I
have finally made it to Ethiopia after being stuck in Cairo for two days. With only two hours of sleep in about a
36-hour period, I had the opportunity to experience being at the mercy of the
KLM airport ground crew at 1:30 am. Being a transferring passenger, they roll
out the red carpet and have you sit in a transfer station while they go and
search for your bags and within 45 minutes they skirt you off to another
holding room in a different terminal where you are then relinquished of your
passport until at a time unknown they give it back to you. With the amount of time it took them to
help me, the booking for my flight closed and they would not let me on (which
later I find out the flight was delayed until 4:50 pm). I am then escorted to
an area and was told I had to purchase a visa to go in to the Departures
terminal where I am told to go find an Ethiopian Airlines office. So off I go,
finally found the office upstairs down a long, dark, narrow hallway. Luckily,
someone was there but they could do nothing for me. They said I would have to go the office in the city on
Saturday morning (it’s now Thursday morning). Hence, there is no ticketing in
the airport. So now what, they
were nice enough to make a call for me to take me to the nearest hotel. After many hours of trying to fix this
(because of my lack of sleep), I finally decided to get some sleep. After sleeping,
I was able to think more clearly and contact the travel company that setup my
tickets. So after many phone calls, they were able to get me on a flight Sunday
at 2:35 am. I am now ready to meet
my volunteer coordinator and see how my schedule will be arranged.
