05-AUG-B-2
CLOSING THE AZERBAIJANI ADVENTURE AND OPENING THE NEW
AFRICAN EXPERIENCE IN TRANSIT THROUGH EUROPE TO ASMARA, ERITREA
August 5—6, 2005
I am airborne over the
Mediterranean as I wing my way back from the furthest Eastern fringe of Europe
to its Westernmost edge, to return by tonight to the Center of Europe in
preparation for rendezvous with some parts of my team there in Frankfurt and tomorrow’s
departure for entry “Into Africa” to begin the Asmara Eritrea Book II of this
summer’s adventure travels.
I got the third degree in through
search at the Baku
airport because a spent shell casing was seen on X-Ray of my check-in bag (the
third X-Ray and hand search of the same bag within the fifty meters of the
three stops on the way into the British Air check-in gate. I was told to empty my pockets four times
over—three times at the same machine and searcher, who was quite vindictive for
having discovered such a high contraband item—only because it once held powder
and a bullet before that single shell sent a bullet on its way over a third of
a mile away to trip a Caucasus Tur trophy backward off a mountain ridge. “Big, Big Problem” they kept repeating, since
I was flying out of Baku to LONDON, where everyone is so jumpy about recent events
that finding such a non-explosive remnant of a once fired bullet would have
them I orbit. Just imagine if I were
trying to carry out two rifles, live ammo and several body parts from dead
animals At least the former had to be
carried in and at least the latter will have to be carried out tomorrow, but
fortunately through Moscow which is far more hunter-friendly than the skittish
and anti-hunting London. They held me an
extra half hour to be sure I was penitent for my sins and confiscated the shell
casing but returned the slip of paper I had stuffed inside it with the details
of the shot—which I had always kept on prior trophies, all stuffed in a box now
somewhere I have not seen since all of Derwood has been packed away and now
unboxed again.
The five and a half hour first leg
of my flight on BA to London will carry me back
toward time zones west, but before departing I called Virginia’s number since it was 7:00 AM on
her birthday today. She reminded me that
it was not until tomorrow and she had already received both a package yesterday
and a card today with a letter commemorating the event. She will have her sister Kate and her family
visit tomorrow (the 5th of August I her time zone) and then leave on
Saturday, puling Porter in his trailer with the Dodge Ram 2500 diesel to Estes
park Colorado. She had been speaking
with her mother on the other line when I called so I am sure they all know I am
now alive and well and had at least one successful contact with a satellite phone. I wished her well.
And, with the blessings
of my Sister Shirl which I was able to receive briefly but not able to respond
to on my interrupted email contacts from Baku, I am also well, and will be
wishing myself well as I enter the next phase of this Two-Part Summertime
Adventure excursion to the wilds of Eastern Europe and now through two European
developed world capitals to the new capital of one of Africa’s newest
nations—Asmara, Eritrea.
LONDON HEATHROW:
LAYOVER IN A
TENSE AIROPORT IN A CITY ON EDGE
The security queues were very long
slow and tense. The fellow who was on
duty just explained: “That’s the world we live in!” But it took me three more pocket-emptying and
pack X-Raying,, and when I got inside the Terminal 1 site for my Frankfurt BA
flight it was already being called for, even though it seemed I had three hours
layover. However when I got to the
boarding place, where everyone was watching Tony Blair at Downing Street
explaining the suspension of certain civil liberties in the course of
protecting the public from the threat of terrorism, I was told that the flight
leaving for Frankfurt at 11:55 AM was BA 906 and mine left at 1:55 PM and was
BA 908. So, I have hustled back to get
the seat near the sign board that will let me see the gate at which the next Frankfurt flight will board. It is a time consuming event to get through
the queues and I will leave ahead of time to catch it without the worries of
disrupting flights on the basis of excess security delays.
London
is being London—overcast and rainy and looking
dismal, but I will be going south a long way to get to a lot warmer climate,
which will be mitigated by the altitude we will be at in Asmara.
So, I am still in transit for the next 36 hours between continents and
between major adventure course for the summer, so I will have the luxury of a
first class German Hotel Ibis in Frankfurt for the night to regroup and do
repairs as I await my GWU students arrival in the morning and we will all leave
just after noon. I now see from looking
at the ticket that I will be fling form FRA to Jeddah, a rather regular arrival
site for me at an earlier era when I did many Saudi lectures. It is that flight
that goes on to Asmara, where I will be met nearly midnight by Haile Mezghebe
who has already been in Eritrea for a few days setting up for our mission. We will see what evolves in this transit
interval, in which I would have expected that I would have been busy catching
up with the recording of the experience in the On-Line Journal, but it seems
that the long “down time” cooped in the Baku Hotel Elite has allowed me to
complete much of that typing so I am coming in to the second adventure “Ship
Shape and Bristol fashion”: and we can begin on the new experience as a
freestanding “book” of its own.
FRANKFURT OVERNIGHT:
HOTEL IBIS,
FOR A STAGING AREA FOR ERITREA
I am now in the
Hotel Ibis in Frankfurt after arriving from London Heathrow in a drizzle more
characteristic of London, now in Frankfurt as well.
It was not a user friendly transit, since I had the reservation for the
Hotel Ibis and asked to find the place for the courtesy shuttle bus arrival; so
that I could get transferred over to the Hotel about three miles form the
airport. I found the punch button phone and
it had a code for the Hotel Ibis—so I punched it in. Unfortunately, the phone system is broken,
and others who were waiting advised that I go back to the terminal and get a
regular pay phone and put my AmEx card into it.
But, it is unlikely that I would be able to pull this off successfully
without German currency or any information on what the access codes or area
codes. Finally I returned to the BA desk
and told them of my problems getting access despite having the phone number and
reservation number but could not reach them... Neither could they until after the
fourth try.
Finally, We got an
independent shuttle service to drive me over and to check in at the Hotel which
is enough of a hassle that I suspect it may not be easily threaded through by
the medical students to make it here after arrival at dawn tomorrow and come
for the rendezvous and breakfast so they could get showered up and re-group for
a noon takeoff for Asmara Eritrea. What
I see on TV besides the CNN stories such as the 60th anniversary of Hiroshima. The rest is all very explicit US black rap videos
that are probably far to racy for public TV in the US and the lyrics in what
passes for English could never be broadcast in any English speaking airwaves.