Flight PIL022 to Heraklion

December 15, 2012

We are leaving Africa. We feel that very much.

No problem to leave Luxor Airport. We observed one other a/c on the tarmac. We expected 100 knots of headwind and we got it.

leaving Luxor

bye-bye Africa…

Looking at Egypt we could clearly see that there is no life ouside a band of say 1 km on either side of the River Nile. It is only sand, sand and something looking like sand. Probably sand as well.

The trip lasted finally 03:42 hrs. Usual good service by ,Swissport.

final VOR/DME 27 at Iraklion

LGIR – Iraklion

Just for someone who got an interest in Africa:

A small story to amuse you – the people involved shall remain anonymous!

In the late 1950’s some small boys were travelling by train from Lusaka to Bulawayo to school. In those days Africa was very safe – so every school semester the boys aged between 7 and 12 travelled for two days and nights on a train completely unaccompanied, with only the local ticket inspector / conductor (known as the Connie) to look after them. After leaving Livingstone on the Zambian side the steam train travelled very slowly over the high bridge over the Zambezi to Victoria Falls station on the Zimbabwe side. Because in the old days this journey was so slow it was common for passengers to get off and walk across the bridge – the train re- supplied for some time at Victoria Falls before continuing the long leg down to Bulawayo.

Unfortunately one year some stupid boys got distracted playing in the bush – they missed the departure of the train from Victoria Falls by some hours – the next train was not due for at least 4 days! The Connie, arriving in Bulawayo with three of his charges missing, declared that the missing boys must have been abducted or eaten by a group of lions he had seen nearby the tracks. In the real world and being resourceful the three young individuals had in fact decided to hitchhike to school. (Only some 900 miles through a very remote part of Africa at the time!) After one night in the bush alone, a friendly local lorry driver stopped – being impressed by the boys confidence (one could speak local dialect quite fluently), rather than alert the authorities, the friendly driver agreed to drive the boys to their school in Bulawayo.

After three days travel (the lorry broke down twice, got stuck in a dry river bed and had three punctures) the group finally arrived in the outskirts of Bulawayo. The driver eventually went on record to state that without the boys help he might never have got the lorry to the city. Victory of arrival was short lived. The intrepid group were stopped at a road block where the helpful lorry driver was immediately arrested at gunpoint. The boys were slightly embarrassed to discover a nationwide alert was on to find some missing schoolboys – a huge part of the Rhodesian Army had been recalled form holiday and dispatched into the bush to try to find them or their bloody remains.

The national press found the incident highly amusing – but the school authorities and the parents did not. The driver was eventually freed – and after reflection the associated parents eventually paid out a handsome reward. This was quite correct in my opinion! However the boys resourceful behaviour went completely unrecognised for ever!
With Kind Regards

JOHN BURNIE
Royal Ocean Racing Club
Sponsorship and Marketing Consultant

It looks like I found a co-writer for any of my next blogs, isn’t it John. You will be in competition with Fabienne Iten of Pilatus, who offered to join us on our next trip as our personal blog writer. Her advantage would be that it will be just work for her and not holiday, like probably for you.

We had a good stay at the Steigenberger Hotel. A real holiday hotel. Big, music, dance entertainment etc. We found an Italian restaurant with an exceptionally decent wine. As we did see everywhere the hotel might have had an occupancy of say 10%. This hotel charged us with a record low price of $54 per room.

Will be continued but we are coming close to the end of our trip already.