Getting to Kigali: Shit happens…

Sunday, August 4, 19:45

Everything’s been going so well!

(Except for getting sick…)

I suppose something had to go wrong at some point.

Vic Falls to Lusaka

We left Vic Falls this morning, transferred across the Zambezi River on that 120-year-old bridge, where I saw this sign:

But we made it across, entered Zambia, and were met by a driver who took us to Harry Mwanga Nkumbula International Airport (formerly Livingstone International), which was practically deserted.

Our flight to Lusaka was scheduled to depart at 12:30. They started boarding our flight before 11:30, and with everyone on board, we departed at 11:40. When does that ever happen?

Wilderness arranged for us to have a hotel room for our six-hour layover. Our driver picked us up when we landed at Kenneth Kaunda International Airport and drove us to the Ciêla Resort and Spa, a much nicer hotel than we needed for a few hours of relaxation. We had lunch in the hotel restaurant and were relaxing when we got a call from reception. Our driver was back to take us to the airport three hours early. It seems our flight to Kigali was canceled.

Now what???

When we got to the airport, a Wilderness representative was waiting for us, and he took us to the RwandAir office. (Their slogan is “fly the dream of Africa.” More like a nightmare.) They wanted to put us on a flight tomorrow, same time.

Losing a day was really out of the question. Our plan was to arrive in Kigali tonight, spend the night in a hotel in the city, and then get picked up in the morning for a city tour and visit to the Genocide Memorial before driving to the northern part of Rwanda, where we have a gorilla trek scheduled for Tuesday and a golden monkey trek on Wednesday. We explained to the RwandAir guy why waiting til tomorrow just wouldn’t work.

So we’re all looking for options to get to Kigali tonight. I found a flight on Kenya Airways, but the RwandAir representative said there were no seats available. Finally, we found a flight to Johannesburg arriving tonight at 21:30 and a flight from there to Kigali departing at 03:00. If everything is on time, we should arrive at 07:00, so we should be able to carry on with our plans. But we will be severely lacking a good night’s sleep.

We were able to book a hotel room at Joburg Airport, so we should have about four hours to rejuvenate. I talked to the Wilderness people about the schedule change. We asked if we could go to our hotel in Kigali to have a few hours to refresh ourselves before we kick off the day’s activities at 10:00.

Shit happens. But you can’t let it get you down. Flexibility is critical to avoiding a breakdown, especially when there’s nothing you can do about it anyway.

Let’s just hope things go smoothly and we make it to Kigali as (re)scheduled.

Monday, August 5, 01:30

We made it to Johannesburg and made it to our hotel. But then things went sideways again, at least for me.

Mary Ann fell asleep soon after we arrived. I tried to do the same, but something wasn’t working right internally. And once again I was hit by nausea and diarrhea. Although I didn’t puke, the diarrhea was really bad, and it kept me up for most of the four hours I was hoping to sleep.

We’re now back in the airport waiting for our flight to Kigali, and I’m hoping I won’t have another bout of diarrhea. But as I said, shit happens.