The team emerged from the Sofitel with renewed confidence that we would be making it onto the plane. And luckily for us, Lorraine was on duty once more to help us start our journey. Check-in went without a hitch and security was a breeze. Customs took slightly longer but nothing was going to stop us at this stage… or so we thought.
As we waited for our boarding groups to be called at the gate, our vice captain Phil C-S was called back to security for one of the team bags. We knew things had been going too well and we were due some bad luck!
As final boarding was commencing, we saw Phil being escorted straight to the gate by 3 very intimidating police. Luckily, it was a false alarm and we were all allowed to board the plane. Finally after the tour had been delayed for 2 years, we were finally Kenya-bound. But as you can tell from our misfortunes so far, nothing was handed to us on a silver platter.
The departure time had been and gone. We were beginning to think we would never make it, but the airplane captain was reassuring us that it was just a paperwork issue and proceeded to give us a shout out over the intercom. This may have had some positives but others were less sympathetic blaming us for the late departure! Regardless of this, 1 failed taxi run and 3 hours later, we finally took off!
After a smooth flight to Nairobi, we were escorted by Sanford, a representative from the Kenyan police, through passport control where one of the BA stewardesses, Charlene, had us all sign her brochure which made us feel like celebrities. No only this but we were greeted with our very own paparazzi which inflated our egos even more so!
With the vehicles packed, we were driven through the night for our first day of R&R. Equipped with our duty free, and close to 24hrs with no sleep, what could possible go wrong this time!