Where have you been? What have you seen?
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By Katamarino
#1674967
Miscellaneous wrote:@Katamarino, have you considered doing a VLOG?


It's certainly been discussed. I think the main difference is that for a blog/website, one can go off on an adventure, and document it. For a good quality vlog, you really need to set out on a filming expedition, on the theme of a flying adventure. The level of effort means that the primary focus becomes the preparation/filming/editing of the vlog, rather than the actual adventure!

If I could find a way to do it while keeping the right concentration on enjoying the actual adventure, it's definitely a serious consideration.
User avatar
By Katamarino
#1675286
After finally overcoming our electrical troubles in Spain, it was time to set foot on the African continent, albeit a week behind schedule. This meant that the visits in Morocco and Western Sahara would be somewhat curtailed, and flying days would be long, as we rushed to make up time through the Sahara Desert.

Filing our flight plan before departure:
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Roger gave us a lift once again to the main terminal. This time I knew where to go, so it didn't take quite so long to pay our airport fees and then make our way through immigration and security; Menzies aviation were extremely helpful and reasonably priced for handling! They dropped us off at the aircraft where we loaded our bags, by now a fairly well practiced procedure, and then headed into FTE to say our goodbyes. We were permitted to taxi to the runway without the help of a "follow-me" car today, and before long were airborne and headed South.

Departing Jerez:
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Coasting out west of Gibraltar:
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Goodbye Europe!
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After just a few minutes, the Southern coast of Spain came into view. We coasted out somewhat to the West of Gibraltar, which was unfortunately hidden behind clouds, and could already see the Moroccan coastline ahead in the distance. We were handed over to Moroccan air traffic control a few miles out over the water, and this is where the fun began. Morocco has a series of VFR routes between airports, with reporting points that were not on any of the charts that we had on board. Searching online reveals no availability of Moroccan VFR charts, or information about these routes. We asked for, and were given, the GPS coordinates of the points for our first leg; there was some initial confusion until we realised they were giving us degrees, minutes, seconds while we though we were being given decimal degrees. Nonetheless, in the end the right coordinates were input for our arrival into Rabat.

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Coasting in over the Moroccan coast:
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Another quirk of Moroccan ATC (and, it turns out, a lot of ATC further south) is a constant demand for estimated times at reporting points. It's a good idea to have these points in your GPS so you can quickly and easily call up your estimated time to each! We were handed over to Rabat tower some 50 miles or so out, and stayed with them all the way into our parking spot; there is not much use of different frequencies for approach, tower, and ground; probably because there is not very much traffic around. In addition, the use of ATIS frequencies seems to be very sparse south of the Med, with tower generally just reading the weather to you over the radio on request.

The view from final approach into Rabat:
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On arrival in Rabat it turned out that because of the delays, our handling agents had given up and headed back to their base; they did not, as we had thought, have any permanent presence in Rabat. They instead arranged for a member of the airport authority to assist us; while helpful, he did not quite know the proper procedures for getting flight crew through the airport. Instead of arranging for us to pass through the crew channel at immigration, we ended up waiting for quite some time in the immigration queue with an entire Airbus full of passengers who'd arrived at the same time, and were left very short of time once we finally got through; there was a lot to do here before heading on South to Essaouira later that afternoon.

First steps on African soil:
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Sophia's friend Sanae collected us from the airport. Barriers had been set up 30m or so from the terminal building, and people waiting for arriving passengers were being held back here; they weren't even allowed into the terminal. Apparently this was a new development, and Sanae was unsure what had caused it. After a few false turns (it was more than a year since Sanae had been to the airport, and the city was very badly signposted) we headed into Rabat.

The plan was first to find somewhere to eat. Unfortunately, we failed completely at this because it happened to be the celebration at the end of Ramadan, when absolutely everything was shut down. We managed to find a cafe that was only serving drinks, and then moved onto the most important task, a hospital visit. Sanae took us to the hospital she worked at, which hosted a "Level 3" Ob/Gyn department, which delivered more that 16,000 babies a year. I was presented with a white coat and told to tag along as we toured the department. I really didn't know what to expect, but the rather tired and grimy appearance of the hallways before we even got to the department gave a taster of what was to come.

The grounds at the hospital:
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My first thought was how lucky we are in the more developed world. The situation was no doubt worsened by most of the staff being off to celebrate the end of Ramadan, but conditions in the delivery area came across to my untrained eyes as very poor. In the pre-delivery area we saw where women are taken to wait when labour has started, but they are still less than 3cm dilated. Cubicles down each side of the ward each held two single beds, and occasionally up to four women. With a lack of staff around, I got the impression that women who were there for their second or third baby were taking the lead in supporting those who were having their first.

The actual delivery area was a similar ward, with cubicles with a single bed in each running down each side. Many of them had ladies in who had evidently just delivered, but had been left lying exposed without even any attempt to clean them up and make them comfortable. Many beds and floors were soaked through with body fluids from delivery. In one corner a lady was on a stretcher, evidently in great distress; there was no-one looking after her, and it was explained that she was waiting for an emergency operation but the operating theaters were not ready. She reached for our hands as we passed, but no-one gave her a second glance; when working in such an environment one must have to detach ones emotions to be able to work most efficiently and help the most people.

