Monday, May 13, 2013

Take-Off

A couple posts back I mentioned the flight I won in a raffle. A bit over a week ago, Em H, Erika and I took flight over the Nile.

It was booked for 3:00pm but after I found out that the president was flying in to the Kimaka airstrip (where we were taking off from), I started to doubt that it was going to happen as security is pretty intense and it’s a single gravel strip airport. After checking my email repeatedly and hearing nothing, we decided to keep the appointment and just hope we didn’t get shot driving towards the airfield.

Luckily, getting in was surprisingly easy and after explaining why we were there to a few security guards, someone went in to find the pilot while we conversed with the pilot of Museveni’s huge army helicopter which was parked nearby. This guy was rough; fatigues unbuttoned and untucked, malicious looking scar from the corner of his mouth up the side of his cheek. Despite his appearance, he was very friendly and laughed genuinely when I asked if he could take us up in his helicopter; next time, he said…right…

When the pilot came out he apologized profusely and explained that he hadn’t known of Museveni’s coming. Fortunately we could still go up, we just had to wait for him to leave. So we went back to the house and waited and about 2 hours later we heard the propellers fire up and made a mad dash for the car. It couldn’t have worked out better as whet we got was a beautiful sunset flight…

Click here. J