The past week was probably our most notable to date. 
I must start by saying one thing:

NEVER EVER fly Air Afrique no matter how desperate you
may become or even if held at gunpoint.  Please pass
this information on to your children and your
children's children then we may all live in a better
place.

So you must be wondering what Air Afrique must have
done to make us feel so strongly.  I'll summarize the
past week before going into detail.  

Instead of taking 2 flights leaving Bamako, Mali
beginning Friday January 5th and arriving in Cape Town
on the 6th, we took 7 DAYS, 5 flights, 5 countries, 4
Hotels, 1 Coup d'etat, and countless hours of
frustration with 40 others in mostly the same
situation!  Yes, I did say a coup d'etat (A failed one
in this case).  You may recall hearing about the
attempt in Abidjan, Corte d'Ivoire on Jan 8th.  Well,
we flew into Abidjan hours after the event!  The
details are below and quite lengthy if you care to
learn more.

It all began Friday the morning of January 5th.  We
awoke at 4am to arrive early to check-in since we were
both worried that Air Afrique would give up our seats
since we were not successful after 3 tries to call and
confirm our flight days before (We had been told that
was required especially in West Africa).  We arrived
and after 3 hours of waiting were told to go back into
town to Air Afrique's office since the flight was late
and would cause us to miss our connecting flight to
Johannasburg.  Frustrated after the waiting we were
told at the office that the next available flight was
Sunday the 7th 2 days later.  Fortunately, they put us
up at a nice hotel in Bamako complete with on site
golf course and free meals.  Although, we were 2 weeks
behind schedule we decided this would be nice to relax
and save some money while doing so.  And that is
exactly what we did.

On Sunday evening we went to the airport but found the
9:30 flight was delayed till 4am!  It didn't make
sense to go back into town so we waited at the
airport.  Around 3am we started hearing that there was
a coup d'etat in Abidjan where our plane was supposed
to fly!  There was gunfire and chaos and the airline
was waiting to hear more before deciding what to do. 
We figured they would skip Abidjan and fly direct to
Jo'burg.  We slept on the benches till morning and
then were told our flight would leave at 9am and fly
to ABIDJAN!  We were told things were calm now and it
would not be a problem.  So everyone boarded the plane
after we had waited 14 hours at the airport in
addition to the 2 days in Bamako.

We arrived in Abidjan and were supposed to stay on the
plane and continue on to Jo'burg after boarding new
passengers.  But instead, we were told, without
explanation, to deboard and then two hours later our
plane left for Paris with other passengers stranding
us in Abidjan.  We were later told that our plane sent
people to Paris who had been stuck in Abidjan for 3
days. 

At the airport we spoke with a pilot and some others
travelling and heard that downtown had been under
fairly heavy gunfire and mortar attacks during the
morning but was mostly settled down now.  He could not
say much more about the situation and neither could
anyone else.  We did hear that the coup attempt failed
and order was trying to be restored.

The airline then told us we were going to be taken to
a restuarant outside the airport for lunch.  Well,
this caused concern because we felt safe in the
airport mostly, but did not know what things were like
outside of it.  We were assured it would be okay and
after some grumbling and West African style
inefficiency we left several hours later.  

On the way to the restuarant we saw blocked roads
guarded and luckily did not need to drive down them. 
The restuarant was right off the ocean and was
actually very pleasant with great food.  There were
about 40 of us, mostly people having come from Dakar
on the flight that picked us up in Bamako.  

I should note that throughout the 7 days Air Afrique
was nearly useless in giving us information.  Mostly
we had pieces of information filter through people
that had gone through the effort to track someone down
to get the information.  Not until days later would
any single Air Afrique employee announce to the group
what was going to happen to us.  Air Afrique is an
airlines in deep financial trouble which is mostly why
we had such problems.  We heard they had no cash and
so we had NO hope of ever getting a refund or ticket
on another airline.  Employees were constantly
striking for not being paid and nothing was easily
done with this Airline.

Eventually, after hours at the restuarant we were told
that we were being taken to a hotel downtown since the
president had closed the airport suddenly preventing
any further chances to leave that day.  In addition,
the city was put under a curfew at 6pm.  The hotel was
the nicest hotel in Abidjan, but it was also right
next to the residence of the President where most all
of the gunfire had been concentrated!

