Arusha - Kilimanjaro - Nairobi - Dubai - Birmingham - Home

Kilimanjaro Airport

At Kilimanjaro Airport we join a long queue just to enter the departure building, caused by the first of many, many security checks. Bags are X-rayed, as are the passengers. My watch has to come off (it’s plastic, so I don’t understand why.), and they thoroughly check my memory cards from my pocket.

Once we are inside the building, we join another long queue for check-in. There are three desks open; one has a problem with someone who has left their passport back at the hotel; a larger-than-life African woman is giving the staff at the second desk hassle, and someone is trying to check in a huge South African group at the third desk. Groan. This could take a while.

Eventually we make it to the front, but for some reason the attendant is unable to print our luggage tags (the boarding cards were fine), so it has to be hand written. Our final destination is Birmingham, England, which the girl has no idea of the three-letter airport code for. We rummage through all our paperwork and finally find it.

The African woman and girl whose partner has gone back to collect his passport, have been asked to wait to one side. They are both sobbing quietly. The large South African group is still there.

We proceed through the passport and boarding card check, to wait in some sort of pre-lounge, before being called through another X-ray. Shoes off, watch off, SD cards checked, dung beetle examined. Heads shaken.

The small plane to Nairobi offers very little legroom, but as it is nowhere near full, we are able to spread out. It’s only an hour flight anyway, so no big deal.

My last African sunset. For this time.

Nairobi Airport

At Nairobi Airport we go through another X-ray (hand luggage) and scanner (people) and make our way to the transfer desk to get our boarding cards.

The officer at the boarding gate security check (more X-rays and scanners) confiscates my loose safety pins! My passport and boarding card details are recorded in the ‘naughty people book’. The whole thing is pretty ridiculous as David’s safety pin goes through fine! Doh!

We have to endure another passport and boarding card check before being allowed into the gate waiting area, and again on boarding the plane. I am not really complaining – I would rather go through hundreds of security checks if it means that we are safe from people with ill intent.

Again the flight is not full, so we take a row each, and manage to catch a bit of much needed sleep (it's the middle of the night after all).

Approaching Dubai

This journey seems to have been one long queue - here we are waiting to get off the plane

On the transfer bus

Inside the terminal there are immense crowds waiting for the X –ray and security. The machine beeps at me, so I am pulled aside to be frisked in a private room. This is a great opportunity for me to practice my extremely limited local language skills; but my “Salaam Aleykum” is met with a huge smile and the question “You speak Arabic?”

All shopped out!

Sunrise over Dubai Airport

We have great seats on this A380-800, just behind the cockpit – they appear wider and longer than usual. Yet again we have a whole row each, making the seven-and-a-half hour flight considerably more bearable.

The approach to Birmingham Airport gives me a chance to photograph England’s Green and Pleasant Land from above.

And Birmingham.

The not-so-happy ending

The landing is extremely smooth and all is going well until we come to collect our luggage! Part of David’s case is missing. We’d both strapped an extra day-sack on to the back on the main bags, but someone has obviously stolen David’s and were interrupted taking mine off as one of the fasteners have been undone.

There is no way it would fall off by itself, so this is deliberate theft! We go to Emirates Customer Service desk to report it, but they refuse to lodge a report as only part of the luggage is missing. They send us to the Lost Luggage desk, who refuse to lodge a report, suggesting instead that we send them an email to report it. They send us to the police station to report it, as it is theft, not loss.

The police don’t want to know as it “could be just lost”. We explain that there is no way it would accidentally fall off, and eventually they very reluctantly take a report, but can’t give us a reference number for some stupid reason or another.

We come away feeling extremely frustrated as no-one seems to want to take ownership, we are being passed from pillar to post, which is the last thing you want after a 32 hours journey!

POST NOTE: When coming home I try to contact Emirates to claim for the lost items – guess what: they don’t want to know because we don’t have the ‘Luggage Irregularity Report Number’ from the original people who didn’t want to know! Grrrrr

Three lessons learned (thankfully there was nothing of any real value in the bag):

1. Don’t attach anything to the outside of the bag that can be removed, even if it takes a lot of effort.

2. Get the checked in luggage cling-film wrapped, especially if we are travelling through Nairobi Airport.

3. If we do suffer a loss of any kind, INSIST on a report!

The final insult

Lyn and Chris have been patiently waiting for us to finish dealing with the Emirates counter (10 minutes), Lost Luggage desk (10 minutes) and police (45 minutes), but we can finally call the Valet parking company and get them to deliver the car for us to drive home.

After just a few minutes the car arrives – complete with two scratches that were not there when we dropped it off. Chris very politely points them out to the delivery driver, who brusquely replies: “You have to prove it wasn’t scratched when we received it” and hands us an email address. Great! Another person with a ‘couldn’t care less’ attitude.

Please take me back to Africa where we constantly received excellent customer service!

SECOND POST NOTE: The parking company’s photos taken at the time of delivering the car to them proved inconclusive (so they say), but they offer to pay for restoration of the paintwork as a ‘gesture of goodwill’. The good news is then scratches come off with some T-Cut and they refund the entire parking charge.

Back home we all agree what an amazing time we have had – and we start planning the next one