Jan 152017
 

So, yeah, it’s been a long time since I’ve written a travel blog. I think after Iceland I was a bit exhausted, and combine that with the fact that October-December are always my busiest months at work it meant I really didn’t have much time for travel – or for writing about it.

If there’s any interest, I can put together blogs on two trips I took in the past few months to Zagreb and Bangkok, but you’re not going to see too much outside of hotels and tons of airplane pics because it was long work days without much time to get out and about. However, if you want to see more Lufthansa First as well as my impressions of the first day of United Polaris service I’ll be happy to put those up.

February is going to be an interesting month. I had originally planned to stay closer to home and enjoy the car I make payments on but never seem to drive and take a long roadtrip through the Southern United States to visit four of the eight states I haven’t been to.

However, travel has a way of pulling you back in, and so I started looking at what I could use some of my miles for…and managed to piece together a crazy 17 day round the world with stops in some of my favourite cities: Hong Kong, Bangkok, Cape Town, Paris….oh, and it would involve first class travel on ANA longhaul, Thai on the A380, Qatar on the A380, Emirates on the A380, and yes, more Lufthansa first. It’s pretty hard to say no to, even though I should be a bit fiscally responsible…time will tell!

I recently did an interview for another website which will be up shortly, and I’ll link to it when it’s live. As part of it, I was asked to pick some of my favourite travel photos of myself, which was fun going back through memories. So, my favourite are below. Promise I’ll write more regularly again!

Top of Huayna Picchu near Machu Picchu, Peru

IMG_0039

Crossing the river from Rosso, Senegal to Rosso, Mauritania:

IMG_1144 2

Jumerah, The Gambia

CZX6ebs5RvWEsubHpd3pgw_thumb_14e9e

New Years Eve stranded in Gabon, due to a coup in Democratic Republic of Congo:

gabon bottle

Darvaza Crater, Turkmenistan

IMG_1747

Koala cuddling in Brisbane, Australia:

IMG_4799

Cuzco, Peru:

IMG_5119

Hanging out with the Wrestling Cholitas in La Paz, Bolivia:

IMG_6016

On the equator in where else, Ecuador:

IMG_6585

Waiting for the tube in London, UK:

IMG_6755

Friendly lemurs in Madagascar:

IMG_7357 2

Inland lake in Comoros:

IMG_7728

Pyramids of Giza, Egypt:

UNADJUSTEDNONRAW_thumb_8746

Leptis Magna, Libya:

UNADJUSTEDNONRAW_thumb_af78

Jun 212016
 

Woke up at oh-dark-thirty to check out, and the front desk guy at the hotel was nowhere to be found. I eventually found him in the hotel bar asleep in a chair with his head on a table. To his credit, he woke up pretty quickly, and check-out was reasonably efficient. There was a surcharge for using a credit card, and only visa cards were accepted. As promised the night before, the hotel shuttle was waiting for us and we made the short drive to the airport in maybe 10 minutes. On the map the airport looked a long way out of town, but when I asked the shuttle driver apparently that’s the new airport being built by the Chinese…like everywhere else in Africa.

Upon entering the terminal there was an x-ray and metal detector, after which some official people with badges asked for passports and escorted is to the check-in area. Apparently there was nothing official about them at all, and they just wanted a tip for showing you where to check in. Seriously, the airport is two rooms – one for waiting and one for checking in. Did they not think we could figure it out? Eventually they went away without a tip, but they were hassling the woman in front of us pretty hard. She told them all she had was a 20 euro bill, and they took it…and eventually she realized she wasn’t getting any change. Amateur mistake!

No problems at all checking in, short wait for immigration and security, then the Angola-style “please come into this room.” I managed to get out of it, but it was the currency control room, where they tried to find money on you which you hadn’t declared…and take it. Ian got away with no issues and we got to wait in the departure haul which maybe had a couple hundred seats and was buzzing with flies and mosquitos, even at 5am. There were even a couple of stray cats to complete the wildlife scene. Eventually one of the shops opened and was selling bottles of water so we could get rid of the rest of our currency. There apparently was a Mauritania Airlines lounge, but if it’s even still in business it was very, very closed at this hour. Instead, we were treated to several people watching loud bollywood movies without headphones in the waiting area. Ugh.

Boarding eventually started about 30 minutes before departure, and was a walk across the tarmac to the plane. I tried to take my phone out to get a photo, but was quickly yelled at by one of the security guys. Ok, I get it, no photos.

