Thursday, April 14, 2011

Mussa Ben Mbiki

The last time I had a conversation that lasted for more than two hours:
Booking a flight to Mozambique.

To be fair, I accidentally called the domestic reservations number and had to be transferred to international, and another decent chunk of the 2:07:41 was spent on hold. It also didn't help that several routes are monopolized by state-owned carrier Linhas Aéreas de Moçambique. Plus I wanted an overnight layover in Munich on the way over.

Two hours later, I received my reservation:
Houston - Frankfurt - Munich - Johannesburg - Maputo
Maputo - Johannesburg - Dakar - Washington, D.C. - Houston

(Still have to book Maputo-Nampula...)

But now I'm reading that Dakar/Yoff has been rated the worst airport in the world, a "filthy, two-story chamber" offering "only squalor, an unnerving sense of confinement, and to some extent danger"; I'm considering calling back and trying to change my return flight to Nampula - Johannesburg - Dubai - Houston.

Hopefully it doesn't rank as the second-longest conversation of my telephonic life.

Update 9:25 PM
New return flight: Maputo - Johannesburg - London - Houston