Nairobi - Kenya & Monkey Bay - Malawi

Just as when we flew back to the UK in January our return flight to Malawi meant a stopover in Nairobi to change plane and airline. The outward journey had included a seven hour wait in Nairobi airport which had been very tedious, we were thankful therefore that the return trip would mean just a one hour stopover.   

We weren't leaving Heathrow until 8.30pm so I even found time to visit the Dentist for a check up in the afternoon, although this didn't go down too well with Sue or Fee & Jeff who were taking us to the airport. I thought it was a good idea as my normal check up was due this month anyway, however it backfired as I was 'fined' £15 for organising this one week earlier than allowed under the NHS! -  it was definitely time to leave! 

Our flight to Nairobi was with BA then we would transfer to Kenya Airways for the leg to Lilongwe. A problem was keeping to the weight allowance, BA had warned they would soon strictly enforce the maximum one bag, 23kg allowance and it was unclear what KA would allow but we were 5kg over BAs limit and at £35.20 per kilo it could be expensive.

It's not that we take a lot of personal items, in fact I only travel with the clothes I'm wearing but we needed to take replacement spare parts for Rupert plus other items like a new candle for the water filter and it all mounted up.    

Our hand baggage was also heavy as I carried two laptops, our old one had packed up so we had bought a new one and Sue had the cameras as well as the other stuff you have to hand carry so in the end we were just lucky no one checked us too closely.

Our bags were checked right through to Lilongwe thus avoiding any hassles in Nairobi and with just one hour to switch flights this would be needed. We arrived in Nairobi at 7.30am and went straight to the transfer desk, even at this time there was already a big queue.  Eventually we saw a guy called John who told us to wait as our boarding passes hadn't arrived yet, straight away the alarm bells in my head started ringing.

A young woman stood close by had also been told to wait but she already knew somehow that the flight was overbooked so she was trying to get on a flight to Blantyre, the commercial capital of Malawi located a few hundred miles South of Lilongwe. She said her husband was the MD for Celtel the big mobile operator in Africa so she was hoping to get a seat on a direct flight later that day but as that was also full, it didn't look good.

John asked had we re-confirmed our flight but how we were expected to do that when we were in the air from London and  who re-confirms these days anyway? We pointed out that when we checked in at Heathrow they had put our bags through to Lilongwe so the system must have shown we were confirmed on our onward flight then but this point seemed lost on him!

The departure time for our flight was rapidly approaching but still no one would confirm if we had a seat or not so leaving Sue at the transit desk I rushed to the departure gate to see what the staff there would say. As I got there they were boarding the plane, I asked if they were still accepting passengers and they said yes if we hurried but without our boarding passes there was nothing we could do, it was totally frustrating. 

Back at the transit desk John finally confirmed what we already knew, we were not going to fly today, instead Kenya Airways would arrange an overnight hotel with lunch, dinner and breakfast and fly us early the next day. To our surprise we had a choice of hotels, either the New Stanley, one of Nairobi's oldest downtown hotels, the Pan African, a new hotel near the airport or the Intercontinental also down town, we opted for the latter.

Our biggest worry now was our bags, IATA rules dictate that if your offloaded then your bags must be too, but this was Africa so nothing could be taken for granted! John assured us our bags would not have been loaded onto the flight but he could not confirm where they were. He tried to convince us the bags would be safe in the airport so we should just relax at the hotel but we knew otherwise so we pointed out we needed a change of clothes and a toothbrush, in short we had to get our bags!

Reluctantly John escorted us down to the baggage hall where we found mountains of bags lying around the now deserted carousels. Being still early the place was virtually deserted except for one Irish guy who was busy going through a dishevelled bag on a table with a security guard in attendance.

He asked if we were looking for our bags and when we said yes he launched into a tirade that he had been persuaded to leave his bag in the Airport the day before when he was bumped off his flight but now he was finding someone had broken the padlock, sliced open the bag with a knife and stolen his stuff -  naturally he was not a happy man! 

This made us even more determined that John find our bags so he went off to search, an hour later he returned and one look at his face told us what we feared, our bags as we suspected had gone onto Lilongwe without us! 

We were fuming, not only was this a serious security breach it also put our whole trip at risk. If the bags had just contained clothes and personal items we wouldn't have worried so much but the bags contained all the special stuff we needed to get us through the next six months including important spare parts for Rupert, all stuff we knew was difficult if not impossible to get out here so if they went missing we were in trouble.

We also needed a change of underclothes and some basic toiletries so with the threat of a complaint to IATA ringing in his ears John went off to see what compensation he could provide. In the meantime he got us access to a phone with international access and I phoned Kumbali in Lilongwe to speak to Guy or Maureen about getting someone out to the airport to rescue our bags when they arrived.

I spoke to Maureen and she promised to send someone to get our bags, in Europe the fact their guy would have no baggage tags would ensure he would have no chance but this was Africa and there is always ways and means.

