The Long Way to Luanda

I ended up waking up a few minutes before my alarm went off at 5, so I turned the alarm off and got ready to go.

Lourdes woke up early and gave me a beautiful gift that I later couldn’t find and I’m afraid that I may have left it there. I will ask Beth to bring it back with her since she’s on her way there now. Lourdes also made coffee for me even though I figured I would have plenty when I arrived in Luanda shortly. I am SOOOOO grateful for that coffee.

The driver arrived at about 6:10 with Chilufya and an Entomologist who was also traveling to Luanda. The trip to the airport took about 5 minutes. We were able to check-in easily and quickly and I made the mistake of saying that things seemed to be going smoothly so far.

Mango drove to the airport to say one last good-bye. Adriano and Mauro had planned on coming as well, but they weren’t able to. So we went through security and waited for our plane.

We saw the plane arrive and we got in line to board. I was assigned the seat 9F which was nice because it was an exit row and an aisle seat – an economy traveler’s bonus. Unfortunately when I showed the man sitting in 9F my ticket  said in English, “Its open seating!” Hmm. Then why print the seat number on the ticket? I sat in 10F and sure enough, no one asked me to move and people did seem to be getting on and choosing their seats then.

Just about the time we were supposed to take off – 8:05 -- the flight attendant gets on the microphone, and says something in Portuguese that included the word equipment and Luanda and people began to groan and get their belongings. I realized we were all getting off. I asked the Entomologist if he knew what was going on and he said something about being lower and having to wait. He had admitted earlier that he didn’t know much English. I grabbed a woman who I thought I had heard speaking English earlier and asked her if she knew what was going on. She said that the plane had a flat tire and a replacement tire would have to be flown in from Luanda and we should expect to leave by 11. We were let back into the boarding area. I heard a woman getting off the plane saying in Portuguese, “That’s Angola!”

I informed 9F and Chilufya. I knew my flight wasn’t until 19:00 but Chilufya’s flight to South Africa was scheduled to leave at 14:00 and he was really worried whether he was going to make it. I was confident that all would be ok. If we left Huambo by 11and got to Luanda by noon, he should have no problem making his flight.

The boarding area is just one room with the tarmac on one side and security opposite that, a bar on one wall, a blank wall opposite that and chairs in the middle. Several men on the flight went straight to the bar. Chilufya and 9F got a few beers and we talked for a while about all of the travels that 9F had done. He was Zambian (as is Chilufya) and apparently one day he got bored so he decided to go to India for a few weeks. When he was finished there he went from there to China for a few weeks and then decided to go to Portugal. When he got back some friends invited him to come to the US to do some fishing. He talked to us about the process for getting a visa and how he told the people at the embassy that it wouldn’t be convenient for him to come back the next day for the visa so they told him to come for it that afternoon. They gave him a visa lasting for 6 years.

Initially the room was pretty quiet. But as the folks at the bar got drunker and drunker they started getting louder and louder and the whole room got louder and louder so that they could hear themselves. Our Entomologist started off quiet and wearing a nice tan jacket. As the drinks kept flowing he lost the jacket; then his shirt started getting unbuttoned one button at a time. He was speaking a lot with a fellow who was shouting in Portuguese. It became clear that Entomologist was not his only intended audience. He began to walk around the room and shout at any cluster of people whether they were meeting his gaze or not.

There were two babies on the flight – a little boy and a little girl around the same age. The boy screeched with an ear piercing screech every time he didn’t get what he wanted. After an hour it was REALLY wearing on me. After that I started getting awful thoughts many of which involved duct tape.

Chilufya and 9F went walking around the airport (there wasn’t much to walk around) so they left the boarding area and went upstairs. I stayed with our stuff and knitted. The women’s room started off with toilet paper, but as the hours went on and on and on the toilet paper was never replaced.

Chilufya returned and went from a “nothing you can do about it” philosophy to “I really can’t miss my flight” and “If only they would give us SOME news!” mode.

Caught in the act
9F sitting to the left.
Chilufya wearing headphones on the right.

A few hours into the wait I realized that my headphones had been stolen – well – lost – well – kinda donated – to a tall handsome Zambian. Chilufya had been borrowing them since his earbuds broke. He liked them so much that I knew I would have to give them to him. In return he promises to give me so much great African music that we’ll be begging him to stop.

