A Night in Hell (The First Test)...

Africa! Well, here we are: Jomo Kenyatta Airport in Nairobi, Kenya. As we stepped off the plane it was about 11:30 pm local time, and our connection to Kili wasn't until about 9:00 am. Its a long layover, but we planned to find a comfortable corner in the transit lounge and hang out.

First, though, where does our outbound flight leave from? We have to pick up our bags, so I guess we go this way... Hmmm... Whats this line? Passport control? OK. Uh, oh, wait a minute. These people are buying visas...

This was the first indication we had, despite all the research we had done, that we would need to get transit visas to get from one airplane to the next. The line moved slowly because there were only two people processing visas, and they were doing a lot of paperwork by hand for each person (on top of a lot of data entry into their computers). To make matters worse, a Muslim gentleman at the front of the line was having trouble getting one of his two wives through and was arguing vehemently with the officials. Finally we got to the counter: passports... look into the camera... fingers of right hand on the fingerprint pad... now the thumb... left fingers... left thumb... payment! (US$20 each)... another several minutes of paperwork... Stamp... here you go... Next!

It would have been easier to get into the Oval Office.

A quick side note here - not only did we not know about the transit visas, we didn't budget that $40 in cash we just spent. Remember that...

OK, baggage claim. Well our bags made it, thats a good sign! Now: Where do we go for our departure gate? First things first, though - where's the bathroom? Uh, oh...

And thus started our Night in Hell.

For the entire time we were in the Nairobi airport, there was no running water. Not in the sinks and not in the toilets. You can imagine what the bathrooms were like. Anyway, we worked around that, dug out the Purell, and made do. Best to be flexible when you travel!

We're now standing in a small concourse filled with taxi drivers who want to take us to hotels that we haven't budgeted. As we look around, we realize that the only visible gate related activities are back the way we came. Huh. OK, so we wander a bit and finally ask someone the location of the Precision Air check in counter. He takes us outside and points down the street; remember, it's midnight and there are no streetlights. It looks safe. Sort of. So we head down that way and a couple of hundred yards later find another terminal. We can't get in, but looking through the window it looks like there are check in desks inside, so that is a positive sign. Nine hours on the sidewalk is pretty unappealing, though, so we head back to the original concourse to see if we can find some chairs. At least there are lights and it feels relatively safe there.

Of course as soon as we were returned the taxi drivers came after us again, but we politely declined, only to realize that there were no seats to be found. Hmmm. We wandered around a bit and finally discovered the cafeteria - a small dimly lit space that could seat maybe 50 people. Several chairs were filled with people, some asleep, obviously in the same boat we were, so we woke up the attendant, bought some bottled water and donuts, and settled in for a long wait.

The next six hours were interminable. We did get up once and check to see if the other terminal was open yet (no), but mostly we just sat. And sat. And sat. Finally, the sun came up (0600 ish) so we went over to the departure terminal. Lots more people now, and we could get inside (getting our bags screened along the way), but there was nobody available to check us in. In fact, there didn't even seem to be a Precision Air desk at this point, and there was no evidence of our flight on the departure board. Nothing to do but wait, so that's what we did. We finally found someone who told us we could check in soon at a desk that was marked for a different airline, so we did that when we could, checking our bags, and passed through the door into the departure lounge. Where we found another visa desk. Another photo, more fingerprints. No charge this time, though. Just an exit stamp and a wave through to the escalator, which deposited us in a relatively nice, but small and crowded, airport concourse, albeit one still without water in the bathrooms.

There were a couple of hours remaining until departure, so we figured out what our gate was and started trying to find it. It turned out to be downstairs in a delapidated and spooky part of the building, but at least there were chairs in which to sit. We went through passport control (again) into the waiting area and there we sat for the last couple of hours in Nairobi. They finally called our flight (on time), thus ending our Night in Hell.

David's words ("Africa will test you...") kept coming to mind during this layover. This night was starting to give us a feeling for what it is like to step outside the cushy first world cocoon we call the United States. It was an easy test - we were tired, grungy, and we needed a bathroom really bad, but we were happy and excited to be near the end of our journey. At the time, this layover was an awful 10 hours and an exercise in patience. In retrospect, it is barely a footnote to the highs and lows that were to come over the next three weeks.