Sophia and Sanae at the hospital:
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The visit over, we sped back to the airport for our next flight. With people still being kept far back from the airport by the military and police we were concerned about gaining access again, but in the end we were waved through without a moment's hesitation. After a short wait our handling assistant collected us and took us to pay our airport fees, and then put us into a van that took us across the airport to the military side. Here we received our departure briefing, with instruction given on the waypoints we had to follow leaving Rabat; a great big circle around to the North was mandated to avoid restricted areas such as the Royal Palace. We had elected to fly out to Essaouira, a couple of hours down the coast, so that the following day we could make Dakhla in a single hop; the problem this gave was that Essaouira was not listed on our permit. After some umming and ahhing the military briefer declared that this would be no problem and we were free to go. They were unable to make contact with Essaouira to let them know we were coming, but decided that we should just head that way anyway and divert to Agadir (a large 24 hour airport) if we couldn't contact Essaouira.

In-flight catering courtesy of Sanae:
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At last, our flight plan was filed and we were on our way. We had been given the GPS coordinates of the approved VFR route South by the military, so there was no trouble this time with knowing where to go. Once again we were constantly hassled for our estimates for various reporting points, and even ended up at one point in concurrent contact with two different controllers who were asking for different, but similar, things. Once we were further South from Rabat, however, things became quieter and we were handed off to Essaouira tower, who turned out to be open, an hour before we got there.

The countryside south of Rabat:
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Crossing a brand new highway as we approach Essaouira:
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Villas outside of Essaouira:
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The airport was open, but devoid of passengers; we breezed through security and immigration, and into a taxi. We were taken to a hotel in the center of the town, which had turned out to be something of a Moroccan version of Blackpool. After a hot, sunny arrival at the airport it was strange to find the town just a few miles away to be cold, windy and foggy; being a few miles closer to the coast can make all the difference. The hotel was fantastic, and just what we needed after such a long day; we ate Moroccan tagine there and worked on our plans for the following day.

The hotel we found in Essaouira:
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The dining room, home of amazing tagine:
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At last, we were inching our way down the African continent!
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User avatar
By Katamarino
#1675465
Essaouira in the morning was remarkably different to Essaouira at night. The end-of-Ramadan party over, the streets were deserted apart from litter and a horde of stray cats picking over the remains. We had arranged for the taxi driver to meet us at 7 to return to the airport, but he never showed; luckily it proved remarkably simple to organise another one and we were soon on our way. Sophia handled the refueling of the aircraft while I went to the tower to organise the flight plan and receive a briefing. Once again, I was shown the VFR route; this time down to Dakhla, consisting of about 20 different points. None of them were on the charts or in the GPS, and this time they could not even provide the GPS coordinates. I took a photo with my smartphone with the plan to use the GPS and the roadmap of North Africa that we had on board to figure it out as we went.

The seafront in the morning at Essaouira:
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A fearsome local beast:
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The airport building in Essaouira:
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We had something of a delay from the fact that Essaouira had no record of our flight permit. This was not entirely surprising seeing as Essaouira was not covered by said permit, but a few phonecalls to the central body that coordinates these things soon established that we did indeed have permission to fly to our next stop, Dakhla, and we were given permission to go. Today's flight, at 5.5 hours or so, would be one of our longest so we were heavy with full fuel, and slowly climbed to our cruising altitude of 8,500ft where the air was slightly cooler. It turned out that ATC were not too fussy about the reporting points; they were requesting estimated times of arrival at many of them as usual, but didn't seem to have radar to see if we actually ended up directly at them or not. With the hand-drawn chart from the Essaouira briefing office I was able to plot the points on my GPS with sufficient accuracy to keep everyone happy.

The VFR route briefing chart:
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Topping up the oil before departure:
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The route south basically hugged the coast the entire way. The further south we went, the dustier it became, and after a couple of hours air traffic control reported that conditions at Dakhla were IFR with just 3km visibility in blowing dust. We acknowledged that both aircraft and pilot were equipped and rated for flight in IMC ("Instrument Meteorological Conditions") and that even in the poor visibility we'd be able to fly the instrument approach and land, and they were happy to have us continue. Crossing into Western Sahara, we were handed off to the Canary Islands ATC who seem to control this part of the shore from their position off the coast. In fact, for quite some time airports in the Canary islands were showing as some of the closest to our position on the GPS; the mainland in this area has little in the way of places to land.

Empty desert in Western Sahara:
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As we came closer to Dakhla, the visibility became progressively worse. Before too long we were flying on instruments, although from time to time the ground could just about be made out through the dust below. We were handed over to Dakhla tower when still 100 miles out, and told to report when 20 minutes away. Some time later a Moroccan Air Force call sign came on frequency and was informed that he'd be number two to the preceding Cessna 182. Excellent.

