Ray was waiting for us when we came down at 8:00. We had about 4 hours before we needed to leave for the airport. This didn’t give us time to go to London, so I went to the Concierge once again. Two young men and a young woman stood behind the desk. I went to the man who wasn’t talking to anyone.
“Sir, we have about four hours before our flight. Is there anything around here to see while we wait?”
He smiled. “A thousand year old church and a village might do.”
“Yes, that would do nicely,” I said.
He pulled out another map. “Go out of the hotel and turn right. Just before the bridge is a trail. Take it. It isn’t much to see at first, but keep going. It opens into a field soon, then there’s the village in a while. The church is there,” he pointed to the map, “then go on here to the park for a view of the church.”
He gave me the map. “One more thing,” I said. “Is there a way to get to the airport without paying the Hotel Hopper?”
He smiled again. “There’s a free public bus.” He took the map from my hand. “It’s here,” he pointed to an intersection on the highway where we’d walked last night. “Take any of these.” He wrote down five bus numbers. “They all stop at Terminal 1.”
We walked out of the hotel. Ray had been up exploring for hours. I was absolutely starving. “I went down there,” Ray said pointing to McDonalds. And I was actually hungry enough to go and eat there! Lisa and I enjoyed our Egg McMuffin while Ray watched, then it was time to go exploring!
There was one small thing the Concierge failed to mention: the trail he said to take went between the hotel and the correctional facility. So we turned off the main highway and onto the trail by the bridge as he’d said and found ourselves walking beside a twelve-foot fence with razor wire at the top. There was a second fence about 10 feet inside this one and it, too, had razor wire at the top. And there were two watch towers above the fences and the four buildings inside the fence. All the windows were carefully barred and there was mesh wire inside the bars before the windows.
We walked past the parking lot of the hotel. As we approached the hotel itself, there was another fence on our right, which meant that the trail, a five foot wide concrete walk, actually had the towering prison fence on the left and a ten foot fence protecting the hotel guests from the inmates on the right. And the “trail” ran on like this for at least 300 yards!
We hurried along, watching the prison side, but we didn’t see anything. On the hotel side, however, we found a large cut out in the fence. Was it an unhappy guest who decided to try his luck on the inside? Or perhaps an escaped prisoner and the prison had repaired its fence but the hotel was slow? Whatever the case, we hurried past.
As the Concierge promised, there was a weed-filled field behind the hotel. The prison wasn’t finished yet, so we kept the twelve foot high double fence on our left, but the fence on the right was replaced by tall weeds. Since the weeds would make the absolutely ideal spot for an attack on the prison by irate terrorists who had lost a cohort, we hurried even more quickly past the field!
The prison fence ended at about the same point as the field. This village desperately needed a course in land use planning: the prison backed up to an elementary school, the field to a park with play ground equipment. We started to turn into the park, but I checked the map and found that we needed to go through the edge of the school property. Since it was summer, there were no children at the school, so we cut through the school yard and into the village.
The houses here were much larger. Like before, all had their small flower gardens and patch of grass. These were free standing houses with drives providing a break between them. We walked out a short shady street and into a larger street. A post office sat on one side of the square and the church grounds across from it. There were a few small stores along the road away from the church, then more homes. We walked through the gate and into a cemetery. There were huge trees among the grave markers. Some dated back to the 1700’s, and some appeared to be much older than that. We walked through one piece of the cemetery to the ancient stone church. There was a wooden door leading into the church, but it was locked. We walked around the church through more of the surrounding cemetery, but all the doors were locked. We spent a while looking at grave stones and very old trees, then retraced our steps back to the post office.
The Concierge insisted that we go into the park for a view of the church, so we walked down the road he had indicated on the map. We found ourselves outside the gate to the manor house where apparently the owner of the village had lived. We couldn’t see the house from the road, only the brick wall and gate which ran along the road from the church. The manor property adjoined the church and probably had its own entrance.
We walked along the lane in front of the manor house wall. Although Heathrow Airport, one of the busiest and most modern airports in the world, was less than five miles away, we were walking along a narrow dirt road in the country near a 1,000 year old church!
After a while, we crossed a bridge over a river, which we would call a healthy creek at home. We found the park on the other side. There were signs prohibiting a number of things at the entrance to the park. All were familiar, like forbidding fires, unleashed dogs, and motorized vehicles. But there was also a new and very British sign: “NO FOULING.” There was even a fouling station, a place where one could get a plastic bag to clean up after one’s felonious pooch!
