Come Fly With Me -- if you have unlimited time and a high tolerance for pain and misery...

If I have internet access or in-flight magazines, I will always read the articles with travel tips or interviews with celebrities giving advice for their airplane must-haves. I was reading this article the other day by some fashion model/designer who name I had never heard before and already forgot, and I remember how she said that she NEVER eats while traveling. She doesn’t eat on the plane or in airports and she won’t bring food with her either. I remember thinking that she must not do too many international trips or else how could she make it that long without eating? And then I remembered that she was in the fashion industry, so she’s probably had a lot of practice abstaining from food. But for me and my most recent international travels, eating has been crucial to survival.

Traveling in SSudan
makes you look like this.

It started in mid-November. I was on my way to Khartoum, and, inspired by Leif, the reason behind most of my recent Sudan travels, I decided to wait until the last minute to buy my ticket to Khartoum from Juba. Unfortunately, this was a time-sensitive trip. I needed to arrive in time to get my passport to the immigration office before the weekend, which begins on Friday in Sudan. This left me with a very small window for traveling there. I called over the South Sudanese weekend (Saturday and Sunday) to buy the ticket for Tuesday or Wednesday, as I planned to leave Mundri for Juba on Monday or Tuesday. I ended up leaving on Tuesday, after assurances of easy ticket purchase for Wednesday. Monday we found out that tickets were not so easily purchased. I called in the big guns, i.e. Leif, to find tickets that got me in to Khartoum on Thursday morning. He obliged. My itinerary—Juba to Entebbe to Addis to Khartoum. Well, when you are desperate… But my dreams of an easy 1 hour trip were dashed into a million pieces and 14 hours and 4 airports. Bonus: I got Mohamed the immigration guy’s phone number because in my sleepless delirium I thought that my visa hadn’t been renewed in time and I flirted recklessly for what turned out to be no reason at all.

Getting off the plane in Juba last week--a self-portrait 

So I can blame Leif, his last-minute trip-planning philosophy and ticket-finding skillz on that trip, but fast forward 10 days, and I am the only one to blame for buying a ticket from Khartoum to Doha to Philly to Bham, with a 9.5 hour layover in Doha and a 10.5 hour layover in Philadelphia. But I did get to see friends and family, and I do remember that was part of my plan. But I think I was on some kind of mind-altering experimental drug when I bought the return ticket. My plan was to stop in Uganda for a day and rest before taking a nice MAF flight back into Mundri. I had some beautiful plans for that day too, involving sleeping and eating candy and charging all of my electrical devices. Instead, my flight schedule took me from Birmingham to Chicago to Frankfurt to Jeddah to Addis to Entebbe to Nairobi to Juba. Then the next day I traveled by car to Mundri—it only took 7.5 hours this time to drive 110 miles. Except for that part when we heard gunshots coming from the bush right next to us, it was a normal bumpy dusty ride. For the gunshots, we killed our headlights, popped into 5^th and hit the gas for about 10 minutes until we were sure that we weren’t the target of those bullets. We left too late and ended up driving a bit after dark—not the best idea, but when you’re desperate…

Then today I wake up early to call MAF at 8am for their ETA (estimated time of arrival) in Mundri. I had to use the sat phone because all of the cell phone networks were down. I called their caring customer service and heard “////////Icanhearyouclearly////” on the other line.

“Please speak slowly and loudly—I’m calling you from a satellite phone!” I yelled into the receiver, with my croaky hoarse cold-voice, while trying to keep the phone antenna pointing straight up into un-impeded sky at all times (not really that easy). In reply I heard “/////////callbacklater///////.” Well, after I got the girl to repeat herself 10 times, I was pretty sure I heard the “callbacklater.” Talking slowly and loudly seems pretty basic, but it is hard for some people. Still, they said they could hear me, so they must have known that I said I was calling from the sat phone and if you don’t know how to talk to people communicating by satellite phone, then you really shouldn’t be working with people in South Sudan.

I called back an hour later to a similar conversation. I said, “OK—I’LL CALL AGAIN IN AN HOUR!!” Then when I called again in an hour, the networks were finally working again and we had the following conversation:

MAF: Hello. Who is calling?

Me: Hi, I’m calling from Mundri again for the ETA.

MAF: From where?

Me: MUNDRI.

MAF: Right, I think that the ETA is 1pm, but if you had called at 10:30 like I told you to (emphasis NOT added by me), then I would be able to give you more accurate timing.

Me: I TOLD you that I couldn’t hear you. Is it more likely that the flight will arrive before or after 1pm?

MAF: *click*

Me: #$%^&@#%^@

Then the flight finally arrived at 1:30pm. I was paranoid at that point that it wasn’t going to come at all and I would be stuck. I hear we are flying straight to Arua (the point of entry in Uganda), and I was quite glad that this meant that we were not going through Juba. However, when we arrived in Juba, I found that MAF had decided to skip over landing at Entebbe International Airport (which was the destination that I had requested when I booked my ticket). No, we were landing in Kajjansi airstrip, about an hour away from the airport. I did not pretend to be happy about this, but my pilot was apologetic and arranged for a taxi to take me to the airport from Kajjansi. I would have been nicer about it, except that I had to pay $50 for a visa and then sit outside waiting to check in.  And there was the time that he turned to the plane and said, “OK-is there anyone else still trying to arrange transportation from Kajjansi?” Like I was some slacker who waited until the last minute to plan for travel arrangements to the airport. I think that he was actually trying to be nice (he was Canadian), but it did not hit me well. I spent the flight planning a speech that would be both apologetic for blaming him for not landing in Entebbe (it was not his fault) while at the same time managing to covertly insult Canadian pop culture (I’ve been oppressed by Bryan Adams music a lot recently and I want to blame SOMEONE for that). But I didn’t get a chance to talk to him after we landed. It is too bad. It was an epic speech.

Anyway, I’m in the Entebbe airport. My flight to Amsterdam is already delayed, but I think I still have time to get to my next flight. But now I’m mad at the stupid lady who checked me in and swore she gave me aisle seats because I’m pretty sure that only one is on an aisle. I was the first person to check in so it shouldn’t have been hard. And she was so smiley and nice and assuring about it. Jerk. I have to remember to double-check when people hand me the boarding passes. It’s just that I get so many of them…

Boarding passes from my last trip

Well, since our flight is delayed, I’m going to go get the complimentary cold beverage I earned. Then I’m going to get some ice cream because the AC is not working in here and I had to change into my “winter clothes” already and I don’t want to get sweaty.  Then I’m going to try to find a KLM representative…I ASKED FOR AN AISLE SEAT. DO NOT MESS WITH ME TODAY. Anymore. Please.