A village on the Western Sahara coastline:
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A lighthouse near Dakhla, visible through the dust:
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It soon became apparent that we'd be arriving at about the same time; our estimates for arriving over the VOR navigation beacon were identical. ATC took care to keep track of our altitudes and ranges, as we were both coming in from the same direction, and ensure that the Air Force aircraft was kept safely above us. He overtook us with about 5 miles to go, but was told to remain in the holding pattern and wait for us to land before he continued. As we passed overhead the airport to turn around to the south and fly the VOR approach inbound, I caught sight of the airport below us and let tower know that we could change to a tight visual circuit to speed things up; he liked this idea and just a couple of minutes later we were on the ground and taxiing to parking. As we parked up we caught sight of the military C130 appear out of the dust and touch down behind us.

We were greeted with the most thorough arrival inspection we'd had to date. A very smartly dressed military representative was the first to arrive, who took down all of our information on one of the many forms that we seemed to be forever filling out. Shortly afterwards his colleague from customs arrived with a sniffer dog and gave our baggage a thorough going over looking for drugs. Next came the refuellers, in a Jet-A truck with a rickety looking trailer towed behind holding a couple of drums of AVGAS and a hand pump. With the fueling taken care of, and the aircraft covered up to protect it from the dust, we were processed through immigration and then summoned to the tower.

Jet-A and AVGAS, both available!
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The tower controller was friendly, and clutched in his hand yet another form, ready for our arrival. He carefully inspected all the aircraft documents such as Certificate of Airworthiness and Insurance, as well as our pilot qualifications. One fly in the ointment was that fact that we had no bi-annual "Airworthiness Review Certificate"; the required inspection was carried out only the week before departure, and the paperwork had not been processed and returned. A call to the owner informed us that the review of work done in the aircraft log book would suffice until the proper certificate arrived. This was, after some argument, accepted.

Tucked up to keep the sand off:
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We had elected not to book a hotel in advance, given the five wasted hotel nights that we had paid for in Rabat and then not been able to use. Curiously, the two hotels that Sophia had confirmed had availability that morning were fully booked by the time we arrived. The controller found us a room at the "Sahara Regency" which on arrival turned out to be the kind of hotel which was once very smart, but is 20 years past its prime and now the kind of place that you see photos of journalists holing up in when wars break out. Nonetheless, at least we had a room for the night. We left the hotel again and wandered to the sea front in search of a cafe with wifi internet, to catch up on correspondence and check on the weather for the following day.

The carpark at the Sahara Regency. Frequented by the UN, and pretty much nobody else:
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It soon became apparent that the problem with the cafe would be the lack of electrical sockets, and growing interest in what we were up to by the locals whose cafe we had invaded. We decamped to one of the hotels we had originally planned to stay in, which had wifi throughout as well as a pleasant bar and restaurant. Sophia even took the opportunity for a massage in the spa. After dinner at the same hotel, we wandered back to the Sahara Regency, through streets which had gone from dusty and deserted in the afternoon to packed full of lively activity now that it was cooling down after dark. Luckily our room was on a quiet side of the hotel; as fun as it would have been to stay up and explore, the next day's flight was going to be just as long as this ones!

Decent accommodation at the Sahara Regency!
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The view from the hotel:
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We had almost caught up to our plans!
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By Katamarino
#1675751
The following morning the dust had been replaced with mist. Sophia had had a hospital visit lined up for the morning but this ended up falling through at the last minute, so instead we were able to depart a little earlier than planned. We filed for IFR, as Dakhla was currently IMC and apparently Mauritania had entirely closed their airspace to VFR traffic for the day.

Early morning view from the front of the Sahara Regency:
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Compared to hotels in the weeks and months to follow, this was serious luxury:
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Folding the cover for departure:
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The day was extremely hot, and to keep the aircraft engine temperature under control we climbed very slowly, and at low power. About half an hour later we eventually reached our cruising altitude of 9,000ft - much to the chagrin of ATC who had been regularly asking "Are you up there yet?".

Poor visibility climbing out from Dakhla:
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We settled into the cruise, and for the majority of the next hour were firmly IMC with the ground and horizon obscured with dust. Crossing into Mauritania, the visibility actually improved considerably and we were treated to spectacular views of the desert and coastline. I have never seen anywhere so entirely empty, with not the slightest sign of human impact as far as the eye could see. It was both incredible and intimidating at the same time!

Not many landing options:
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As we approached Senegal, cloud started to build, although we were mostly above them and still enjoying great views. In the space of just a few miles the scenery gave way from desert to lush green fields. The border between Mauritania and Senegal is marked by a large river that meets the Atlantic at the city of St Louis. This impressive city seems to have expanded to cover every available piece of land at the river mouth, on both the Senegal and Mauritanian sides. From here it was roughly an hour's flight direct to Dakar, taking us out a little way from the coastline and, once we started our descent, through the slowly building cumulus clouds.

The coastline of Mauritania:
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A coastal village in Mauritania:
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An uncharted airport in the desert of Mauritania:
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Mauritanian holiday camp?
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Nouakchott, capital of Mauritania:
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The city of Nouadhibou:
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Once again we got in just ahead of a larger aircraft, and this time it was a Kenya Airways airliner that was instructed to remain in the hold while we flew the VOR approach to runway 18. The pilot seem most disgruntled, and repeatedly questioned whether he was still number two until the controller became fed up and told him in a very firm tone of voice that he'd be staying where he was until the Cessna had landed, and that he should stop asking.

