Advertisement
Published: February 12th 2010
Edit Blog Post
Kenya Airlines
This plane is like the one that I was sitting on to take the pix. It's hard to believe, but on Tuesday morning I woke at 4:30 a.m. to catch my flight out of Kenyatta Airport, Nairobi, Kenya. I arrived at the airport about 5:30. I had jewellery making tools and copper wire that wasn't a problem going over but made security nervous on my way back. However, when they saw the beads and knew it was going into baggage (not carry-on), they let me through. The Nairobi-Amsterdam leg of the flight was to leave from Gate 12 at 8:30 a.m. (12:30 a.m. EST). The airport was already busy with lines of people and the second checkpoint moved slowly while people removed shoes and belts and anything else that might cause the scanner to beep. Also, the gate was changed from 12 to 14 and the waiting room was filling up. The gate was to close an hour before flight-time and just about that time, airport staff called the numbers that contained my seat row. I gave her my boarding pass and proceeded along the ramp. The stewardess, however, asked me were I was going and I said Amsterdam. She said the plane was going to Johannesburg (South Africa), which explains the robes and sandles whereas
Mount Kenya
From above the clouds! I was carrying my winter coat! So I made my way back toward the waiting area to the stares of all those waiting to board. The staff person who guided me back explained that there were two flights departing that morning from gate 12 and my flight would be the next one. This all led to a friendly discussion with two other passengers who'd experienced similar confusion -- one a young Kenyan woman who was returning to Amsterdam and a retired British man who had been in Kenya to look into property because he is selling his home outside London and planning to move. (Kenya was a British colony and it seems Brits like to retire where it is warm and their shillings go farther.) Eventually our flight was called (half an hour late) and we flew northward.
You might recall that my first trip outside Nairobi was north to Nanyuki to stand on the equator and to see Mount Kenya. I did the former but the mountain was shrouded in clouds. However, looking down from the plane, I saw snow-capped Mount Kenya. Like everything else about this trip, the experience felt surreal while being impressive and moving.
It wasn't long before we were flying over the desert, which lay incredibly beautiful below us, a low relief map that could be a moonscape. I saw the Blue Nile first, and then we flew over the Nile River, which is far broader and longer than I'd imagined. The desert is mysterious in its monotone of sandy hues; the Nile running through it is deep, deep blue. By this time, we'd left Kenya behind, flown over a corner of Ethiopia, across Sudan, and were now over Egypt. My grade five social studies class rang in my ears, with stories of "great white explorers" and the dark continent (people like Livingstone and Stanley who now mean something completely opposite to me than they did in 1949-50, for they led the colonizers into cities larger and cleaner than those of Europe were at that time, as well as showing the way into the mineral and other wealth within the "jungle"). Before the explorers, other than the coastline, Africa was terra incognito, like the North Atlantic west of the British Isles that carried a caution: "There be dragons here." It is hard for me to believe that there was greater poverty then than
Nile
Much broader and longer than I'd imagined. there is now, especially in the cities where (like elsewhere in the urban world) rural people go to find elusive work.
Flying over the Mediterranean Sea, I could see only blue -- no ships or anything else, likely because of our height. The first island we flew over was, I'm told, Crete. However then the sky clouded over below us and only the white foam like that on a wild beach was to be seen until the pilot announced that we were over the Alps. Cloud once more hid the earth from view until we decended over Amsterdam where the tidyness and geometry startled my eyes that had grown accustomed to a more meandering route that followed mountains' spiralling shapes and the savanah plains and rivers.
There was no confusion boarding KLM 0695 in Amsterdam. Amsterdam was two hours behind Nairobi and so I'd set my watch back. Crossing the Atlantic, I set it back another six hours for a total of eight hours -- February 9 was 24 + 8 = 32 hours long! We landed early and moved quickly through customs. I was happy to see Colyn's smiling face when I emerged from behind the security
Valley of the Kings
At this point in the trip, the pilot announced we were flying over the Valley of the Kings. wall. The baggage was on the carrousel and we were in his driveway about 10 minutes after the scheduled landing time, sipping a glass of wine while I rattled on with what Jim called "verbal diarrhea." Instead of 8:45 p.m., as the clock pronounced, my inner clock felt like 4:45 a.m. -- overtired and exhilarated to be back in Canada. (I had slept about three hous on the plane, which was some help.) The next morning, Matt dropped me at VIA and I was early enough to check my bags through to Belleville (this was after seeing the landmark building he's been working on). Darren was waiting in Belleville to give me a ride home...where we discovered I had no water and that the back door was sprung. Yesterday, Nathan, the Pump Wizard spent the afternoon thawing the pipe from the well into the basement (he said it had been frozen for some time since so much ice had developed -- likely a couple of weeks after the rain, wind and then freezing temperatures). The pump still works, but he said I need to think about a new one, along with a new tank (the pump had been running without
Crete
The first island we came to after flying over the Mediterranean Sea. accessing water!). Today Glen is going to look at the door; he thinks likely a new lockset is all that is needed and I'm hoping he's correct. Returning has been a jarring experience, but my body is adapting to the clocks in the house as well as to the cold, which feels very cold after Mombasa's hot, humid climate and the warmth of Nairobi's equatorial days and sweater-evenings.
Drop in and bring me up to date on what's been happening here and I'll share the many stories rambling about in my head from Kenya and Tanzania. I hope to see each of you very soon.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.089s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 16; qc: 32; dbt: 0.0577s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb