Luggage rules, A) must be under fifty pounds and limited to 2 bags per person. I was about fifty pounds over limit, so thanks to a quick thinking Cindy and Hoang they delivered a new bag to me at the airport check in counter, so i could spread out the heavy jewelry tools that were being transported to Cameroon.
Once checked in My flights began at 2 pm Friday afternoon and ended 1pm Sunday after Cameroon time. (I am 6 hours ahead east coast time). Flights Philly to JKF (1 hour) JFK to Paris (5 hours strong tail winds got us in one hour early) Paris to Douala (9 hours, 1 hour late because as a culture Cameroonians are late always) So far 15 hours and Im still not at my final destination.
The airport was hot Douala is a port city close to the beach and is notoriously hot and humid and I'm wearing a sweater and jeans, and thus covered in sweat, like a dumb American.
after passing through the vaccination counter ( yellow fever, typhoid, meningitis and malaria pills in full effect) and passing through customs I'm off to baggage claim expecting to retrieve my bags that were hopefully not rifled through. And I was swarmed by mosquitoes and men that wanted to desperately to help me, I assured then 50 times I was OK as I suspected they wanted money.
Somehow I ended up with four 'helpers' who grabbed my baggage tags from my hands and then started to ask for money but luckily my escort was there and managed to convince them to back off gave them a few francs and into the van that was to take us to a Catholic guest house for the night. The house was like a youth hostel and luckily there was a swimming pool, but we were told that we couldn't swim at night because the dogs are left out to patrol. Also bitten by several mosquitoes , malaria paranoia begins.
No comments:
Post a Comment