Final approach into Dakar:
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The approach into Dakar was one of the most interesting of the trip so far. The end of the runway was right near the water's edge, and views of the city extending along the bay to each side were magnificent. We parked a little way from the terminal, with no marshaller; tower simply let us choose our own parking. Shortly afterwards a ground handler showed up in a fuel truck; we let him know that we wouldn't be fueling (the next flight was just an hour, and we still had at lest four hours fuel on board) but that we needed to somehow get to the terminal. "No problem", said he, and he sped off again while we locked up the aircraft. A few minutes later, an airport bus sped into view and the two of us climbed on board to be ferried to the terminal, and set down at the back of the mob of Kenya Airways passengers approaching immigration.

Our chariot approaches:
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Bus ride to the terminal!
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It turns out that Senegal had just introduced a requirement for a visa, paid for online in advance, that we had missed. However, we were clearly not the only ones as they had a large and efficient setup dedicated to providing visas to those who had not seen the new requirement in advance. It took all of 10 minutes before we had a smart looking Senegal biometric visa, complete with photo, in our passports and were approaching immigration where the real fun began.

The man at the desk was clearly not familiar with the concept of a private flight and most upset that we had no flight number listed on our immigration form. Sophia, passing through first, managed to convince him that all was OK and he was just processing my passport the same way when his boss came over to inquire what was up. The boss became most concerned at our lack of flight number and wandered off through the airport with my passport, and me in pursuit. Eventually I managed to get a word in edge-ways through the groups of people he was constantly conversing with, and persuaded him to accept our newly adopted flight number of "C182". He was well pleased with this, and I was free to join Sophia in the bus to the nearby Onomo hotel where we'd spend the next three nights.

A delicious dinner in the Onomo:
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The mad dash south was over. In about 10 days we'd covered almost half the north-south distance of the trip - but, there were still 3 months to go!

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By Katamarino
#1676033
We'd now be spending a few nights in Dakar. Our first day would be given over to medical and logistical activity. The Onomo hotel turned out to modern, air conditioned, clean and a very comfortable place to spend a few nights. After breakfast we met up with the driver that Sophia, through befriending one of the waiters, had organised for the day, and sped off through the morning traffic to our first stop; the Guinean Embassy. One downside of employing an amateur driver soon became clear, as we spent 30 minutes stopping and asking for directions before finally pulling up at the embassy for Guinea Bissau. Close, but not quite. The entire charade repeated itself and this time we arrived at the place we wanted to be. Smaller embassies, away from the big cities such as London, are rather easier to navigate. It took just 15 minutes before we were on our way again with a promise that the visas would be ready the following day.

Cruising around Dakar:
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Our next stop was the offices of AMREF, one of the charities that Sophia was hoping to direct donations to from people who followed the trip and wanted to contribute. This time the driver spoke to the secretaty in advance by phone, and we managed to make it straight there without stopping for directions. We were received by the projects director who spent an hour explaining about how they work in this new office in Senegal; it opened two years ago and was the first in Western Africa. A lot of their energy was spent on simple, sustainable programs such as education of school children about proper hygiene, and providing the facilities needed for the same.

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On the way back to the hotel, Sophia asked the driver to take us for a traditional Senegalese meal. She did not quite bargain on how seriously he would take this task, and we ended up in a small wooden shack near a beach, with a few tables inside, a sand floor, and plenty of locals around. The meal was served out of large vats lined up on a table on one side, which were evidently very popular with the local fly population. It looked a lot like the "what not to do" in terms of travel food advice! I managed to duck out of eating (the heat really robs me of my appetite, you know...) as although I did want to try local cuisine, I was not in a hurry for food poisoning. Sophia ate a large enough portion to be polite, reasoning that she could always dose up on prophylactic antibiotics back at the hotel.

Restaurant row (and some kind of odd wooden tower):
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An authentic local meal:
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With the meal finished, our driver took us for a quick walk down the beach to see his house. The beach was an interesting mix of beautiful expensive villas at one end, and real shanty town at the other. We followed through narrow alleyways until entering a courtyard, off of which was the single room where he lived with his wife and two young daughters. 75% of the floor space was taken up by the one double bed. His sister and her family lived in the identical room next door; and this was a man who in Senegalese terms was not badly off, owning his own car.

The beach near our driver's home:
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By Katamarino
#1676304
We started Tuesday with a little tourist activity. Our previous day's driver was not available, so his cousin stepped in to take us around.

The early morning commute in Dakar:
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We took the ferry out to Gorée island, in the bay near Dakar. It is from this island, and a few other locations in Africa like it, that the vast majority of the African slaves were shipped off of the continent. We visited one of the slave houses where these people were kept; firstly segregated into rooms for men, women, and children. Men were weighed, and only shipped out if over a certain weight. If too light, they would be fed to bring their weight up, and if this didn't work then they would simply be sold for local slavery; the use of slaves was not purely by the West. Women were assessed based on breast size; if over a certain size they counted as women, rather than children. Children were assessed on the basis of their teeth. It was eerie to think that the majority of one entire segment of the worlds population outside of Africa could trace their history back to places like this.

