of my journey is not simple, its not as easy as getting into a cab and heading for the hotel, no, Sierra Leone is made of provinces which from the air looks like lots of islands that are split by a river and the ocean, the only way to freetown itself from Lungi (the airport) is by ferry across the ocean, you do have options 1) the speedboat - its quick but you are risking your life and you will never see me on it 2) Kissy ferry cheaper option was due in 2 hours 3) the government ferry - the expensive option was due in 5 hours, We prefer the government option but I needed to get going so we went with the Kissy option and we made it fine - even got the bizzare option of being entertained by 2 dwarves (or whatever the politically correct word is) while they danced for money in the first class cabin and I ate a sandwich - yep thats Sierra Leone
Finally at the hotel and the door broke twice and I have poor wifi so not sure what tommorow will bring me...
There are no photos today as I cant upload them - will do when I can
take care in the snow
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Andy Williams
non-member comment
Have a good time, be safe.
So far, an eventful journey then :) Lisa, your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to balance on 1 leg whilst 1 finger on your nose and a book on your head, get a photograph of this. This message will not self destruct. Stay safe mate, have a cracking time. Andy