We followed a narrow dirt trail through an open field and into a sparse forest. Ducks swam on the nearly black, tree lined river which flowed very slowly among the ancient trees. And across the river and a field stood the church tower, a view that had probably changed very little since the church was built ten centuries ago. We made many pictures of the church and the river and the ducks and the path, then it was time to go. We had less than 3 ½ hours before our flight was scheduled to depart! That’s only 1 ½ hours before we had to check in at Heathrow!!
So we hurried back to the dirt road and past the church to the post office. It was impossible to believe that Heathrow stood so nearby. There was a lot of air traffic, but it was so high that it was only noticeable if you looked overhead. But we had no more time for sight seeing. It was time to hurry!
We met a man on the narrow trail between the fences. He was dressed as a workman, but I must admit I was a bit uneasy as we passed this stranger walking beside the prison. I couldn’t help wondering who he might be, where he was going, and why he was walking in the morning hours beside this high security detention facility. He didn’t say anything at all to us, and I stopped to watch him after he passed. He simply walked on down the trail, so we turned and did the same in the opposite direction.
We hurried to the highway, then into the hotel. Lisa hurried to the hotel, while I ran into the lobby shop looking for deodorant for the trip home. The Indian proprietress couldn’t find any on the shelf, so she opened a gigantic box of assorted merchandise and started digging in it, an exercise that would have frustrated me at any time. She dug and dug, then came up with a sample-sized bottle of lady’s deodorant at a cost of only $5. I took it and all but ran to the room.
Lisa had everything organized and ready to go. In five minutes, we had completed the on-screen check out and were hurrying to the lobby where Ray waited. We dropped our keys and went out to the street. It was a short walk to the bus stop where several others waited. We looked at a sign with the schedule on it. Every bus that stopped here except one went to the airport. Of course, the first bus that stopped was the one that didn’t go to Heathrow!
Lisa and I were getting nervous because on an earlier trip with Alan Wallace, our cab driver had gotten lost en route to the airport. We tried to check in only a few minutes late only to find that we had been bumped. This had resulted in a mad dash to Gatwick in a BA sponsored limousine, followed by a flight in Business Class to Washington DC and a very late night flight from Washington to Atlanta. There was a limo waiting for us in Atlanta and it drove us to home to Chattanooga, but we didn’t arrive until 3:00 a.m. Since I had a appointment at 8:00 a.m. in Nashville with a Vanderbilt doctor, it was very important that we make all our connections this time.
The next bus bore one of the appropriate numbers, so we climbed aboard. It was a quick ride to Terminal 1. We had 2 ½ hours until our flight was scheduled to depart. We knew what to do – a quick dash to the elevator down to the trains. We found a train almost ready to depart for Terminal 3, so we climbed aboard and waited for nearly 20 minutes. The ride took only ten minutes, then a quick elevator ride up to Departures. We tried to check in at an automated counter, but it wouldn’t let us. We found a BA employee and she routed us directly to a counter where no one was waiting. The lady there looked at our documents, then pulled us up in the system. “Oh, one of you is having a lucky day. You’ve been bumped up!”
It was Ray, of course! BA had decided to move him from his super tourist seat to Business Class!
We cleared security without any problem, and found ourselves ready to go to the gate with about 1 hour 50 minutes until departure. The gate wasn’t even listed on the Departure screen yet!
So Ray headed off for a little last minute shopping. We shopped for candy, then stopped for one last extravagance. There is a Raw Bar in the middle of Heathrow. We had looked at on every trip, but never had the time or the pounds. Today, we had both! We took a seat and ordered one of their cheapest meal, Scottish smoked salmon and toast with two waters. It cost a little over 10 pounds (about $22) but smoked salmon is Lisa’s favorite thing in the whole world. We shared the four thin slices of salmon and the toast points. I ate most of the salad.
When we were finished, it was time to go to the gate, which was now posted on the screen, along with a flashing BORDING sign. We hurried to the gate where Ray was rather anxiously waiting. Our row, at the very back of the plane, was already boarding. Ray, who learned at the gate that he had been bumped up to Business Class, could board at his leisure. Lisa and I felt honored that he had waited to encourage us steerage passengers before taking his place in his fully reclining seat-bed.
The flight to Chicago was completely uneventful. It left on time. The movie system worked perfectly and I split my time between watching completely mindless movies, a couple of TV reruns, and reading my Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency book. It hardly seemed 8 hours before we landed!
Taking BA out of Chicago has many advantages over other routes to Uganda. It starts and ends in Chattanooga. It allows a bit of break going and coming, which helps defeat jet lag. It gives time for a little sight seeing in London. The planes BA uses are very nice.
But it requires facing American Airlines in Chicago, and that is no easy thing! We had a bit longer layover this time than on our earlier flight, but we still had to get boarding passes for the final leg of our flight. We couldn’t use the automated check-in system because we were changing airlines, so we got in a very long line and started to wait. We finally had a chance to ask an AA employee if we needed to wait in this line since our bags had been checked through from Uganda. “No, you don’t,” said the woman who seemed to be leaving for the day. “You can come stand over here.” She motioned us around the line into a large holding area that was all but full of others waiting for boarding passes. She zipped the line behind us closing us off from all the other waiting people, then left.
The line we’d been in seemed to be moving very slowly, but we could instantly see that this line wasn’t moving at all! There was a woman here who seemed to let one group go at a time. The problem was there seemed to be only one gate agent who could take care of us, and the entire group seemed to have one kind of trouble or another.
When we finally drew near the front of the line, the woman noticed us. “How did you get in here?” she yelled. “Did you just walk in from the other line? I know I didn’t let you in!”
“Another woman let us in,” I explained. “She was leaving, but she looked at our tickets when we asked where to go, and she moved us in here.”
“Let me see your tickets,” said the woman suspiciously. I had been watching the other line and it appeared that the people who had been in front of us had already gotten their boarding passes and moved on to Security, so it was very strange that this woman would be worried about us being in this “special” line when we didn’t need to be!
“It’s okay,” she said after a thorough examination of each one. After that, she was very friendly, asking about our trip and why we had been in Africa.
When we finally got to the counter, the woman quickly gave us our boarding passes. I got caught in Security this time because I had stuck my glasses case in my pocket. It had metal in it, so I got caught and had to be searched.
Still, we had plenty of time before our next flight. Ray said all he’d done since leaving London was eat, so he wasn’t interested in finding a quick bite. Lisa and I, on the other hand, were starving! We finally found a place to get a hot dog, so we sat down and inhaled one each!
The flight to Chattanooga left on time and once again, it went perfectly. We even arrived in Chattanooga nearly 20 minutes early! We walked into the terminal and out through security. Ray’s family hadn’t gotten there yet, so we all went to Baggage Claim to wait. It took nearly as long to get our bags in Chattanooga as it had taken in Uganda, so Vicki had plenty of time to get to the airport. They arrived about ten minutes after we landed. Everyone had certainly missed Ray!
Our bags finally arrived and we hoisted them off one last baggage belt! Michael helped me get my bags, and we started out to the parking lot. Since we had to be in Nashville the following morning, we had asked Kim to bring our car to the parking lot so that we wouldn’t have to go by home before starting our drive. I went out to the lot and pushed my door lock until the horn sounded. We loaded the car, said our goodbyes, and started out for Nashville.
I drove for nearly an hour, then stopped at a Wal Mart so that we could walk around a bit because I was getting very sleepy. At about 1:00 a.m. I couldn’t go any further. We stopped at a hotel in Murfreesboro. They had a room, so I took it and we rode the elevator up. I went inside the room and collapsed on the bed. I didn’t stir until the alarm went off at 6:00!
PS. Wednesday June 20:
Although the trip officially ended when we got back to the Chattanooga airport, I thought you might be interested in the rest of the story!
We were up at 6:00 for the drive to Nashville. We checked out at 6:30 and the hotel clerk said we needed about 45 minutes to get to Vanderbilt Hospital. He was exactly right!
We were sitting in the Vanderbilt parking lot at 7:15. I didn’t know it until I got to check in, but my doctor had moved to a new office in another part of the hospital. But even with that, we made it well before the appointment at 8:00.
The doctor had no news for us. His diagnosis is still not clear, so he advised us to wait and see what happens.
We had breakfast at the Pancake Pantry, a Nashville institution, then drove to Opry Mills Mall and watched “Pirates of the Caribbean.” It was our wedding anniversary and we talked about staying in Nashville for the night, but I really needed to get back to work so we drove home after the movie. We celebrated our anniversary and our return home at Bald Headed Bistro in Cleveland, Tennessee with a fabulous meal!
I’m going to need help if I’m able to go at all this Christmas. And we hope to take a group back next summer.
If you’re interested in going to Uganda, you can contact me at jimsteele@ugandachildrensproject.org
To find out more about the project,
http://www.ugandachildrensproject.org
Thanks for reading!
Friday, July 6, 2007
MONDAY JUNE 18 – STARTING HOME
Since our flight was scheduled to leave at 9:00, we wanted to be at the airport by 7:00, so the van picked us up at 6:00 after a restful, though short, night at the Hotel Africana. David got up to see us off, but went back to bed. He had time to finish his nap while the van made the hour-plus trip to Entebbe.
It was still dark when we pulled out of the parking lot and into the usually crowded traffic circle below the hotel. The city was just coming to life, with a few people walking slowly along the street. As we started out Entebbe Road, we saw security guards walking with their World War II era rifles from their night watching jobs watching over the exorbitant homes of the rich and powerful of Kampala to their own homes with no electricity, no running water, and dirt floors. It was eerie seeing armed and uniformed men walking along in the darkness. The chilling words of a young woman I met on an earlier trip came to mind. “Remember when you see them walking what they have seen at their jobs and what they will see when they are at home. Then remember, these are the people in Uganda who have the guns. How long will they wait?”
The closer we came to Entebbe, the higher the sun rose. Soon we could see everything – the incredible green of the landscape, the older women going into town in their wonderful traditional dresses in colors from yellow to purple and everything in between. The young women in office attire. The men, often in crisp, white shirts. They waited by the highway for overloaded taxis. They waved and sometimes the taxi vans stopped and let them squeeze in, but usually, the van sped on and they kept waiting.
There was very little traffic once we reached the insane construction zone at the airport. There was no oncoming traffic, so squeezing into a single lane didn’t really matter. The guard at airport gate seemed sleepy. He spoke to us then waved us through without ceremony.
The airport is undergoing a major face-lift for the upcoming Commonwealth Meeting. The area where passengers get out is presently a dead-end, so we had to get our bags out quickly. The guys quickly unloaded our bags, and we had a quick goodbye with Vincent, then he had to move the van. No one had a lot to say. Baby Lisa was still sleepy and a bit grumpy. I guess they were all sleepy because no one found much to say. That wasn’t my excuse. I didn’t talk because I couldn’t, the thought that I might not be back was more than I could handle. Ray and Lisa seemed in no better shape than me.
Only ticketed passengers were allowed inside, so we had quick hugs and handshakes, then we went through the first of three security checkpoints. This one led to a huge line. We were more than two hours early and the lobby of the airport was already filled with British Air customers! But the confusion and hassle gave us a few minutes to get ourselves pulled back together.
All bags must go through x-ray. There’s no one to help load the bags on the machine belt and that makes this a very chaotic thing. Bags are always HUGE and many of the fliers aren’t, so it would be comical to watch everyone trying to get things loaded into the x-ray machine if you weren’t waiting in the line and dreading your turn to sling your unbelievably heavy bags from the cart to the belt.
We got through with only one bag searched, which isn’t bad for this airport! We looked outside once we cleared the x-ray machines, but our friends were already gone. The people at the BA desk actually ran the whole e-ticket thing as well as any airport anywhere (only two years ago, paper tickets were absolutely required!). They had one piece of interesting news: we were checking our bags all the way to Chattanooga. We had packed very little into our carry-ons, so we would have an interesting day trying to piece together toiletries and clothing for the final leg of our trip.
Immigration couldn’t have gone more smoothly, because no one there said a word to us. We had more than an hour and a half until the plane was scheduled to leave. We’d had no breakfast so we planned to eat at the coffee shop, but we were side tracked by the great gift shop in the departure lounge. I found an African shirt on clearance and we found a few other small gifts. It was crucial that we shop because our trip to the jungle had cost us our shopping time. But we shopped until they made the last call for our flight, which meant an hour until take off. But we had another security station to clear, so we hurried on to the line with our new purchases.
The Departure Lounge is about as uncomfortable as such a place can be. There’s no air conditioning or fans, so there are open windows to the runway. There are no screens so there are bugs. And the lounge must have been set up for smaller planes. There are barely enough seats, but it is a rather snug fit. Of course many people don’t abide by the last call, so there are folks in line trying to get in up until the last minute. We noticed this time that several were turned away at the security point.
