The 2021 Africa Journals, Chapter Two: In Which Marg Battles Bees and is Stung by Kenya Airlines

 

Ch. Two:

In Which Marg Battles Bees and is Stung by Kenya Airlines

 

    So there I was in Seattle, finally on my way for a month of safaris and tent camps and wildlife and birds and photography and good company.  All my angst was dissipating

     What a fool!   I had neglected to consider Murphy and his blasted Law.

    First, I turned on my little Lenovo travel laptop and opened Facebook to message Marg that I was in Seattle and would see her in Amsterdam in a day or so.  Marg messaged me that Kenya now required all tourists to have a QR code.   She sent me a link.

 

                                My nice room at the Coast Gateway hotel in Seattle.

 

    Then, heart attack impending, I checked my e-mail.   Now, my e-mail provider doesn’t put spam into a spam file.   No, it quarantines it into something called Gray Mail and once a day I am sent a summary of all suspicious e-mails received the PREVIOUS day.

     That is when I learned, a day late, that Iceland Air had canceled my flight from Seattle to Amsterdam.  I’m not sure it's possible to have two heart attacks at the same time but I believe it is certainly a possibility.

 

    First, the QR code.   This country girl and phone Luddite had no idea what a QR code was until I saw a picture of one online.   Ah, those funny-looking mazes.

I tackled that first.   Despite the previous drive-me-crazy lengthy applications for online visas, I got the QR code rather easily and took a photo of it with my phone.   In the next few weeks, I would not only become familiar with QR codes but also quite conversant with them and not in four-letter words.

 

 A while row of seats to myself!    I stretched out and slept.

 

      

 

 

 

I went to the next problem: Icelandair and the cancelled flight. This one was even easier to solve.   All I had to do was show up at Lufthansa two hours earlier than the Icelandair flight and present my temperature, PCR test results, passport, luggage, last will and testament, thirty years worth of previous tax returns, the names of all my contacts, and whatever else they required.

 

            And away we go, hopefully leaving Murphy behind with all his mischief.

 

When you sit far back in a plane, you get what's left.   It was good, though.   Tortellini and salad, a brownie and roll.

 

 This looked promising for a breakfast meal.  

 

The idea was okay; the result no so much.   Cold summer squash with cold cuts didn't cut it.   As much as I like summer squash, the texture was not appealing.

 Lufthansa followed anti-social distancing protocols rigidly..   Here a steward is preventing anyone in our cabin from debarking  after arrival in Frankfurt until the previous cabin was empty.

                Then they sardined us into a trolley for a long transit to the terminal.

  

    All of which I did and soon I was winging my way to Frankfurt, Germany, and on to Amsterdam, where my $$$ room at the inside-the-airport Mercure hotel was waiting for my arrival.  When I factor in the threat of quarantine if I left the terminal, the price was well worth it.

 

 

 My very nice room at the Mercure, inside the Amsterdam airport.   That's a mural on the wall for decoration and to make the room seem larger.   Getting to the room with my luggage, going back through security, and all the health checks was a journey I don't want to make again.   I couldn't have done it on my own and it was well worth the $20 tip I gave an assistance attendant.

 

 

                    Fantastic breakfast from the Mercure.

 

    The next morning, I met Marg and we boarded a KLM flight to Nairobi, after the temperature, COVID PCR test results, passports, etc. obligations.

     Murphy didn’t have a chance with our arrival in Nairobi.   We were met with a Meet and Greet lady, arranged by Jason Fernandes, and she facilitated our passage through the many health, customs, and immigration stations.  She ushered us outside to the van that would take us to the Palacina Residences and Suites Hotel, where Marg and I planned to rest and relax for three nights before flying to Botswana.

     The hotel had luscious panini sandwiches and juice for our after-midnight arrival!

     The first night and day went well except that the power cord to my laptop apparently quit functioning.   Behold!   The guys at the front desk jumped right on the problem and soon I had a new power cord—complete with a Kenya-style power plug.

 

                                    Our suite at the Palacina.

 

 

 

     Was it Murphy or my imagination, but did the power port on my laptop crackle when I plugged it in?  

 

                         Whenever Marg and I share accommodations, we take turns with having the big bed.                                           She said it was my turn for the master bedroom.

     

That evening I went to bed.   Marg, a light sleeper, was up and working on her computer after midnight.   Two things happened:   The invasion of the bees and our planned flight to Botswana was a disaster!

 

 

 

           This is where Marg was working on her computer and ignoring a humming noise until bees                                                 began dropping onto her.

 

 The bees apparently entered the suite through an open transom window.   Hundreds of them!   She tried spraying them with “Doom” and then called the front desk for backup.   She said they counted 600 dead bees before the counting stopped.