We were loaded into minivans and drivin to the hotel,
but were forced to take the long route since the main
bridge was blocked.  At the bridge we took we had to
stop at a military block and ask to go through.  There
was very little traffic otherwise for obvious reasons.

We made it to the hotel safely and without real
incident.  When we arrived, we spoke with some pilots
staying there who told us they had watched most of the
fighting from the hotel and could see and hear all
sorts of gunfire and rockets exploding.  They said
they heard a machine gun 1 hour before we arrived, but
that mostly nothing more was happening now.

I should also say that things were calm and reasonable
wherever we were and, although there was this
incident, business at the hotel and other places were
going along as usual.  Having never been in a country
while a coup occured, we didn't know what to expect.

We stayed 1 night and were told we would find out more
in the morning.  That was all that we heard till
morning.  At 6:30 the hotel gave us wakeup calls and
had us meet in the lobby at 7:30am for what reason I
am still not sure of.  We waited and noboday came! 
Rumors came and went and we spent the day speculating
what was going to happen and what our options were. 
In the mean time, we ventured to the grocery store to
buy a bottle of rum and juice to make the time go by
alittle more easily ;-).

Finally, at around 1pm we were told that we were going
to be taken to Lome, Togo in the afternoon where we
would catch a flight the next night on to the Congo
and then Jo'burg!  It was pretty clear that no flights
out of Abidjan were reliable since the coup had
created a nightime curfew even at the airport. 
Knowing Air Afriques record of delays, any flight
planned to come and go at a reasonable time could be
prevented if late.  So going to Togo would at least
get us out of Abidjan.

Eventually, we were taken to the airport and given
lunch there before getting onto our flight.  In Togo
we were taken to a hotel.  This hotel was like
something out of Austin Powers!  It was right next to
the beach but we were told it might not be safe to go
alone to the beach and not to leave the hotel after
6pm!  In addition, one of the vans going to the hotel
was stopped by the police holding machine guns and
everyone had to give the police officer their change
to be let go.  Luckily he didn't ask for big money. 
It's not uncommon to have something like this happen
in West Africa though and doesn't indicate really that
the place is unsafe. Never the less, it is unpleasant.


That evening we were told finally that the next
evening's flight would not go, but that there was
HOPEFULLY going to be one the following morning!  Of
course we didn't trust that any flight would leave now
and everyone was very disturbed.  Unfortunately, the
only reasonable option out was to buy an $800 ticket
on another airline that may or may not leave before
the Air Afrique one finally goes!  You can only
imagine how frustrating it was trying to guess when we
would arrive in South Africa and how many West African
countries we would have to fly to and wait in before
getting there.

To make matters worse, the hotel wouldn't give us
water without having to pay $2 a bottle.  In the
morning a group went into town and screemed at the Air
Afrique people and arranged at least for us to have
dinner options and free water.  Well, we were promised
that but we never got food options and the water took
over half a day to materialize!  It was totally crazy.

The second day in Lome we ventured into town and
visited the market and several airline offices in
hopes of a miracle.  No miracle.

Finally, Thursday January 11 we were taken to the
airport and FINALLY got on a plane that would end in
Jo'burg, South Africa!  Of course this flight was
hours later than planned and had one stop in
Brazaville, Congo (Another opportunity for delay or
hotel stays!).  But it did finally make it to
Johannasburg early in the morning (2am) on Friday
January 12th!  Our connecting flight to Cape Town left
at 6am so we had Air Afrique put us up in another
hotel (the 4th one of the trip) so we could shower and
rest.  At 6am we boarded and flew on to Cape Town! 
And we will never ever fly Air Afrique again in our
lives.

So that is the story of our 7 day voyage from Mali to
South Africa.  I hope to never have such a drawn out
and frustrating travel experience.  Next email I will
tell you about our clausterphobic bush taxi ride from
Bankass to Mopti Mali!

Glad to finally be here in Cape Town now.  It really
is beautiful here.  Than and I are working on finding
an overland trek to Tanzania.  Looks like we may do
about a 45 day trip through Namibia, Botswana, Zambia,
Zimbabwe, and Tanzania.  We'll let you know how it
goes.

Cheers,

Chris and Than