Turkish Airlines flight 593
Nouakchott, Mauritania (NKC) to Dakar, Senegal (DKR)
Depart 06:00, Arrive 07:00, Flight Time: 1:00
Boeing 737-900, Registration TC-JYF, Manufactured 2012, Seat 1A
Miles Flown Year-to-Date: 94,894
Lifetime Miles Flown: 2,284,419

The flight goes Istanbul – Nouakchott – Dakar – Istanbul, and when we boarded there were still about 50 people on the plane, headed to Dakar. Of course one of them was in my assigned seat and looked annoyed when I showed him my boarding pass. The flight attendant looked annoyed to, and just said “take any seat.” Uh, ok, score another one for Turkish Airlines.

Took off maybe 15 minutes late, but with a flight time of only about 40 minutes we arrived right on time. Nothing was offered at all to eat or drink on the short flight, and soon we arrived Dakar. It was also still mostly dark when we took off, so no real photos for this completely unremarkable sector other than a view of Dakar as we came in for landing:

IMG_1360

The 50 people got off in Dakar, and maybe 100 more boarded, and it looked to be a nearly full flight back to Istanbul. I only saw two empty seats in business and maybe a handful that I could see back in coach. Fortunately, there was a crew change and our rather surly crew was replaced by one that only seemed mildly annoyed.

Turkish Airlines flight 593
Dakar, Senegal (DKR) to Istanbul, Turkey (IST)
Depart 07:55, Arrive 17:55, Flight Time: 7:00
Boeing 737-900, Registration TC-JYF, Manufactured 2012, Seat 3E
Miles Flown Year-to-Date: 98,200
Lifetime Miles Flown: 2,287,725

True to form on Turkish we had a “chef” on board. I’m pretty sure they’re just flight attendants who wear a chef’s hat and apron, but hey, it’s amusing. I usually go with the lemonade pre-departure the offer, but this flight decided to go with the orange juice. Unfortunately, the turkish delight they normally hand out with it was missing this flight:

IMG_1363

So what’s for breakfast this morning?

IMG_1364

Flight attendant came around with hazelnuts, which have mercifully moved from being in a bag to a bowl. Must have been some blowback from the Korean Airlines incident. When I asked for a mimosa, they looked confused. I decided to explain “can I get a champagne and orange juice.” “Oh we have no alcohol on this flight. I think it is because of the religion.” Seriously what. the. eff. I get not serving it out of Mauritania as a dry country but what is the point on a Dakar to Istanbul flight? Is it because it was the first day of Ramadan? Doubtful, as they were serving us food during the day…I was cranky, and decided I needed coffee…and another fresh orange juice:

IMG_1365

Usual delicious turkish appetizers…cheese, pepper slices, jam, cucumbers, tomatoes, olives, and fruit. Super tasty…now I’m craving peppers and cheese…

IMG_1366

The “turkish pancake” – I wasn’t very impressed with it. Found it incredibly bland with almost no flavour at all. I spread a little of the jam on it and that helped, but overall, not impressed.

IMG_1367

Five hours flew by. Seven hours is a seriously long flight on a 737, but at least Turkish gives generous pitch in business class with plenty of room to stretch out. I killed time watching movies on my iPad, and a small snack before landing. Yes, more cheese and sliced peppers on a roll, and the delicious berry cake that Turkish often serves. Mmmm….

IMG_1368

Overall, for a seven hour flight it wasn’t the greatest but it could have been much worse. We landed in Istanbul right on time, and I checked at the transit desk to pick up my boarding pass for the next morning. I had decided to splurge when I was in Mauritania and changed my routing home. The Turkish flight had always been planned, but then I was going to go on to Zurich for a night in Turkish business, then take United first nonstop home. Decided since there was availability to treat myself to an Istanbul to Frankfurt routing on a Turkish A330 followed by Lufthansa first home via Newark. A few hours later, the nonstop Frankfurt to Dulles opened up so I ticketed that.

First time I’ve ever seen absolutely no immigration line at Istanbul, and since we’d done the eVisa we didn’t have to wait in line at all. Quick trip through customs and a stop at Starbucks in the arrivals hall to get some caffeine in an attempt to wake up. We tried calling Uber, but after several minutes nobody had responded, so we decided to take a regular cab.

