A STEP TOO FAR
Everyone's experience of travelling, flying and exploring is very different. It all depends on what your expectations are, whether they are realistic, whether you plan or whether you are happy to just go with the flow.
Well, I knew mostly what to expect flying to my 'trip of a lifetime' destination, Uganda. I pretty much know my limitations and I knew that embarking on this journey was going to be, at times probably more than I was comfortable with, but I didn't expect a 'first day in Africa 'event'.
I call it an event. Most people wouldn't. Most people would probably just brush it away as a silly misfortune, however, exhausted from a long flight that was excruciatingly hot and cramped, in pain and not having slept, my 'event', was that I couldn't step up onto the airport bus.
The airport staff at Heathrow, but much more so, in Nairobi and in Entebbe, were absolutely brilliant. They could not have been more helpful … but that bus step in Nairobi reduced me to a sobbing wreck. It took me three tries to get up the steps with the embarrassment of someone offering to push me from my behind and a whole damned bus of people watching on.
I felt like a useless, overweight fool of an old Englishwoman who wasn't fit to walk to the local shop ( true), let alone go to a foreign country… or rather it's what I would have been thinking if I'd been watching on and feeling unforgiving.
Nobody knows though, the story behind people's struggles when they just 'encounter' them on a trip like this. Most of my struggles are documented in my blogs so most reading this will know why I am a tad oversensitive and not very kind to myself on occasions.
We are always so much harder on ourselves than others are towards us, so onwards and upwards I go. Goodness knows what other silly obstacles are going to floor me on this trip, but one thing I do know, I'm going to enjoy every positive moment and I am sure there will be many more positive ones than negative.
PS. Right now, having reached my hotel in Kampala, I am sat in the garden under the palm trees, the sun is shining on me and I'm drinking Ugandan coffee. Life is already better.
Everyone's experience of travelling, flying and exploring is very different. It all depends on what your expectations are, whether they are realistic, whether you plan or whether you are happy to just go with the flow.
Well, I knew mostly what to expect flying to my 'trip of a lifetime' destination, Uganda. I pretty much know my limitations and I knew that embarking on this journey was going to be, at times probably more than I was comfortable with, but I didn't expect a 'first day in Africa 'event'.
I call it an event. Most people wouldn't. Most people would probably just brush it away as a silly misfortune, however, exhausted from a long flight that was excruciatingly hot and cramped, in pain and not having slept, my 'event', was that I couldn't step up onto the airport bus.
The airport staff at Heathrow, but much more so, in Nairobi and in Entebbe, were absolutely brilliant. They could not have been more helpful … but that bus step in Nairobi reduced me to a sobbing wreck. It took me three tries to get up the steps with the embarrassment of someone offering to push me from my behind and a whole damned bus of people watching on.
I felt like a useless, overweight fool of an old Englishwoman who wasn't fit to walk to the local shop ( true), let alone go to a foreign country… or rather it's what I would have been thinking if I'd been watching on and feeling unforgiving.
Nobody knows though, the story behind people's struggles when they just 'encounter' them on a trip like this. Most of my struggles are documented in my blogs so most reading this will know why I am a tad oversensitive and not very kind to myself on occasions.
We are always so much harder on ourselves than others are towards us, so onwards and upwards I go. Goodness knows what other silly obstacles are going to floor me on this trip, but one thing I do know, I'm going to enjoy every positive moment and I am sure there will be many more positive ones than negative.
PS. Right now, having reached my hotel in Kampala, I am sat in the garden under the palm trees, the sun is shining on me and I'm drinking Ugandan coffee. Life is already better.
 |  |
