I have learned (and said before in this blog) that it's not worth worrying about stuff ahead of time - because it's he unexpected that will get you anyway, so why waste mental space being anxious about the other stuff!
And so it was again this time!
So last Friday I bought my flight ticket from Yaoundé to Addis Ababa and then onwards to London....The plan being to spend 2 days exploring Addis.
Being a cautious sort of chap, I called in at the airline head office on Monday to see if I could check in there. The clerk took my name and flight reference, looked at the screen, and said that I could check in at the airport on the day, but she bagged me an aisle seat anyway
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So I got to the airport (a good hours drive out of town on variable quality roads). It was lovely and uncrowded as I made my way to check in.
The famous and dreaded words: 'Nous avons un probleme!'
They had no record of my reservation/ticket.
Cue phone calls into town to the Head Office. Finally they said: perhaps you could go there to sort this out?
As this was at best a 2 hour round trip, I demurred! I phoned the (well known and supposedly trustworthy according to Trustpilot but I won'tname and shame here until we have resolved the matter!) online travel agent. I had run out of credit on both my phones without getting through to a human
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After exploring options with the very helpful Imelda (portrayed below) it was clear that the best course was for me to buy another ticket
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As I asked about prices, bracing myself for the pain, it became clear that adding the Addis to London (8 hours flight) leg to the Yaoundé to Addis leg (4 hours) added less than £100 to the total price - so rather than trying to sort the problem in Addis and potentially failing and having to buy an expensive separate ticket, I bit the bullet and brought another ticket.
So it was rather a stressful start to this leg of my travels and I reflected on the comparative ease of my motorcycle travel over the previous 3 months with this newfangled flying lark
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Imelda:
My pain was allayed by knowing that I had paid for both sets of tickets with a credit card so I will soon be in the phone to block at least the first flight payment.
It was also allayed by the charm of Imelda. When I thanked her for her help (she did a lot of work to sort this out for me!) she said ''vous êtes mon héro" , I think in reference to my motorcycle voyage (gotta milk it for all it’s worth, ey
).
So after all that I found myself in an extremely comfortable seat on the plane (they went out of their way to get me a seat with lots of legroom) and am now in Addis
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