We talked quietly as we waited. Ray was still in first-timer mode – he wanted to talk about everything and everyone, and even though we’ve been over many times now, we were just as ready to talk as he was. It had been a wonderful trip!
Our departure time came and went. About twenty minutes later, they told us to board. There were no row numbers, so it was a mad rush to the door, but there was no pushing or shoving, just a cattle stampede on the one poor person taking tickets.
We walked out of the airport and onto the tarmac. There was a private jet at the end of the taxi way surrounded by a large crowd. There was a military regiment near the steps leading down from the plane and a small group of men in grass skirts and brightly colored tops. The vast majority of the crowd was dressed in business attire.
It was the president’s plane, and this was his welcoming committee. The men dressed in jungle attire were apparently the kings of Uganda. We watched out the window and actually saw the president’s legs as he walked past the plane, then he was whisked away in a vehicle we couldn’t see.
The flight couldn’t leave until he was well away, so we sat at the gate waiting. It must have been some time, but I wouldn’t know. I was sound asleep as soon as I sat down!
This plane had only two seats on the two aisles, so Lisa and I had a window and aisle seat. It was cloudy as we flew up Africa, but it cleared a bit over the Sahara Desert. There was nothing as far as the eye could see, just red desert at times, or white desert at other times and an occasional track which must have been a road. We dozed and watched movies and ate terrible airplane food. About ten hours later, we landed in London.
Immigration in London is always intense, but we had a very nice young female agent who was pleasant and interested as she asked us about our reason for being in Africa. Since we had no bags to claim, we hurried through baggage claim and into Heathrow. We had absolutely no idea where to go! After roaming for a bit, we were told to go to Terminal 1. We were in Terminal 3 which meant we had to board the London train and get off at the first stop. We followed the signs into the new terminal, then couldn’t find any signs directing us to the hotel busses. We asked and didn’t understand the directions, which led us to a line of cars, but no busses. We asked again, and finally found the place which turned out to be the place where we’d ridden to and from Gatwick on previous trips. We found that our hotel didn’t have a shuttle bus, so we would have to take the Hotel Hopper for 4 pounds each, just over $8 (actually, $25 for the three of us). We got our tickets as we boarded and took seats in the relatively crowded bus.
We wound around the terminal and stopped one more time, but no one got on or off. We road through a tunnel and out of the airport, then immediately turned into a hotel where, again, no one got on or off. Then we drove out of that hotel, crossed the street, and turned into ours. The ride took all of 10 minutes and couldn’t have been more than 1.5 miles!
We went into the modern lobby and in no time, we were registered. Lisa went to the Concierge while I registered. We were hoping to go into London for Spamalot, the Monty Python play, but she learned that with the hour plus delay for the president and our inability to find our hotel, we were too late to make it into London. Ray really wanted to eat in a pub, so we decided not to go into London at all. We agreed to meet in a half hour. We thought we could find a local pub.
We had gotten our rooms for under $200 each, which was amazing because the posted rate was $275! It was a Sheraton Hotel, and the room was incredibly nice with air conditioning and every imaginable convenience. And there were no mosquito nets! It was terribly hard to drag ourselves out of the luxury to go to dinner!
Ray was waiting for us when we came back to the lobby. I went to the Concierge once again and he gave me a map with a pub marked on it. “Out the front. Cross the road. Go down past the entrance to Hell, you know, those golden arches, turn left, go straight for a while, you’ll find it on your left.”
I looked at the map and saw the route he’d marked. I knew we should be able to follow it even if his verbal directions were a bit odd. We crossed the road and found the golden arches, good ole McDonalds! We turned and within 100 yards, we had entered a British village! Each tiny row house had an equally tiny well tended flower garden and perfectly cut mini-yard. The doors were all dark wood. The houses were pretty much all the same: two stories, a front door and a window on the front with the flowers and bit of grass. There were huge trees along the narrow street and we ambled along the walk for several blocks. We came to two story pub with a sign telling us this pub had been in operation since the 1600’s when it had also been an inn. The outside tables were packed with locals drinking beer, so we decided to go inside. The door was about 6 inches shorter than me, but the ceiling inside was tall enough for me to straighten up. Every table inside the dark little room was packed with drinkers, so we edged back out into the courtyard. We decided to walk on and see if we could find another option.
