Yesterday we took a several hour impulse flight on a plane well past its prime to another location in this country. As we were boarding the plane the scuffed-up plastic interior and tattered seats made me wonder what kind of maintenance regulations are required in this country for airplanes. Also, after finding my seat and buckling up I looked out the window to see one sole air traffic controller waving plane off like a friend waving goodbye. He was not wearing any official uniform, nor did he have headphones or any other communication device with him. I guess he just knew that the coast was clear for takeoff. After a few maneuvers to get to the runway, suddenly the flight attendants all scattered quickly to the back of the plane to take their seats. Again, there was no communication from the pilot that they should prepare for departure like standard airplane procedures. My confidence in whether this impulse decision was a good idea was being questioned. Not to mention, I was already feeling a bit apprehensive about our lack of malarone and heading to a malaria endemic area. However, once we were in the air the ride was very smooth and my sleep-deprived self was actually able to catch some much needed zzzz's.

After landing we exited the plane from the back and took a bus to the airport. At first the hot gusts of air were welcomed, but the longer I stood in the heat, the more uncomfortable I was becoming with having layers of clothing on. I shed some layers and felt better, but found it interesting that the longer I was in the heat the more I needed to shed. I didn't really reach a point where I felt comfortable in what I was wearing until I was in a tank top and my legs were bare.

Unfortunately, we weren't able to book a hotel ahead of time because we had such little time to get to the airport to catch this flight, so our first mission was to find a place to stay. We soon realized that this was going to be more challenging than we had thought because we could not find a single person in the airport who spoke English. There were a few women at the information desk who claimed they spoke a little and clearly had some English training, but they still couldn't understand our phrase of "We need a hotel for tonight." In all the traveling I've done, I've never had such a communication barrier. To make things more complicated, we only had $7 worth of local currency and there was not a single place at this little airport to exchange money. Thankfully, Alex and I are both the kind of people that find these situations fun and enjoyable. Despite having no money and no way of communicating that we need to book a hotel, we remained calm. In fact, we both reveled in the adventure. Eventually, one of the very friendly women, who were working so hard to help us, used her cell phone to call someone she knew who could translate. We got the phone numbers to several local hotels, were able to book a place and got in a cab (that was clearly not an official cab) to our hotel with not enough cash to pay the driver. However, as all people in this country are incredibly congenial, he was understanding and waited for me to exchange money at the front desk to be paid.