My Travel Adventures

Wei and I arrived in Zanzibar at around half past eight on Friday evening. Our plane had left Nairobi earlier than scheduled: as soon as everyone was seated, it simply headed for the runway and took-off. It seems some African airlines – especially the smaller city-hoppers – are more flexible and informal than their big and unwieldy counterparts. With the half hour we had saved, we had ample time to go through all the formalities at Zanzibar airport. We were apparently the last plane to arrive that evening, so a particularly motivated staff member did his best to rush us through the process, telling us to skip entire sections of the visa application form and shepherding us from one booth to the next.

I arrived at Manda Airport on Friday at ten in the morning. Ordinarily, I would have liked to arrive either earlier or later, but flights into Lamu are restricted to a narrow window between ten in the morning and four in the afternoon. Word on the street has it that planes do not fly into and out of the city at night to avoid drawing the fire of al-Shabaab terrorists. Every few years, air travel to Lamu is suspended due to attacks, some of which have targeted the airport in the past.