It was a relief to know our bags would be sorted, now we just waited for John to come back with what compensation Kenya Airways would come up with, if anything, for leaving us stranded without a change of clothes?  

At best we thought we might get a couple of thousand Kenyan shillings ($US 20) to get toothbrushes and a change of underwear so we very surprised when John got back and said he had $US 80 in cash for each of us and in US dollars not shillings to boot, being bumped wasn't turning out too bad at all!

By now it was midday, five hours since we had landed and we were knackered, a courtesy bus took us to the Intercontinental in downtown Nairobi where we arrived at 1pm just in time for lunch courtesy of Kenya Airways. We could have whatever we liked to eat but only one soft drink and definitely no alcohol, still we had $160 in our pockets to make up for that.

Back in our room Sue suddenly produced from her hand baggage a clean shirt for me and a T shirt for her, for some unknown reason she had packed them at the last minute, I've always felt Sue was clairvoyant!  

When we arrived at the hotel we were told that six days before there had been an earthquake in Northern Tanzania and Nairobi had been in a state of panic as they had five days of repeated tremors.  It had been the strongest quake to ever hit Tanzania, measuring 6.0 on the Richter Scale with it's epicentre about 100 km's from Arusha in Northern Tanzania.

Although the Rift valley sits on a major geological fault line it has largely escaped major quakes in recent history. Seismologists attributed this earthquake to volcanic activity at Oldolyo Lengai  a mountain near to Arusha. The earthquake had hit on the 12th July and a total of 9 tremors had been experienced since, with the worse hitting Nairobi of around magnitude 4, a very  uncommon occurrence.

We phoned Kumbali and were relieved to hear they had collected our bags and they were safe and sound, great news, we showered and had a nap before dinner, while asleep we suddenly felt the earth move... yet another tremor!

At 9.30 we went for dinner and a beer or two, what a day,  feeling tired we are in bed by midnight, we have an early start in the morning, our flight to Lilongwe is at 8.30am and we have been assured we are on it.........  

Next morning the Kenya Airways driver arrives at 6am to take us to the Airport, we have had a quick breakfast of toast, which in Africa usually results in just warm bread and coffee, the only bill we had to pay was for Internet and a few beers, happy days.

Even at this time of day the traffic in Nairobi is heavy but still we arrived at the Airport for 6.30am, plenty of time we thought to check in and relax, silly us. At the entrance to departures before we even got to the check in desks we went through a security check where our bags were searched and then as we entered the building our hearts sank, the check in queue was massive if we joined this we would miss our flight.

Leaving Sue in the queue I went in search of a transfer desk and finding one with a relatively short queue I race back to get Sue, great now we were getting somewhere. We explain to the girl we have come to catch the flight to Lilongwe after being bumped off yesterdays flight, as she's listening she's tapping away at the computer, then in true David Walliams from Little Britain style looks up and says Computer says No!

According to the system we had already flown on yesterdays flight so we were not booked on today's! Great if the system said we flew yesterday then we were pretty certain the plane went to Lilongwe with two empty seats which should have had our bums on them!

The girl grumpy anyway by all this hassle so early in her day obviously feels we, the Mzungu's, (whites) must somehow be responsible for this colossal cock up which she now has to put right!  She wasn't about to just authorise us to fly twice for the price of one so she calls for advice and eventually bitching and moaning she begrudgingly prints out new boarding passes, not one of Kenya Airways finest hours!

At 10am we finally touched down at Lilongwe, Malawian customs and immigration is usually a simple and smooth process but this time it was even smoother. At customs the woman officer was rather suspicious we only had hand luggage until she realised who we were, "Ah your the people from yesterday whose bags arrived alone" no problem welcome and please proceed".... only in Africa!

Amman the driver from Guy & Maureen's Kumbali lodge in Lilongwe was waiting to greet us and take us out to Taffy's on the lake. First stop though was to get some cash from the bank then do some food shopping as once we left Lilongwe we would not be able to get anything decent until we reached Nairobi again, the place we had just flown from that morning, confused? don't worry it will all make sense in the end!

Finally at 2pm about 48 hours after leaving the UK we arrived at Taffy's little hideaway on Lake Malawi. Taffy came out to greet us and Nelson, who had looked after us when we had first stayed in the house next to Taffy's a year ago and who we have a soft spot for, was almost beside himself as he greeted us. 

This time we wouldn't be staying in the house as Abdul, the owner, had taken it back off Taffy, a shame as we liked it there. We assumed this time we would be staying in the courtyard room but Taffy had friends from SA staying there so we would have to rough it in one of the very nice lake view cottages!

We just had time to get our bags in the room before heading out onto the sun deck for sundowners with Taffy and his friends, Vaughan & Judy. Tonight there was just the five of us, Taffy was expecting a horde of Americans in tomorrow so as we watched a most glorious African sunset, our first for over six months, we made the most of it.

After all the trials and tribulations of the last month or so it was good to be back.