The Waiting Ends, The Adventure Begins...

Departure day, at last. September 5, 2011. The bags were packed last night, and we actually managed to get a little sleep. The anticipation was palpable, though, and we could hardly wait to get on the road. Our friends Bob, Jean, and Aly took us to the airport in our car and dropped us off with hugs, well wishes, and a bag and knapsack apiece. The morning was not without its missteps, though. I left my new jacket on the back of the couch (I had planned to wear it, but it was a beautiful morning) so I would need to pick a replacement up on the way.

First class does wonders for speeding you through an airport. We skipped past the lines at the checkin counter and checked our bags through to Nairobi. Next came security and a special line there, so we were at the gate with time to spare.

The flight to Chicago on United was uneventful but comfortable. Once in Chicago we had a brief (three hour) layover. I used this time to find a replacement jacket in one of the stores, then it was on to the gate and our flight on Turkish Airways to Istanbul. This was a long one - about 10 hours, and the seats were not that comfortable for a tall person. They only reclined about 150 degrees, which left me constantly sliding into the footwell. I did manage a little sleep, though, which helped. Catherine seemed to be much more comfortable. I will say that both the food and service on Turkish was excellent, both on this leg and the subsequent leg to Nairobi.

We arrived in Istanbul in the afternoon, and the city looked beautiful from the air. We wish we had had time to explore a bit, but that will have to wait for another trip. Once in Istanbul, we had a relatively short (two hours, or so) wait before our Nairobi flight. Enough time for some refreshment and a chat with a couple on their way to a wedding in Kurdistan. Back on the plane then, and on to Africa!

Whoops. Not so fast. We had checked in at the gate in Istanbul, cleared passport control, and boarded the bus to the airplane. All of a sudden we heard our names. When we responded we were pulled off of the bus! Apparently there was a problem with our tickets. We sort of expected this as there had been a glitch in Chicago, as well. United had made an equipment change at the last minute for our first flight of the day. This meant that the tickets had to be reissued under a different ticket number. Since our subsequent flights were on Turkish, our tickets in hand did not match up with the tickets in the Turkish system. This was quickly resolved in Chicago, but caused considerable confusion in Istanbul. We sat quietly and patiently while the gate crew at Turkish sorted things out, watching bus after bus of passengers leave the gate for the airplane. You could tell, though that the Turkish staff really wanted to get us on that airplane, and finally we were allowed to reboard. Fortunately, we had kept our previous boarding pass stubs as they had contained some critical information that facilitated sorting the mess out.

The flight from Istanbul to Nairobi took about six hours, and was almost entirely after dark on a clear night. I was astonished at the long, long stretches where no lights were visible anywhere on the ground. The land isn't (necessarily) empty, though. There is just no electricity in the vast stretches of Egypt, Somalia, Ethiopia, and Kenya we overflew. This was our first hint at the level of poverty endured by much of the population of Africa.

We landed around midnight local time in Nairobi, about 26 hours after we left home. We were in Africa! Just a long layover and short flight from our final destination, Kilimanjaro Airport in Tanzania, where David would pick us up and take us to our first night's lodging. All downhill from here, right? Right? Uh, oh...