There was another pub across the street a few blocks down. This one was in a much newer, brick building, though it still appeared older than most buildings in America. We looked through the window and saw that there were many open tables. We went inside and found a menu with fish and chips and other pub food, as well as a few specials. It wasn’t clear what we were to do, whether we should be seated on our own or needed to wait to be seated. We stood at the bar for a few minutes and no one said a word to us. Finally, we stepped up to the bar. A small, white haired, lady with thick glasses seemed to be working the cash register. She looked up, “You know what you’ll be havin’,” she asked. We gave her our orders: Lisa and Ray wanted fish and chips, while I decided to try to the duck. She wrote down the order and turned away. We stood for a minute more, then found a table in the corner. There were several other tables taken, but many were empty. The table nearest us was occupied by 8 business people who were discussing the day’s deal.
We were all hungry and it seemed to take the kitchen forever! Finally, a woman came out carrying two fish and chips. She sat them down and left. Lisa gave me a few chips and a bit of fish while I waited and waited and waited for my duck. Finally, I caught the waitress’ attention and asked about my order. “Oh, I gave it to the table over there,” she said. “They must have ordered duck, too, but I wonder what happened to theirs if I gave them yours? Do you want it still? I can order it for you. Won’t take very long.”
Since Ray and Lisa had finished, I told her not to bother, but asked that she adjust our bill. She seemed very embarrassed by it all. Someone was smoking a vile brand of cigarette and I started sneezing, so Lisa had to face the old woman at the register. The bill, of course, had not been adjusted. She tried to charge Lisa for the missing duck. I came back in when I saw that there was trouble, but Lisa handled the woman well and the bill was soon properly settled.
We decided to go back another way. We continued down the village street to the highway and turned back toward the hotel. We walked along the very busy road through a marshy area and across a stream. There was a huge facility next to the hotel on the side away from the airport (the side we hadn’t yet seen). There were a number of four story brick buildings standing beyond a fenced parking lot. As we got closer, we saw that the fence had razor wire on the top and there was a guard shack at the entrance. There was little doubt that our hotel sat next to a correctional facility! I finally saw a sign that the facility was operated by British Immigration. Apparently, it was where people awaited deportation! The facility looked brand new, probably built since 9-11.
We were tired from the long flight so we went back to our rooms as soon as we got back to the hotel. I was hungry, but too tired to think about it! The room was wonderful. There was warm water in the shower and even wash cloths!
But the lack of mosquito nets was a real problem. I awoke many times during the night trying to find the net, as I would do many times each night for more than a week after returning home!
It was still dark when we pulled out of the parking lot and into the usually crowded traffic circle below the hotel. The city was just coming to life, with a few people walking slowly along the street. As we started out Entebbe Road, we saw security guards walking with their World War II era rifles from their night watching jobs watching over the exorbitant homes of the rich and powerful of Kampala to their own homes with no electricity, no running water, and dirt floors. It was eerie seeing armed and uniformed men walking along in the darkness. The chilling words of a young woman I met on an earlier trip came to mind. “Remember when you see them walking what they have seen at their jobs and what they will see when they are at home. Then remember, these are the people in Uganda who have the guns. How long will they wait?”
The closer we came to Entebbe, the higher the sun rose. Soon we could see everything – the incredible green of the landscape, the older women going into town in their wonderful traditional dresses in colors from yellow to purple and everything in between. The young women in office attire. The men, often in crisp, white shirts. They waited by the highway for overloaded taxis. They waved and sometimes the taxi vans stopped and let them squeeze in, but usually, the van sped on and they kept waiting.
There was very little traffic once we reached the insane construction zone at the airport. There was no oncoming traffic, so squeezing into a single lane didn’t really matter. The guard at airport gate seemed sleepy. He spoke to us then waved us through without ceremony.
The airport is undergoing a major face-lift for the upcoming Commonwealth Meeting. The area where passengers get out is presently a dead-end, so we had to get our bags out quickly. The guys quickly unloaded our bags, and we had a quick goodbye with Vincent, then he had to move the van. No one had a lot to say. Baby Lisa was still sleepy and a bit grumpy. I guess they were all sleepy because no one found much to say. That wasn’t my excuse. I didn’t talk because I couldn’t, the thought that I might not be back was more than I could handle. Ray and Lisa seemed in no better shape than me.