Slave houses on Gorée island:
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Fortifications on the island:
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A slave pen on Gorée island:
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Looking out over the island:
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Before the ferry departed back to the mainland, we were shown around a little more of the island's history. It had been fortified heavily in World War Two, and a number of the huge gun emplacements were still present. Still intact too were the network of bunkers built into the island, now taken over by people to use as homes. Apparently the movie "The Guns of Navarone" had been filmed there in the 50s. Since then, the place had rather gone downhill - the piles of litter in every part of the island were a real shame.

Souvenirs for sale:
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Leftover WWII fortifications:
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A family gazes out at the shore of Dakar:
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All aboard the BEER boat:
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Back on the mainland we went through further shenanigans to try and track down the Guinean Embassy again. Apparently the cousins had not briefed on the location. We were at least able to clarify that we didn't want to go to Guinea Bissau this time. It was surprisingly easy to collect the visas; we walked straight in, up to the office, and the lady passed us our passports and change without ever even getting off of her mobile phone.

The old station, maybe?
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Colourful local transport:
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After a brief rest at the hotel, the real fun began. The hotel waiter and I were dropped off at the airport to try and track down where we were supposed to pay the fees and file flight plans. The hectic nature of the airport the previous day had convinced us that scouting it out prior to departure would be a good idea. Scouting in advance turned out to have been a very good idea. No-one really had any idea what to do about a private flight, and we were shunted between 5 or 6 different offices in different locations around the airport. After the 3rd or 4th, just to make things a little more interesting, a torrential thunderstorm rolled over the airport. This made the task of shuttling between various far flung offices in different buildings ever more entertaining, particularly once enough water build up to overwhelm the poor drainage systems and turn the roads into rivers that were ankle deep or more.

The statue near the airport:
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The river (originally, road) outside Dakar airport:
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In tomorrow's episode: Kat gets detained on suspicion of drug smuggling.
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By Katamarino
#1676431
Dakar, Senegal to Banjul, The Gambia

Our return to the airport was, as expected, not entirely smooth. We'd been told to go back to the flight planning office in the "Bloc Technique" but found that the airport police would not even let us into the car park. Eventually we persuaded them to let me in, while Sophia stayed outside with the baggage, and as soon as I saw someone inside that I knew from the day before he told the police to let us through, bags and all. One of the first things we were faced with was a request from the director of the airport. He needed to travel to Banjul too, but the next scheduled flight was still 8 hours away; could we help? As much as we'd have loved to take him, it sadly just wasn't practical with the equipment loaded in the aircraft taking up all the space that a third person on board would have needed. He understood, and accepted the decision graciously.

Getting to the aircraft was not a simple process. We first were taken by bus back to arrivals, from the air side. They processed us into the country once again, and we then went through customs and straight back into departures. Here were yet more forms to deal with, and more confusion about our private flight status, although we had by now learnt that "C182" worked nicely as a flight number. Slowly, we made our way out to a departure gate and then finally on another bus ride to the aircraft, which we found the large local birds had been using as a perch to dismember their prey, and defecate on. Lovely.

Taxiing for departure from Dakar:
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We were held waiting on the shorter runway 21 for some time to wait for traffic approaching from the south, before being cleared for the one hour flight down to Banjul. We were IFR again, but although there was plenty of cumulus cloud around we were mostly in the clear.

Climbing out from Dakar:
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Marine works south of Dakar:
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We decided to see if a "real pilot shirt" would assist with transit through the airport:
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The flight was over water until the last few miles, so scenery was limited to the occasional boat. For the third time in a row were were given the VOR approach to the active runway, and while the descent was in plenty of cloud, we broke out into the clear well in advance of the runway. We'd arrived just in time, as a rain storm could be seen already starting to slowly encroach on the far end of the runway. Touchdown was straightforward, with a 10 knot crosswind, and just a short taxi into the apron where after waiting for a departing airliner we were marshaled to a parking space between the President's 727 and his Ilyushin.

Traffic waiting on us to taxi in:
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We were getting used to the large crowds of people who would come out to greet us. We met the head of handling, the chief marshaler, and a few other members of the airport leadership. Passports and licences were examined, and the aircraft paperwork given a cursory and fairly disinterested glance. The rain had now set in and 7 or 8 people were sheltering under the wing; helpfully, they summoned a bus to take us to the terminal and avoid the weather. My New Zealand passport was, wrongly, rejected by immigration; The Gambia offers visa-less entry to citizens of the Commonwealth but I was not in the mood to argue and so simply swapped in my British one instead. This was apparently fine.

Things were going reasonably smoothly until we hit customs. Sophia's training mannequin, "Baby Anne", had already passed through Senegal customs with no raised eyebrows. Gambian customs was a different story. They were highly excited by Baby Anne, as well as my supply of the anti-marial drug Malarone, and things began to look a little like a scene from National Geographic's "Locked Up Abroad". Symbols were chalked onto Baby Anne's case, and my bag, and we were led off by an excited group of Gambian customs staff to a small room behind the scenes. One of the guys sat down with me to search through my bag; Malarone was pulled out, along with some vitamin pills and ibuprofen, and it quickly became apparent that there was nothing illicit here. He took the results with good grace, and even carefully packed everything back into my bag for me.

The story with Sophia and Baby Anne was rather different. Before long Anne's head had been removed from her shoulders and dismantled, and the problem being starkly apparent. Inside Baby Anne's head was a highly suspicious, tightly wrapped clear plastic package of a powdery substance that, to be fair to the Gambian customs guys, looked pretty shady. I briefly started to wonder about this doctor that I was travelling with, before dismissing the idea as being a pretty weird way to smuggle drugs; and who would smuggle drugs from Europe, to the Gambia? Nonetheless, what was this package all about, could it have been slipped in somewhere without our knowledge? Hopefully, as the unsuspecting pilot, my sentence would be short...

Uhoh...
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The package was duly pierced, and samples spread out on some white paper. As this was going on, the head customs chap came across to me, and whispered into my ear. "You know what this is, this is very serious. If you tell me everything, we can help you, but otherwise you are going straight to jail. Turn in this lady, help yourself." To his chagrin, I had to simply answer with the truth; I know nothing abou the mannequin, and certainly not about anything inside its head! Meanwhile, the samples on the desk are being closely examined, rolled around between people's fingers, and for a while it even looked like someone was going to try tasting it. It had become fairly apparent by now that the package inside the head was, on a mannequin designed to be taken to the developing world for training, a supremely misguided way of weighting the baby's head properly by using sand. A chemical test showed, of course, no reaction, and Baby Anne was put together again in a fairly half-hearted fashion by a group of men clearly disappointed at missing out on their major drugs bust. They apologised for the inconvenience and sent us on our way.

We were staying at the Senegambia hotel. It was the rainy season, which is the low season for tourists, so everywhere was relatively quiet. Sophia had explained to me that The Gambia is quite well known for sex tourism of a different kind; middle aged European women coming to have fun with young Gambian guys. And so it was; even before arriving at the hotel we were passing these ladies walking arm in arm with their young local friends. Sophia hopped into a taxi and made her way fairly quickly to the hospital; it would be a public holiday the next day and she wanted to make sure she met with her contacts in advance of their day off. She also managed a stop at the Sierra Leone embassy who processed our visas while she waited.

Fellow hotel residents:
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While Sophia was out I decided to go for a walk and see what was around the hotel. The answer turned out to be, sadly, a few run down tourist streets of nondescript bars and nightclubs, and a great many locals hassling for money through the guise of being friendly and wanting to show you around. This was rather a shame, as it makes you automatically guarded and suspicious even against those locals that you meet who are genuinely friendly and interested in meeting their foreign visitors. On Sophia's return we elected to take a walk along the beach instead which was much quieter, the majority of people we saw being young Gambian guys working out; perhaps to pass the time, or get in shape for their middle-aged European female visitors. They were perfectly friendly and chatty without wanting anything from us, which made a nice change from the other side of the hotel.

Gambian sunset:
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By Katamarino
#1676955
Banjul, The Gambia to Bissau, Guinea Bissau

With Thursday being a national holiday in The Gambia, we made the most of it and had something of a lie-in. Around 10am I made my way to the hotel lobby (the only place with internet access, which was unfortunately not air conditioned) and made myself comfortable at one of the tables. Moments later, I feel a tap on my shoulder, and a voice says "Hello, remember me?". This being a favourite tactic of the hasslers in the street, I was surprised to find that I did in fact recognise him; he was the chief handler from the airport. He explained that he had come to fetch me because they needed to move our aircraft. We'd been left parked between the President's 727 and Ilyushin, and the President had now decided he wanted to go on a trip. Unfortunately, his airplanes were blocked in by a Cessna 182!

Blocking in the President:
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A few minutes later I was squeezed into a small battered hatchback on my way to the airport. Along with the chief handler, the chief marshaler had come along to collect me, and we chatted about their work at the airport. Apparently the President rarely went away, but when he did it tended to be with little notice. This was by no means the first time they had been dispatched to hotels to find flight crew to move aircraft for them. Passing through the airport with the help of these guys couldn't have been easier, and before too long we were riding a baggage loading truck (there were apparently no vans) to the aircraft. It was the work of a few moments to push it to it's new parking space, tucked tightly under the nose of the 727 so that the Ilyushin could depart, and back we went to the hotel. My companions promised that they'd be there Saturday morning to collect us and help us through the airport once again, which would speed things up nicely!

Riding the baggage loader back to the terminal:
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The next day, Sophia vanished early to spend the day at Banjul's main hospital. I would have liked to have gone, but had made commitments to work that needed to be kept, so I spent much of the day in the hotel lobby catching up on emails. Luckily, for the civil engineering work that I do, it was a low time of year with much of the work for the year's remaining projects already carried out, and an excellent group of colleagues to help back me up while I was working remotely.

