T.I.A
Trip Start
Mar 07, 2009
1
41
Trip End
Ongoing
Paje, Zanzibar Archipelago, Tanzania
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Upon arrival at the airport I was advised that not only was the flight full but it was overbooked and I would have no chance to get a flight. However, they told me to hang around until departure, they thought that some people may not turn up for the flight. This is the first time I've flown by the seat of my pants, so to speak. And so I took a seat and waited. And waited and waited. After several hours and several attempts to ask what was happening I finally was told that the plane had not only been delayed but had been overbooked by several seats and everybody had showed up to get their allocated seats. To make matters worse my Swedish friends had been advised that they had incorrect tickets issued by their travel agent. They would not be flying. Also, two Canadians I had met on Mt Kilimanjaro were also told that their tickets were now not valid either.....Their disappointment in the situation can be summed up easily......T.I.A..... An acronym used commonly by myself and other who have visited Africa to sum up almost any situation. THIS IS AFRICA.
The plane was now several hours late in landing and the small crowd of people waiting for the flight started to voice their displeasure at the boss lady.......I'm sure they felt better about themselves after venting their anger and disapproval. The boss lady had seen this before, this was obvious to me. She did what most Africans do in this situation, ignore it......Its true, come to Africa and try to complain about something, it will be ignored. Its great to watch people try, in fact, I had a little smirk under my skin. After many jokes with the boss lady about the rudeness of people and the blasé attitude to my predicament the unexpected happened. She offered me a seat to Zanzibar on the flight. It had just landed and everything happened so quick.
As it turns out four people had to be bumped to another flight that was leaving in a couple of hours from an airport about and hours drive away. Wow, I got one of their seats. With very little time to discuss thing I told David and Artur, my new Swedish friends that I would approach their taxi driver and advise him of the situation and get him to wait for them.
At this point I started to think to myself, what would happen if this was a Hollywood movie. Of course the plane would crash, I would die and the lives of those that were 'bumped' from the flight would change forever. I was the last on the plane and I got to sit at the very rear of the plane next to the emergency exit. I'm normally not a nervous flyer but I made myself very aware of the surroundings on this flight. Just in case. Having said that I was also hopeful of getting a glimpse of Mt Kilimanjaro as we flew past but alas the weather didn't play ball on this day.
After the short flight I made the touch down on Zanzibar and located the Swedes taxi driver, I told him the story and in true African spirit he told me that the cafe was across the road from the airport and that I should go there and have a coffee. I obliged and off I went. When the plane from Arusha touched down I waited for the Swedes. And Waited and waited and then there was nobody left. Oh Shit, they missed the plane or it was overbooked. The taxi driver advised me that there were two more flights coming in that day and they might be on one of them. I decided to approach the travel counter and ask if they were on the next plane. They advised me that it was not legal to tell me, privacy laws and stuff like that, they told me. I must have had my puppy dog eyes on that day, the manager looked around, waited for the office to be empty then looked at me and told me to wait while he checked. After several minutes he told me to come for a walk with him. When there was nobody around he told me they were on the next flight, but I couldn't tell anybody. He appeared quite worried but appeared to trust that I would keep our little secret just that.... I went to the taxi driver and told him that his passengers were on the next flight.
Sure enough when the flight arrived so did the Swedes.... They somehow knew that I would still be there, despite waiting at Zanzibar airport for four hours waiting for them. And so we were off to the beachside town of Paje, on the lower East coast of the Island. After checking into the somewhat overpriced hotel it was off to the beach and a swim in the bath hot water. Despite the seaweed it was great to have a swim in the ocean again. It had been 9 months since my last swim in the ocean, off the coast of Ghana in West Africa.
Paje seemed to be full of Scandinavians. Norwegians and Swedes were everywhere. Its quite a change for me. I am so used to finding Aussies in all the corners of this earth, no matter where it happened to be, but alas, not one Aussie in site, I enjoyed this change a lot, I don't travel to meet other Aussies. I guess the lack of bars in this part of the world made the typical Aussies thin on the ground. There were only restaurants that served alcohol and only one of the places had anything that remotely resembled atmosphere for anything that remotely resembled socialising with other people.
For me the end of my trip was near and all I really wanted to do was lay on the beach, swim, eat good food and have a couple of good conversations over dinner and a few drinks. And for me the place delivered. The people I met there I will see again one day. I don't know where and I don't know when. One day. And so ends this part of my African adventure..........to be continued when next I travel to the dark continent.
