Flying

One of the few resolutions I had this trip was not to fly, but t seems that sticking to plans/resolutions is not my strongest point. I flew from Niamey to Tunis, which should not have to take longer than 3.5 hours, I managed to be underway for 44 hoursTo my surprise I found out, from the monitor in the plain that we were flying via Bamako. After a short stop we went to Algiers, where we arrived according to schedule at 6 in the morning. Because I had not been able to acquire a visa to spend a night in Algiers, I was to stay at the airport. To be certain that I would not leave they took my passport and my ticket. They put me in a little waitingroom without windows, but with Algerian television on for 24 hours. I was not allowed to leave the room, but to go to the toilet. Fortunately I had traded a book with the doorman in Niamey. Although it was an English classic and a love story I was very happy with it because it had over 500 pages. Once in a while I was desturbed in my reading, with the delivery of food. I got as many plane meals as I wanted and as they were quite different from the meals I had been eating for the last two months, much appreciated. At night my bed was a folded cartboardbox, but I slept well on it.

The next morning I was alowed in the boarding area, though several shops with food were present in this area, I could not buy anything because I did not have any Algerian money. I had finished my book the previous day, so the only thing I could do was wait. This is something I got good at as I had a lot of practice the previous months. Still I did not have my passport and ticket/boarding card and I felt a little nervous about it, so I decided I would come in to action at 12 o'clock. At the moment I went to a police officer to inquire after my papers, an airport man delivered me my passport, boarding pass and 2 coupons for free meals at a cafetaria. In the meantime I had grown rather hungry so I went to cash in on one of the coupons. My flight was scheduled for four o'clock. I do not know the reason but the plane we were supposed to take left without us. Fortunately an other arrived. In the meantime my luggage was lying outside. Normally not much of a problem, but what I had not seen for about 2 months happened, it started to rain, hard. I had not protected my bag with the raincover, and I hoped that my bag was waterresistant of itself. After a delay of a couple of hours I was finally able to board and could I undertake the last 45 minute of my flying trip.