Another hotel resident:
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As it turned out, the vast majority of the day was taken up by torrential rain; not a good day for sightseeing even if I had wanted to. The main entertainment came from a small pack of monkeys squabbling and playing in the trees around the building, and occasionally landing on the roof with an almighty "thud". Sophia returned from the hospital pleased with how the day had gone; the training and donations had been very well received. She was also happy that her high-vis jacket, previously comically huge on her, had been neatly tailored by the local clothes shop and even had pockets added and "Flight for Every Mother" printed on the back.

A local monkey:
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I think I'll stay inside for now:
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The hospital:
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The alteration of the high-vis:
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Saturday was the day to move on to our next country. Our friends from the airport showed up just 30 minutes late. While waiting I was treated to the spectacle of a retired English gentlemen being berated by his young Gambian "companion"; apparently he was leaving, and she did not consider that she had been adequately compensated for her companionship. Sophia, meanwhile, was being accused of food theft by the lady guarding the breakfast buffet for having the temerity to try and carry her coffee and slice of toast into the lobby to wait with me.

Saying goodbye to Baby Anne, who we would not miss after the drugs false alarm.
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Entertainment over, the car arrived and we sped back to the airport, secure in the knowledge that we'd be helped through security and so on with far fewer hold-ups than in Dakar!

Saying goodbye to the team in Banjul:
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In the terminal building, we were presented with two plastic chairs in the middle of the departures hall and told to wait while Lamin and Mr Ajatt prepared whatever things needed to be prepared. This was primarily the bill, which ended up being the second highest of the trip so far; the majority of this being a $250 "Navigation fee". An airport bus took me and Lamin to the tower to file the flight plan (which we managed to do after the security guard managed to track down the guy who does such things), while Sophia and Mr Ajatt went straight to load the aircraft and organise fuel. While in the tower, Lamin rather sheepishly presented me with another 250 euro bill, this time for handling, but before I could even reply told me that if I wanted I could talk to his boss to "make a deal". This we immediately did, and in no time at all they had caved completely on the idea of a handling charge and withdrew it, much to our delight. Lamin and Mr Ajatt earned themselves a generous tip.

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Who's this on the runway?
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We climbed slowly as usual to keep engine temperatures well within the acceptable range. We were in and out of cloud as we made our way up to 7,000ft, much of the time enjoying a spectacular view of the countryside below. The landscape was lush and green, as was to be expected in the rainy season, and fairly unpopulated. 40 miles or so south of Banjul we were handed over to Bissau, where the real fun began. We were informed that the clearance number we had listed was the same as that for another flight coming in the following day from Nigeria, and that they would therefore not allow us to enter their airspace. We spent some time arguing the point, all the more so because we suspected that they simply could not understand numbers; half the time when reading back our permit number he was saying "528" instead of "258" leading me to believe that the problem was likely to be a lack of numeracy in the tower.

Inbound to land at Ziguinchor:
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The closest airport was Ziguinchor, in southern Senegal. They very quickly gave us permission to land, after explaining the situation, so that we could sort the matter out on the ground. Much friendlier controllers than Guinea Bissau! Within a matter of minutes we were on the ground and parked in what actually appeared to be a GA parking spot; most unusual to find things directed at small General Aviation around here. We were greeted at the aircraft, and guided to the tower where the friendly controller promised that he and the airport manager would help us get things sorted out. I also spoke to Mike Gray, of White Rose Aviation who had arranged the clearance; he promised to investigate and get right back to me.

The problem turned out to be as expected. Mike phoned back within 15 minutes, having spoken to the agents in Bissau and confirmed with the CAA Officer who issued the clearance that it was correct and valid. The Officer promised to call Bissau tower and inform them to let us in, and we followed up with a call via the tower at Ziguinchor to confirm that all was in order before we took off. Just as we were relaxing, of course, another problem showed up; despite being told by tower that they were not needed (as we were not leaving the airport), customs showed up and decided they needed to throw their weight around. They insisted on the entire aircraft being unloaded and all the baggage carefully inspected, before we were finally allowed to repack and go on our way. Thankfully, "Baby Anne" who had given us such trouble in The Gambia was no longer on board, after being donated to a hospital in Banjul.

Final approach into Bissau:
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The remainder of the flight to Bissau was smooth, with ATC proving to be very accommodating this time. The airport was small, with a single terminal building and parking for perhaps one airliner; evidently things were not going to be busy, as we were given a parking space right in front of the arrivals hall. This would be the first place that we had arrived in without a visa (and with "visa on arrival" not possible; but, we'd been informed that as pilots, an aircrew visa could be issued easily on arrival. This turned out to be true, and we made it through the airport in record time with Guinea Bissau stamps in our passports; it really could not have been easier. The bus from Hotel Azalai collected us and took us to check in; this hotel was an old army base, converted into visitor's accommodation, near the centre of town. That evening we decided to take a taxi and go on a tour of the town, so that we could at least say we had seen some of it. This started well, with interesting landmarks such as the Presidential palace, continued through a number of different country's embassies, and by the time it came to "and here is another petrol station" we decided it was probably time to call it a night.