We were staying at the Gezi Hotel Bosphorus, part of Starwood’s relatively new Design Hotels collection. Normally I choose the W in Istanbul, but it’s not walkable to all that much, and the Gezi is right on Taksim Square. It was a relatively long taxi ride since traffic was heavy, and when we arrived the room wasn’t ready – because despite requesting a room with two beds they informed us they had pushed them together and made one bed. They invited us for more coffee in the restaurant while we waited, and 15 minutes later, the room was ready. We were definitely rewarded with a great view of the city:

IMG_1370

Quick stop in the room, and then we headed out. Unfortunately, it was already 7pm at this point and although we’d hoped to wander around a bit and at least see the Grand Bazaar and maybe the Hagia Sofia from the outside, we were absolutely wiped out. We took the Tunel metro down to the water and walked around for maybe 45 minutes before admitting defeat and heading back to grab some dinner near Taksim Square.

We decided to head to Faros Kebap on the recommendation of a coworker, and life was much better after a couple of large beers…and a cheese appetizer…holy cow that’s a lot of cheese:

IMG_1371

I went with the pistachio kebab for a main, and it was super tasty:

IMG_1372

At this point I was a bad influence and insisted we get some raki…and of course baclava to go with it:

IMG_1373

Short walk back to the hotel, and time to pass out at 11. That early morning wakeup call was going to come far, far too early…

Jun 202016
 

We arrived in Nouakchott late afternoon, and by the time we hit the ATM for cash, paid our taxi driver, and got to the hotel, it was early evening. The hotel had blast gates up, and taxis were not allowed into hotel grounds, so for the second time this trip the taxi had to drop us outside and we had to walk through security to get into the hotel. They weren’t paying much if any attention to their metal detectors, but at least things seemed pretty secure.

We were staying at the Monotel Dar El Barka, which most sites seemed to agree was the best hotel in town. Only problem was – a few months before our trip it was showing completely sold out so we had made alternate plans. Fortunately, rooms opened up about a week out so we were able to switch and very glad we did.

Check-in was quick and we were shown to our first floor rooms, which were exactly in line with all the online reviews. Rooms are very poorly lit and dark, but the AC is freezing cold and the beds are comfortable. Overall, it’s a solid hotel and the rooms were good. Except as often seems to happen in Africa we had no towels…and my bed had no sheets. A quick call to housekeeping and they showed up in 15 minutes.

At this point, after the long travel day, we just wanted an ice cold beer, but after retreating to the hotel bar were left disappointed:

IMG_1323

Yes, unfortunately Mauritania is a completely dry country, and while you can supposedly get your hands on black market alcohol it’s extremely expensive and somewhat hard to find. Not at all worth it for a few days. We were also really hungry after missing lunch on the long drive from Saint Louis, so decided to have desert before dinner. The profiteroles were delicious:

IMG_1325

After the sun had set, we decided to venture out and find dinner. There were no sidewalks per se, because they’d all been covered in sand, and even many of the roads were hard to see in places. We walked for about 15 minutes, and eventually found the restaurant that had been recommended – a very smokey place called Le Frisco. Complete with San Francisco stained glass cityscapes on the wall.

There was a small menu of items which were incredibly inexpensive, most $5-6 and a large board of daily specials with maybe 20-25 options most of which were closer to $10. I ended up getting the chicken cordon bleu which was actually super tasty and came with fries which were also super tasty. Just water to drink, although it would have gone fantastic with a beer. The music selection was even more interesting, consisting mainly of 2Pac with a little bit of Justin Bieber thrown in for good measure. I swear restaurants in Africa have the most entertaining music selection…

Back to the hotel, where I think I passed out for about 10 hours – the long days overland had definitely taken a bit of a toll.

In the morning, we met up for breakfast, where it was quickly clear why the hotel had been initially sold out. There was a big football match going on – I believe qualifying for the Africa’s cup or some such thing. Mauritania was playing Cameroon and the entire Mauritania team was staying in our hotel. No idea why they weren’t staying at home if they were local, but they had not only completely taken over the hotel but also raided the breakfast buffet. There were no coffee cups to be found, no plates to be found, etc. Eventually some were rounded up, and there was just enough food left to make a decent breakfast. The usual francophone africa baguettes, real Nutella, plenty of coffee and/or tea, and some hard boiled eggs. Overall, pretty solid.

After breakfast we went to the front desk to ask them about getting tickets to the football match, and they said you had to go to the stadium. Oh, and “I like your tattoo – can I take a photo?” Fortunately, Ian thought to get a photo of him taking a photo:

IMG_1326

After this, I had to work for a bit, so took care of that and mid-afternoon we headed for a walk to stadium to look into tickets for the match. Fortunately, it was at around 6pm so we had plenty of time. We had a hard time finding the entrance to the stadium, so ended up walking much farther than we needed to, which wouldn’t have been a big deal except it was hot. Really hot. 114F hot. Fortunately, there was absolutely no humidity, and even 114 didn’t feel too awful.