     The Botswana flight was another matter.   Kenya Air rearranged our flights so that the dates   had us leaving later and returning sooner, impossible for the safari reservations we had.   Normally, we would fly from Nairobi to Victoria Falls airport in Zimbabwe where a van from Pangolin Chobe hotel would transport us to their facility on Botswana.   Easy, peasy.   Be there in time for the afternoon game float on the Chobe river.

     While I slumbered on, a valiant Marg fought with Kenya Air until she was exhausted.   What eventually came about when all the dust settled was a flight from Nairobi to Johannesburg in South Africa, and then a flight back north to Kasane, Botswana, the next day.

 

The Palacina front desk where Marg spent most of the night after the Battle of Bees, fighting with Kenya Air.   Flight cancellations are common as airlines struggle to operate during the pandemic.   Marg is indomitable, but this brought her to tears of frustration.

     

    We had to do the same flights in reverse to get back to Nairobi.  This not only cost us more financially for the tickets, but also cost us a safari day, a lost night at the Palacina, plus two nights lodging at City Lodge in Jo-Burg.  Our days of rest and relaxation were a broken dream.

 

 

                        The cook pulled down his face mask when he saw I was going to take his picture.

        The balcony where we spent a couple hours photographing birds in the trees.   After so many                             days en route, it was wonderful to get behind a lens at last.

     A medical lab tech came to our room to do the COVID tests.   Four hours later, the front desk                             delivered printed copies of our negative results!

        Most hotels in Nairobi, especially those that cater to foreigners, have extensive security.

                            The lavender blooms of a jacaranda tree.

                                                Dark-capped bulbul.
 

 

I think it's a variable sunbird.

Variable sunbird.

             Variable sunbird.

A female variable sunbird, I believe.

Dark-capped bulbul.

 

My room at City Lodge in the Jo-Burg airport.   I usually try to take photos before I mess it up.  The lodge has a wonderful breakfast buffet and it was truly appreciated.   Marg was delighted.   "My first buffet in a year and a half," she said.

 

 

 The Airlink plane that took us to Botswana the next day.

 

 

A snack on-board the flight to Botswana.   Sunbirds!

Some chicken, I think, salad and what I think were baked yams.   Delicious!

I took this photo so I'd know where I was in the chronology of my photographs.   This is in Botswana, near the Chobe River, our first safari destination.   I was  here in 2014 and the air terminal was a simple shack in a dusty field.   Today, it is modern and beautiful.

The Africa Journals, Ch. 57, The Door is Open: Hostels

The Africa Journals

Chapter 57

The Door is Open: Hostels

(Part Three of the Cultural Connection)

The people said to Mandela:  What should we do, Madiba? We have nothing.

And Mandela replied:  The door is open.  I cannot take each of you by the hand.  Go back to school and get an education.

Desmond went back to school and learned English and now he is our guide for this Cultural Connection tour in and about Cape Town, South Africa.  Our motorcoach pulls up alongside a beige and pink two-story concrete building with a red corrugated roof and lets us out. 

We climb a stairway, encountering a young barefoot child in a tee shirt neatly tucked into clean jeans, showing the peace sign and a sweet smile.  I can’t tell if this is a boy or girl, as many girls and most of the boys have close-cropped haircuts.  

At the top of the stairs, we enter a hostel where we are greeted warmly by a woman occupant.

Nowadays, hostels are meant for long-term living, or at least as long as the occupant needs housing before being capable of going out on his/her own.  They are not like Western hostels, where rooms or bunks are rented short time for travelers. 

During the apartheid era, hostels were places where men lived who came to the cities to work.   They were more like barracks than rented rooms, and the living was communal.  Men were not allowed to bring their families with them.  Often during the township uprisings, the men in hostels were hired by the police to assist in quelling the demonstrators.

Inside this particular hostel today, the common room is large, the brick walls painted bright blue and beige, though the paint is peeling in many places.  Electrical conduit runs across a sagging ceiling to a box for a light, but there is no fixture there.  The linoleum is mostly worn away, exposing a concrete floor.  A table, with planks for two benches and the top, shows signs of extreme wear.

Desmond introduces us to a man who lived for a long time in this hostel.  He also went back to school in his late thirties to learn how to read and write.  Small bedrooms surround a main kitchen/dining room.  Everything is neat and tidy, but very basic.

I look out a dirty, cracked window onto an inner yard formed between other buildings.  Over-flowing trash cans are next to lines for drying laundry.  Trash is everywhere, along with chunks of concrete and other debris.  By Western standards, this is bleak living, yet people are smiling everywhere I look.

 

We are shown one of the rooms where a woman and her child live.  Bright mint green walls liven up the small space she has made as homey as she possibly can.  The child sucks on a large bottle.

We take our leave, encountering several children waiting at the bottom of the steps.   Almost all are barefoot, but each is wearing neat and clean clothing.