The plane from Luanda arrived about 11:30 and this big crowd of airport people were standing around as work was being done on the tire. It seemed as though there was a joke just waiting to be told there someplace starting with, “How many Angolans does it take to change a tire?”

I think it was about 12:30 when we were finally allowed to board again. I worried about the bar shouter. I know he would never have been allowed to board a plane in the US in that condition. Would he be belligerent? Aggressive? Loud? Sick? Or would he pass out. It turned out he did the last.

The screecher getting up and down on the plane

Entomologist, whose shirt was unbuttoned now half way down was clearly lit. He kept making very loud comments in Portuguese that made everyone in a four row radius laugh. He kept on trying to talk to the screecher who was directly behind him, but it would sort of wind the screecher up even more.

FINALLY we were off. There was just a chance that Chilufya would make it. After about 45 minutes into the flight Chilufya comes up to my seat and says, “Do you know we’re not going straight to Luanda? We’re landing someplace else first. That’s it! There’s just no way I can make my flight now.”

Sure enough we landed and it was clearly not Luanda. I was told we were in Cunene – the completely wrong direction. After a few minutes another announcement was made and people started getting up. They needed to refuel and we all had to get off for them to do it. BACK off the plane, and for some, back to the bar. Chilufya and I are blindly following other passengers into the terminal and up the stairs into the bar area. Eventually we blindly followed into the VIP room where at least the seats were comfortable.

I'm not accustomed to seeing
the insulation behind the overhead compartments.

As soon as people that I recognized started to make a move back downstairs I followed quickly behind. Of course each time we board and unboard it takes a lot of time. Somehow they managed to collect some new passengers as well. I don’t know where they were putting them, but the new passengers weren’t willing to sit next to Entomologist – in fact his seat mates were trying to get rid of him until he stumbled around unable to find a seat.

We take off again and they announce that it will be an hour and forty minutes to Luanda for a flight that was originally supposed to take 50 minutes. That last flight felt even longer. By the time we landed people were clapping and I think some were getting ready to kiss the ground.

When I was at the baggage claim, Etymologist  asked me in English whether I was ok. I gave him a thumbs up. He only had the bottom two buttons still buttoned on his shirt.

This whole debacle has used my entire layover time. When I last saw Chilufya he had an agent from the TAAG airline helping him, but this guy seemed completely clueless about what could be done. I got my bag and started looking for how to get to the international terminal. I asked a few people who responded in Portuguese before they called another fellow out. He spoke English beautifully and pronounced his words very carefully. He took me around to a few places before he concluded that I would need to take a cab to get from the Domestic Airport to the International Airport. The cab ride took about 5 minutes and cost $15.

I got on a line to check in and there were only three women ahead of me. Two were together but in both cases they had some bags that were too heavy and they kept their place in line and started moving things from one bag to another. I think the check in for those two groups alone was about 20 minutes. I still had time to go to the currency exchange since I couldn’t find any shops.

There was another long wait as an American ahead of me is getting annoyed at all the work it is taking to get his $83 exchanged. After about 15 minutes I finally get to the front of the line and I’m told they can’t exchange my $61 because I’m not there on a work visa. Why that has ANYTHING TO DO WITH ANYTHING I have no idea, but there you have it. I tried to explain that I was there doing business, but that didn’t help my cause. He pointed to the place in the visa that made this impossible and there was nothing left to be done.

I headed to security where they did an x-ray scan and I walked through the metal detectors, then for a passport check, then a physical bag check (they didn’t steal my scissors, yay!) and then a wand body scan before I was allowed in the boarding area.

It wasn’t too long before we were put on shuttle buses to our waiting plane. I literally felt a weight lift when the flight attendant greeted me in English. The plane was cool and it left on time. The plane wasn’t very full so I asked for, and got, a seat with no one next to me.

I watched a strange Dutch movie about a kid who gets a job as an elevator attendant, but the elevator is magic and ends up shooting out of the building and going to New York and then to some Latin American country in mid-revolution. It was supposed to be funny, but it wasn’t.

Then I watched Man of Steel. I liked the twist on the old story, but found it so violent and digitized that it looked like a video game.

I managed to sleep for a very little while and then watched a few TV shows until we landed at 4:22 in Amsterdam.

A few more pictures here.