Eventually we found the place to buy tickets, and there were dozens of heavily armed riot police standing around. We debated if we wanted to go see the match, but eventually decided the large group of riot police was probably a bad sign given Mauritania does suffer from a pretty serious terrorist situation, so we gave it a pass. In retrospect it probably would have been fine, but…

Instead, we decided to grab a cab and head to the port to see all the fishing boats coming in. Ironic given we were trying to be security-conscious that we hailed a random cab on the streets, but it worked out just fine. Managed to negotiate a reasonable price which would include him waiting for us, however, once we were in the cab he “just had to make one stop.” Uh, ok. The stop was only maybe a five minute detour away and I finally realized why I imagined I was smelling fresh bread – because I was! There were a couple of giant bags of baguettes in the backseat which he was delivering to a restaurant for dinner. He attempted to convince us to visit the restaurant later for dinner, and if you do “tell them Mohammad sent you.” Yeah, not because you’d get a commission or anything…

After maybe a 20 minute drive, we were at the port. He said he would come back for us in 15 minutes, and we were left to wander. It was late afternoon, but there was tons of activity with all the fishing boats coming in:

IMG_1328

Fisherman repairing a boat:

IMG_1329

Several boats pulled up in front of what seemed to be the main market square:

IMG_1331

Right next to the square there were several very very dead fish, which looked to be discarded, or not acceptable for sale. Or maybe that was just because of all the flies around and the stench of fish everywhere:

IMG_1332

More boats:

IMG_1333

Rough surf coming in:

IMG_1336

Group of fishermen hauling a boat in:

IMG_1339

Large fish for sale:

IMG_1345

IMG_1346

Back to the hotel, and a dip in the pool sounded fantastic. However, I had more important things to do – namely washing the smell of fish off of my shoes. Everything stank of fish, but after an hour of scrubbing it was mostly gone, and by that point, it was getting late and the pool didn’t sound nearly as enticing:

IMG_1348

We opted instead to head out for an early dinner, but as soon as we left the hotel compound there were hundreds and hundreds of football fans streaming our way. Apparently Mauritania had lost, so the potential for unhappy crowds – combined with the whole “stay away from large crowds in un-secure places” thing we opted to wait. Back into the hotel for an espresso while we waited:

IMG_1349

Decided to head back to El Frisco again for dinner, and the “specials” were exactly the same as the day before. The clientele, however, was quite different and consisted mainly of local football fans enjoying a post-match drink instead of being mostly expats like the day before. Had a quick dinner, and retreated back to the hotel since we had to be up at oh-dark-thirty for our flight to Istanbul.

Jun 182016
 

Woke up early to get on the road, and Yves and team already had breakfast ready in the courtyard. Baguettes, pastries, sliced mango, bisap juice and fried eggs. I’m normally not a huge fan of staying in smaller places because of the “forced community” aspect, but Jamm was a fantastic hotel. It was nice staying somewhere more local with hosts who knew the area and made you feel at home. I’d highly recommend it to anyone visiting St Louis!

Small problem when we checked out in that they didn’t take credit cards, but that was easily solved by walking down the street to the ATM and withdrawing some more CFA francs. Bill settled, and still no sign of either of the drivers who had offered to take us to the border. It was pretty clear that they wouldn’t be showing up, but no worries, Yves’ staff had the number of a local driver who was more than happy to take us to the border. He arrived maybe 10 minutes later, agreed to the same rate of 25,000 CFA to the border, and we were off. This car was much more comfortable than the ones the previous day, and the 60 or so minutes to the border flew by.

As we rolled into Rosso, the border town, the vibe of the place definitely changed. Rosso is a border town, on both the Senegal and Mauritania sides of the border which is defined by the maybe 100-200 metre wide Senegal River. It’s also known as Africa’s most difficult and corrupt border, and several people have posted it’s taken 3-4 hours to cross. We were fully prepared for the worst. As soon as we pulled into town, the taxi was swarmed with “helpers” offering to help us with things. Fortunately, I’d contacted my local office and they had helped me hire someone to meet us at the border. Problem was…he was late.

Eventually the Senegalese police became annoyed at us, and demanded we give them our passports…and they wouldn’t take no for an answer. Fortunately, the fixer showed up about five minutes later and we got the bags out of the taxi and headed into the Senegalese police/border post to complete formalities. Same procedure that I encountered back in January when crossing from Gambia into Senegal and then from Senegal into Guinea-Bissau. Write your name in the book, profession, etc, and stamp stamp stamp, you’re out of Senegal. Super easy.

