It was still dark when we rolled out of the parking lot at Hotel Rwanda. Once again, the night didn’t yield enough sleep. I think it was the best night of the trip for me, a solid 5 hours on the stiff little twin bed.
When we arrived at the airport, the Ethiopian 767 that was sitting on the tarmac a day earlier had shrunk. Overnight, the plane was switched out with a 737. Despite leaving the hotel at around 4:30 in the morning, I think we went wheels up at around 7:00ish. We took on much of Bill’s secret service detail as well as a few others since Air Bon Jovi will only seat 28.
The leg to Monrovia, Liberia was nice and smooth. It’s always a little difficult to transfer over to a chartered commercial airline. The flight attendants are pretty strict about things like seat belts, electronics being on during takeoff and landing and gear being stowed. They’re pretty much by the book. When on a private charter, it’s a whole different ball game. For the most part, you can get away with anything. I’ve been transmitting pictures while drinking a beer as the plane lifts off praying that the image will drop into the ftp before we get out of range. Orange bowling is always popular, although I didn’t see any of that this trip. There was some aisle surfing though. The flight attendant on A.B.J. even asked if we wanted to smoke on the flight when we left from New York. Thankfully, nobody took her up on it.
Monrovia was gray and rainy when we arrived. The airport was overrun with all types of U.N. equipment. Helicopters, planes, personnel carriers, you name it. After years of conflict, the country was pulling itself back together, one small piece at a time. Bill would be touring examples of progress in the country, a hotel under construction and a women’s outdoor market. He would also be meeting with the president to announce a new program to offer cheap malaria drugs. As our U.N. led motorcade made its way towards Monrovia, we passed U.N. peacekeepers along the road with their bright blue helmets and various patterns of camouflage. There was also dozens of deteriorating billboards with public service messages about AIDS, malaria and rape. All with bizarre cartoon drawings of people having sex, families sleeping under mosquito netting alongside anti-rape no means no situations. There was also an abundance of gas stations. I wanted to stop the motorcade and indulge in some gas price features.
After touring the hotel and market, we went to an embassy for the meeting with Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf . The delegation and the press were treated to bag lunches with several choices of meat, including crab. I don’t think anyone wanted to risk that one. I had the cheese with a bag of Doritos poppy seed, grilled tomato and chili chips. I’m surprised there wasn’t any Pringles, the leading third world chip. There were several cans of Fanta Orange, the official third world soda.
Our time on the ground was short, a mere 6 hours before heading off to Dakar, Senegal. In route to Senegal, I sat next to James, a flight attendant from A.B.J.
I was asking him about some of the trips he had been on. He and the crew have been to virtually every country and have catered to some of the most esteemed people in the world. He told me a story about a princess from a mid-east country that was on her way to school in the States. Apparently, she really liked McDonald’s. Her handlers asked her what she wanted to eat on the plane and she told them that she wanted McDonald’s. The handlers took this request to the next level and purchased 10 of each item on the menu for her flight to the U.S. I guess she hasn’t seen Supersize Me. Along with the heavy load of fast food, she was also carrying nearly one million bucks in cash. She asked if she would have to declare it. Wonder how that worked out for her.
Dakar was one of the places where we would spend a couple of days and have several hours of downtime. That was until we got trapped in Newark, killing most of the cool stuff on our original itinerary. Like Liberia, our time was short, about 5 hours. It was much warmer here than the places we had been. Felt like Miami. Our one event was pretty dull. A press conference about AIDS medication offered at a reduced cost. An important issue, but incredibly boring. I was nodding off while standing.
We were scheduled to depart at around 10:00 pm. At 8:00 pm, a staffer said that we needed to rush back to the plane and depart immediately since the crew had started into their workday 2 hours prior and if we waited longer the would have to take downtime halfway which would make us late to Mexico. Advance staff rounded us up and got us loaded. We had a good 35 minutes to the airport and traffic was at a standstill. The driver of the mini-bus was slipped 50 bucks (three times the average monthly salary) and in Steve McQueen Bullit style, we cut through traffic. It was intense, but very exciting. There were several close calls, lots of honking and many shouts from the peanut gallery. I think there had to have been dozens of near misses as we lane split between the two ways of traffic, right down the middle of the street. Jay Carson remarked that the driver must have thought he was riding a motorcycle. Police could only watch as we blazed between cars. We made it to the plane in record time. Then we sat for close to an hour and a half. Glad we risked our lives.
The overnight flight to Mexico City was long. We now had a new plane, another plane previously used by Hillary during her campaign. It was a 757, a big plane. We had 26 people on board. Everyone had at least three or four rows to themselves. I had my first class seat, another first class seat to watch movies and row of three seats in the back to sleep. Was able to get about 5 hours of sleep and enjoyed several cocktails with Matt McKenna and Jon Davidson. It was a fun time.
Mexico City turned into yet another comedy of errors. We rerouted to another airport about an hour or so from M.C. to avoid the long delays with customs at the Mexico City airport. The Clinton staff had already obtained visas for us and several travelers had to go into the Mexican embassy in N.Y. prior to the trip to be photographed and fingerprinted. You would think that with all of this stuff done beforehand, we would have breezed through customs like we did in every other country. It took over two hours. It was now 8:00am. We had a 10:15am bag drop at the hotel where we would be “staying.” Our hotel was near the airport, just not near the airport we arrived. It was at the Mexico City airport. By time we got there, we had 40 minutes in our rooms.
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