My month in Africa involved twelve flights, including my first on Qatar Air, Rome to Nairobi via Doha. Two of the smaller hops within Africa were very memorable.
On the flight that took me from Arusha Airport to Lake Manyara, it turned out that I was the only passenger. Yet I had a boarding pass.
Boarding also involved my going through security and putting my bags through a scanner. Okay. That made sense. It was when the security inspector asked me to take off my shoes, that I began to wonder about the need for all this. It's not that I have not been asked that before, but the request, under those circumstances, gave me pause. Before I sat down to take off my shozies, a question escaped me. "Are you trying to protect the pilot from me?"
Before I had the first shoe off, the inspector thought better of it and told me I didn't need to have my shoes scanned.
After that, Harry the pilot and I were free to go.
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| Harry |
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| Your reporter and all the other passengers on the flight! |
The flight from Lake Manyara to Dar es Salam via Zanzibar was memorable for the opposite reason: it was so full that I had to sit in the co-pilot's seat.
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| How I boarded, a long step up for a short person and on arrival, what felt like an even longer step down. |
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| My seat mate |
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| My fellow passengers' reaction when I announced to them that if something happened to the pilot, they could not count on me. |
Here's a few seconds of close-up video of the view from my seat:
And some sights along the way from my special viewpoint.
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| The foothills of Kilimanjaro |
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| The Indian Ocean on the way to Zanzibar |
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| Our first glimpse of Zanzibar |
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| Dar es Salam, city of blue roofs. |
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Wow, sole passenger, and then co-pilot. Did the pilot ask you if you were God? (Subtle joke for older folks...)
ReplyDeleteA little late, but Happy Birthday, AmA!
Thamk you, EvKa. The pilot helped me with the elaborate special seatbelt. Otherwise he did his job and flew the plane, while I did mine and had fun!
ReplyDeleteYou're an amazing adventurer, sis, though I must admit to being a bit surprised to see such a small carrier providing you with your own video game.
ReplyDeleteIt was a great experience to watch the way game is played, even if I could not actively participate. I loved watching the altimeter and the orientation of the plane, especially during banking and landing. I am not sure what has become of my vertigo, but it seems to have vertigone!
DeleteCool! Thanks for sharing. And it's all copy.
ReplyDeleteWow, you're quite a traveler, I say admirably.
ReplyDeleteI do my traveling virtually through books and the Internet and vicariously through friends' tales of their adventures.
I just didn't inherit the traveling gene.