Downtown Bissau:
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Street market in Bissau:
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By Katamarino
#1677935
Sorry for the slight delay, have been finalising my new website. Will be away for another few days after this as I travel from Iraq to the USA!

The next day, Sunday, was to have been the day we flew onward to Conakry, in Guinea. However, as the day dawned, things were not looking good. Mike Gray of White Rose had reported the previous day that permits were still not in hand, but that he was hopeful of getting them on the Sunday morning. We waited hopefully, but news came through that while overflight permits were being granted, landing clearances were not available. This was apparently a general issue, not specific to us, due to a "situation" in Conakry; no other information above and beyond that was forthcoming. We resigned ourselves to another night in Guinea Bissau.

The hotel in Bissau, apparently owned by Colonel Qaddafi before his demise:
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Having been cooped up in the hotel for most of the day, we decided to try and eat in town. We had very little local money, but the hotel front desk assured us that it would be no problem to pay with dollars. The hotel shuttle dropped us at the restaurant, which turned out to be an Italian place; slightly incongruous but it came recommended as pretty much the only restaurant around. It turned out that dollars would not in fact be usable (and credit cards are pretty much unheard of in Bissau); the boss was away, and without being able to ask him, no-one was willing to go out on a limb. So, after a fruitless trip to an ATM machine (which accepted Guinea Bissau cards only) we returned to the hotel, where after some investigation we found a way to change money at a very poor exchange rate. Second time lucky; we returned to Papa Loca and had what turned out to be, happily, a pretty nice Italian meal.

=====================================

Another day, another attempt to get to Guinea. We decided that whatever happened, we'd need to visit the aircraft; both to get hold of some clean clothes as we'd only taken enough for one night, and also to acquire some medical equipment; if we were to be stuck here, we might as well make the most of it and visit a hospital to make some donations. The airport was, like when we arrived, completely devoid of passengers; but like many of the airports in Africa, still teeming with guards. They didn't seem terribly interested in us and we were able to wander the wrong way through the arrivals hall and out towards the aircraft. On the way we met a gentleman in a smart suit who told us about the procedures for paying the fees, and also called the fuel truck for us.

Given the short flight coming up, I decided to take enough fuel to get us to Sierra Leone (just in case the Guinea permit never came). This boiled down to a mere 30 litres in each tank. The order was communicated to the fuel guys, who confirmed the amount, and then set about attempting to put 300 litres in each tank. They realised their error as Jet A started to gush liberally from the filler port in the first wing, and shut things off. Fortunately we were parked on a slope, and they had fueled the higher wing first, so I was able to open the fuel valve and let the excess cross-feed into the other tank. We ended up with rather more fuel than anticipated, but it could have been worse.

With no news about Guinea, we wandered back to the main road to try and catch a taxi. The usually busy road was suddenly devoid of cars for hire, and we stood for quite some time hoping the rain wouldn't start again and being harassed for money by an ever growing group of people. It is a sad fact in many of these places that if you're white it's automatically assumed you have a lot of cash to dole out; we had barely enough for the taxi to the hospital to donate the equipment. Moments later a 4x4 screeched to a halt alongside us and we were told to "get in the car" - this we did, deciding that the occupants (a middle aged man with crutches, and a bored looking teenage girl) did not look terribly threatening and were certainly preferable to our current companions.

Our saviours turned out to be just the people we wanted to meet. The driver's sister turned out to work at the main hospital, in the maternity ward, and he drove us straight there and introduced us to her. She in turn took us to see the chief of OB/GYN and some other doctors, who were extremely pleased at the equipment donations which included this time some equipment for the operating theatre. After the donations were completed we were given a tour of the maternity areas of the hospital; while apparently rather more pleasant surroundings than in Rabat, they were still a far cry from what we are used to in the developed world. Tour complete, we were driven the 5 minutes back to the hotel by the chief's driver.

Donating equipment at the main hospital in Bissau:
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An esoteric collection of supplies in the storeroom/conference room:
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=====================================

Yet another day in Bissau. Having given up, with regret, on Conakry we tried to see if we could bring our permit for Freetown in Sierra Leone forward by a day and fly there early. Even this was not to be, however; going through standard channels produced no results, and enquiries from our handling agents in country brought the news that the permit could maybe be altered with payment of a $250 bribe. Disheartened by this abuse of position by a government employee (although not surprised, sadly) we told them we were not interested and would simply wait until the following day.

The evening brought another trip to "Papa Loca". Despite being almost the only restaurant in town, the taxi driver had no idea where it was, although he only made this clear once we were already in his taxi and driving away. Luckily Sophia remembered that the restaurant was close to the Presidential palace, which he did know, and from there we were able to direct him down a couple of side roads. The meal was once again fairly good, and the evening was brightened by the arrival of 6 European nuns, evidently keen for a pizza.

Italian in restaurant, in Guinea Bissau, so naturally it has a Buddha on the wall?
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Sophia insisted on a sneaky photo of the nuns:
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