There’s supposedly a ferry that occasionally runs across the river, but the timing wasn’t right, so the fixer  took us down some side streets to a more remote landing where dozens of pirogue canoes were parked. He helped lift the bags up, and we were off:

13446117_832100047818_487643298_o

In the pirogue, with Mauritania a short distance behind me:

IMG_1144

Looking back towards Senegal:

13452936_832100002908_1662556592_o

13467280_832099997918_1755604377_o

After maybe a five minute ride we “docked” on the Mauritania side of the river, and I snapped a quick shot of another pirogue about to head to Senegal. The guy with his arm raised in back was screaming “no photos!”

IMG_1149

We were on the beach now, so this officially made country #194 visited – only two to go!

This is where I expected things to get very interesting. Fortunately, our fixer knew the procedure. He found the chief immigration guy standing by the water, and we all walked back into an office together to “talk.” Fortunately, it was pretty straightforward. American passports are not eligible for visa on arrival in Mauritania, but I had a letter from my local office, signed by some members of officialdom, ordering them to make an exception and grant me a visa on arrival. Fortunately, they had no problem at all with this, and I had my visa in maybe 15 minutes – absolutely no problem at all. Plus, it was all digital stored in a computer and then the visa sticker was printed out. I was pretty impressed by how official everything was for a supposedly super corrupt land border.

Ian was up next. Unfortunately, the visa price had gone up since last we heard, and I believe it was something like 120 euros now. Unfortunately he didn’t have enough, so our fixer was like “don’t worry – I’ll take care of it” and produced enough euros to pay the border guy. No problem at all, and I sensed the less time we spent in the border office the better – since that was more time that could be spent attempting to extract bribes.

Once we both had visa stickers we head to head out of the office, around to the other side of the building where there was a window, and hand over the passports (now including visas) for stamping. No problem at all, and just like that…we were out of immigration. Or so we thought. There was still a very large gate to the immigration “compound” and some shady looking police types hanging about demanding we open our bags for inspection.

I made a little bit of a scene with them, showed them the visa and reminded them that if I was able to get a visa on arrival I know “very important people” in Nouakchott so trying to shake us down wasn’t in their best interest. They relented, and agreed to let us go after recording our details in their logbook.

Out of the gate, down another couple of alleys and sidestreets, and into this very shady looking courtyard:

13446381_832100007898_1939093725_o

Here we were “invited” into a shop, to “do some business.” First order of business, I had leftover CFA francs to get rid of, and no problem, they exchanged those at a very safe rate. Then, came the shakedown. Ian only had Dollars, and they had fronted him like 120 euros to pay his visa. They were willing to sell him euros for dollars, but at a terrible exchange rate that took like 15-20%. Fortunately he scrounged up like 60 euros so only got fleeced for about $15-20 in bad exchange, but still not great. Then, we were given the “bill” for crossing. Pirogue charges, border tax (which is legit), money to “make things easier” and finally “a small tip for me.” All in, they asked for 7,000 in local currency which was only like $20, so a very small charge for getting through the whole border in under an hour.

Bill settled, the fixer walked us over to the driver he had arranged for us, and we were off!

We were just a couple of miles out of town, when we hit the first police roadblock. I’d read there were several of these on the road to Nouakchott, and the easiest thing to do was have pre-printed “fiche” where are a copy of your passport and all your details – name, where you are coming from, going to, etc. That way, you can just hand them over and not have to wait for the police to copy all the details from your passport. We handed them over, and he waved us on – super quick.

As soon as we crossed the river, the landscape changed – we were clearly in the desert now:

IMG_1190

IMG_1204

The first 15-20 miles of road were pretty good, but after that it was much poorer the rest of the way to Nouakchott, with the desert overtaking the road in many places:

IMG_1236

Wild camels roaming free:

IMG_1283

IMG_1318

Not too much else to say about the drive. Took maybe three hours max from the border to Nouakchott, and probably about 10 stops by the police to hand over the fiches – all in all pretty easy. When we got to the city we had the driver take us to an ATM to get local currency to pay him, and piece of cake. Definitely having everything pre-arranged made things go much smoother and it wasn’t at all as bad as I read from people online.

I understand that having a fixer for this border crossing is pretty essential if you want to get through in any reasonable amount of time and hiring one on the spot probably isn’t the best option since they have the upper hand then. Thanked our driver for his help, and he gave us his business card to give to anyone else who might want help making the trip. With that, it was late afternoon and time to explore Nouakchott!