Only ticketed passengers were allowed inside, so we had quick hugs and handshakes, then we went through the first of three security checkpoints. This one led to a huge line. We were more than two hours early and the lobby of the airport was already filled with British Air customers! But the confusion and hassle gave us a few minutes to get ourselves pulled back together.
All bags must go through x-ray. There’s no one to help load the bags on the machine belt and that makes this a very chaotic thing. Bags are always HUGE and many of the fliers aren’t, so it would be comical to watch everyone trying to get things loaded into the x-ray machine if you weren’t waiting in the line and dreading your turn to sling your unbelievably heavy bags from the cart to the belt.
We got through with only one bag searched, which isn’t bad for this airport! We looked outside once we cleared the x-ray machines, but our friends were already gone. The people at the BA desk actually ran the whole e-ticket thing as well as any airport anywhere (only two years ago, paper tickets were absolutely required!). They had one piece of interesting news: we were checking our bags all the way to Chattanooga. We had packed very little into our carry-ons, so we would have an interesting day trying to piece together toiletries and clothing for the final leg of our trip.
Immigration couldn’t have gone more smoothly, because no one there said a word to us. We had more than an hour and a half until the plane was scheduled to leave. We’d had no breakfast so we planned to eat at the coffee shop, but we were side tracked by the great gift shop in the departure lounge. I found an African shirt on clearance and we found a few other small gifts. It was crucial that we shop because our trip to the jungle had cost us our shopping time. But we shopped until they made the last call for our flight, which meant an hour until take off. But we had another security station to clear, so we hurried on to the line with our new purchases.
The Departure Lounge is about as uncomfortable as such a place can be. There’s no air conditioning or fans, so there are open windows to the runway. There are no screens so there are bugs. And the lounge must have been set up for smaller planes. There are barely enough seats, but it is a rather snug fit. Of course many people don’t abide by the last call, so there are folks in line trying to get in up until the last minute. We noticed this time that several were turned away at the security point.
We talked quietly as we waited. Ray was still in first-timer mode – he wanted to talk about everything and everyone, and even though we’ve been over many times now, we were just as ready to talk as he was. It had been a wonderful trip!
Our departure time came and went. About twenty minutes later, they told us to board. There were no row numbers, so it was a mad rush to the door, but there was no pushing or shoving, just a cattle stampede on the one poor person taking tickets.
We walked out of the airport and onto the tarmac. There was a private jet at the end of the taxi way surrounded by a large crowd. There was a military regiment near the steps leading down from the plane and a small group of men in grass skirts and brightly colored tops. The vast majority of the crowd was dressed in business attire.
It was the president’s plane, and this was his welcoming committee. The men dressed in jungle attire were apparently the kings of Uganda. We watched out the window and actually saw the president’s legs as he walked past the plane, then he was whisked away in a vehicle we couldn’t see.
The flight couldn’t leave until he was well away, so we sat at the gate waiting. It must have been some time, but I wouldn’t know. I was sound asleep as soon as I sat down!
This plane had only two seats on the two aisles, so Lisa and I had a window and aisle seat. It was cloudy as we flew up Africa, but it cleared a bit over the Sahara Desert. There was nothing as far as the eye could see, just red desert at times, or white desert at other times and an occasional track which must have been a road. We dozed and watched movies and ate terrible airplane food. About ten hours later, we landed in London.
Immigration in London is always intense, but we had a very nice young female agent who was pleasant and interested as she asked us about our reason for being in Africa. Since we had no bags to claim, we hurried through baggage claim and into Heathrow. We had absolutely no idea where to go! After roaming for a bit, we were told to go to Terminal 1. We were in Terminal 3 which meant we had to board the London train and get off at the first stop. We followed the signs into the new terminal, then couldn’t find any signs directing us to the hotel busses. We asked and didn’t understand the directions, which led us to a line of cars, but no busses. We asked again, and finally found the place which turned out to be the place where we’d ridden to and from Gatwick on previous trips. We found that our hotel didn’t have a shuttle bus, so we would have to take the Hotel Hopper for 4 pounds each, just over $8 (actually, $25 for the three of us). We got our tickets as we boarded and took seats in the relatively crowded bus.
We wound around the terminal and stopped one more time, but no one got on or off. We road through a tunnel and out of the airport, then immediately turned into a hotel where, again, no one got on or off. Then we drove out of that hotel, crossed the street, and turned into ours. The ride took all of 10 minutes and couldn’t have been more than 1.5 miles!
