An Introduction to the Geography of Tourism by Velvet Nelson

Author:Velvet Nelson [Nelson, Velvet]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2013-01-15T05:00:00+00:00

Box 7.3. Experience: Traveling on an African Passport

I was born in Zimbabwe. I am fortunate to have had the opportunity to travel quite a bit, but I wasn’t prepared for what I had to go through on this particular trip. At the time, I was living in Harare, the capital, and after a very stressful period at work, I was ready to leave with my girlfriend on a well-deserved Christmas holiday to the United Kingdom to meet my girlfriend’s family.

I had chosen to fly on Ethiopian Airways, as I had heard good things about the service, and they offered 40 kg baggage allowance! I decided to fly through Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia and hub of the airline, and spend the night there. We could have gone on directly to England, but I wanted to get another stamp in my passport and experience that part of Africa. We waited over an hour and a half for the bus to take us to our hotel. Coming from Zimbabwe, where we have a lot of poverty and suffering, I was amazed and slightly horrified that, in a twenty-minute bus journey, most of what I saw was shanties and squalor. Things didn’t improve, as it turns out that all three-star hotels are not created equal—the showers didn’t work, the roof was falling down in places, and the bed was horrendously uncomfortable. Coupled with a 4 a.m. wake-up call for our flight and some rather odd ideas of what constitutes decent food in Ethiopia, it was not an auspicious start to our holiday.

Our next flight, full of East and Central Africans heading off for their Christmas holidays, took us through Rome. We touched down at Rome International for a quick layover to collect more passengers, and that’s where the fun really started. A forty-five-minute layover suddenly became a lot longer. We were told there was a problem with the engine—but it would be fixed shortly. Two hours later, with no more explanation, some of the passengers started to get a little rowdy. The flight attendants served dinner and drinks, and more time passed. Having watched the technicians shine flashlights into the engine for several hours, we were beginning to think that the engine was not as fixable as the attendants said. At this stage, there was a volatile mix of Christmas spirit, alcoholic spirit, and a healthy dose of African spirit. We declared that we wanted the captain to come out and explain exactly what the problem was and how long it was going to take to fix. It was suddenly announced that we would be allowed to enter the airport terminal, and everyone deplaned with great alacrity.

Inside the terminal we were met by a very courteous Ethiopian Airways agent who told us that the plane had an engine fault which would be fixed in a few hours when the part arrived from Switzerland. While they didn’t think it would take too long, the airline would put us all up in a hotel for the night.

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