We went into the modern lobby and in no time, we were registered. Lisa went to the Concierge while I registered. We were hoping to go into London for Spamalot, the Monty Python play, but she learned that with the hour plus delay for the president and our inability to find our hotel, we were too late to make it into London. Ray really wanted to eat in a pub, so we decided not to go into London at all. We agreed to meet in a half hour. We thought we could find a local pub.
We had gotten our rooms for under $200 each, which was amazing because the posted rate was $275! It was a Sheraton Hotel, and the room was incredibly nice with air conditioning and every imaginable convenience. And there were no mosquito nets! It was terribly hard to drag ourselves out of the luxury to go to dinner!
Ray was waiting for us when we came back to the lobby. I went to the Concierge once again and he gave me a map with a pub marked on it. “Out the front. Cross the road. Go down past the entrance to Hell, you know, those golden arches, turn left, go straight for a while, you’ll find it on your left.”
I looked at the map and saw the route he’d marked. I knew we should be able to follow it even if his verbal directions were a bit odd. We crossed the road and found the golden arches, good ole McDonalds! We turned and within 100 yards, we had entered a British village! Each tiny row house had an equally tiny well tended flower garden and perfectly cut mini-yard. The doors were all dark wood. The houses were pretty much all the same: two stories, a front door and a window on the front with the flowers and bit of grass. There were huge trees along the narrow street and we ambled along the walk for several blocks. We came to two story pub with a sign telling us this pub had been in operation since the 1600’s when it had also been an inn. The outside tables were packed with locals drinking beer, so we decided to go inside. The door was about 6 inches shorter than me, but the ceiling inside was tall enough for me to straighten up. Every table inside the dark little room was packed with drinkers, so we edged back out into the courtyard. We decided to walk on and see if we could find another option.
There was another pub across the street a few blocks down. This one was in a much newer, brick building, though it still appeared older than most buildings in America. We looked through the window and saw that there were many open tables. We went inside and found a menu with fish and chips and other pub food, as well as a few specials. It wasn’t clear what we were to do, whether we should be seated on our own or needed to wait to be seated. We stood at the bar for a few minutes and no one said a word to us. Finally, we stepped up to the bar. A small, white haired, lady with thick glasses seemed to be working the cash register. She looked up, “You know what you’ll be havin’,” she asked. We gave her our orders: Lisa and Ray wanted fish and chips, while I decided to try to the duck. She wrote down the order and turned away. We stood for a minute more, then found a table in the corner. There were several other tables taken, but many were empty. The table nearest us was occupied by 8 business people who were discussing the day’s deal.
We were all hungry and it seemed to take the kitchen forever! Finally, a woman came out carrying two fish and chips. She sat them down and left. Lisa gave me a few chips and a bit of fish while I waited and waited and waited for my duck. Finally, I caught the waitress’ attention and asked about my order. “Oh, I gave it to the table over there,” she said. “They must have ordered duck, too, but I wonder what happened to theirs if I gave them yours? Do you want it still? I can order it for you. Won’t take very long.”
Since Ray and Lisa had finished, I told her not to bother, but asked that she adjust our bill. She seemed very embarrassed by it all. Someone was smoking a vile brand of cigarette and I started sneezing, so Lisa had to face the old woman at the register. The bill, of course, had not been adjusted. She tried to charge Lisa for the missing duck. I came back in when I saw that there was trouble, but Lisa handled the woman well and the bill was soon properly settled.
We decided to go back another way. We continued down the village street to the highway and turned back toward the hotel. We walked along the very busy road through a marshy area and across a stream. There was a huge facility next to the hotel on the side away from the airport (the side we hadn’t yet seen). There were a number of four story brick buildings standing beyond a fenced parking lot. As we got closer, we saw that the fence had razor wire on the top and there was a guard shack at the entrance. There was little doubt that our hotel sat next to a correctional facility! I finally saw a sign that the facility was operated by British Immigration. Apparently, it was where people awaited deportation! The facility looked brand new, probably built since 9-11.
We were tired from the long flight so we went back to our rooms as soon as we got back to the hotel. I was hungry, but too tired to think about it! The room was wonderful. There was warm water in the shower and even wash cloths!
But the lack of mosquito nets was a real problem. I awoke many times during the night trying to find the net, as I would do many times each night for more than a week after returning home!
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