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Overnight in Sochi and Sochi to Sukhumi, Abkhazia

Abkhazia, Abkhazia 2017, Airports, Russia 1 Response »

Apr 292017

Airport in Sochi was relatively modern, no doubt a beneficiary of the recent Winter Olympics. Since it was already nearing sunset and we were exhausted from a long day of travel, we decided to go with the taxi desk in the arrivals area as opposed to negotiating with the taxi mafia to potentially save a couple dollars each. Nice quick ride with a polite driver who coincidentally enough had Abkhazia plates on his car.

10 minute ride to our hotel, the Radisson Blu Resort and Conference Centre, where check-in was a polite but disorganized affair. First they sent us to our rooms…which we realized when we got there we’d both been given the same room number. Back to the front desk, and apparently they had screwed up, and oh btw, we charged you the wrong amount. Your room requires you to pay this much more. Was somewhat odd that they expected the room to be paid upon check-in, but eventually everything was sorted, and the view of the Olympic venues from the room was fantastic:

With the sun having set, and the stories of stray dogs around the area (which we never actually saw) there was really no point in trying to see the Olympics sites in the evening, so we decided to head into Sochi for some dinner. See, the airport and the Olympics venues are in a suburb called Adler, which actually sits right on the Abkhazia border. We called an Uber, which was really quick and reliable in Sochi, and made the 30 minute drive to the Morye Mall located in Sochi.

What was the first thing you see at the main entrance to the mall? Yup, it’s like they knew I was coming…AND Sochi managed to get my name right. Bonus points for them!

We wandered around the mall a bit, walking off the jetlag, and the mall was majorly modern with lots of international stores – likely a beneficiary of the Olympics as well. We were getting a bit hungry, so stopped into a pelmeni restaurant for some dinner. Dozens of varieties of pelmeni on the menu, and I don’t remember what we ordered in the end but they were seriously delicious.

After a bite to eat, a little more walking around the mall and exploring, and we found another odd vending machine to pair with the caviar vending machine in Moscow. I mean, don’t you always go to the mall and realize “damn, I forgot my contact lenses, I better hit up the vending machine!”

There was also a huge grocery store in the mall, so explored that a bit as well. I find grocery stores fascinating places when abroad, and a good insight to how at least some segment of the local population lives. Nothing terribly unusual about this one, except for multiple aisles with nothing but alcohol.

Called an Uber which had no trouble locating us at the mall, and after a short ride we were back at the hotel where we promptly passed out for the night. Despite all the confusion over the room rate at the hotel, they did decide that breakfast was included, and it was a reasonable spread for Easter Sunday. The breakfast was seriously empty, but there was still a huge amount of choice at the buffet, both hot and cold options, plus some local sparkling wine. Not bad at all!

…and seriously, how can you resist taking a pic when the hotel has something like this set up?

It was a nice clear morning, and unfortunately sleep won out over an early morning walk around the Olympic sites. Most of them were well behind fences anyways, so it wasn’t like I was going to get an early morning tour of them. This view from my room would have to do:

We hadn’t put a whole lot of thought into getting to Abkhazia, but knew that there were essentially two options: take a taxi to the border, cross over, and then wait for a minibus to Sukhumi, or find a driver/taxi who was willing to make the full trip. Given it was Easter, and we didn’t know how much traffic there would be, we opted to skip the public transport option and arrange for a driver. My first thought was to hire our driver from the airport since he had Abkhaz plates, but he he no interest in making the trip.

Our second try was to see if they hotel could find us a driver. Yes, they could, but their driver wanted to leave at 6am to avoid traffic at the border, and wanted 9,000 rubles ($180) for the one-way trip. We definitely weren’t going to pay that much to get up early.

So, google to the rescue and I found kiwitaxi.com which seemed to be too good to be true. A global transfer booking company that could arrange transfers anywhere in the world? They only wanted about 5,500 rubles for the trip ($100) and only 20% in advance with the rest to the driver (I imagine the 20% is their commission) so I figured I would give it a go. Only took about 30 minutes, and I had confirmation that our driver was booked, and would pick us up at 11am as we requested.

Our driver Dima showed up right on time, and had a perfectly comfortable and modern SUV for the trip. He didn’t speak a word of English, but was extremely friendly and easy to communicate with. We set off right at 11am, and were at the border in just over 15 minutes. He made sure to tell us that if anyone at the border asks, we are “friends” since trying to explain a taxi might open him up to bribes. When we got close to the Russian side of the border he let us get out, and go walk through passport control. Exiting Russia was pretty straightforward, with just a couple simple questions “how long will you be in Abkhazia? When will you come back to Russia? Where do you live? Why do you speak Russian?” and we were through.

Dima was just getting the car cleared when we exited, and we were ready to head to the Abkhaz border post about 100 meters down the road. Here we just pulled up to the officers, said hi, showed them passports, and they waved us through without a single question. Way too easy! The whole border had taken about 30-40 minutes due to the passport control line on the Russian side, but overall really easy.

From here, it was about a two hour easy drive to Sukhumi, where we had little trouble finding our hotel. I asked Dima if he would be interested in picking us up in two days, but when we told him we needed to leave at 9am he wasn’t interested since it would mean leaving Sochi super early. No problem, we had two days to sort out transport or use kiwitaxi again, so figured we were set.

Now, time to explore Abkhazia!

Paris to Freetown, Sierra Leone on Air France, visiting Freetown

Airports, Business Class, Flights, France, Sierra Leone, West Africa 2015-16 No Responses »

Jan 262016

Fortunately, my adventures on the RER were much less of a problem today – and not only that – I managed to catch and express train and was at the airport barely 45 minutes after leaving my hotel…which gave me 3.5 hours to spare. I was going to need it, however, to figure out my way through this maze of an airport.

Leaving the RER station, there were a bunch of Air France kiosks, which made checking in and getting my boarding pass easy. So far so good. Rather long walk, but eventually navigated my way through the sea of checkin counters and found the area for departures. Exit immigration was a breeze with no line at the business class counter, and priority security was also rather empty…save the woman with about 200 metal bracelets and trinkets all over her body. Seriously, do people not thing ahead when they are flying?

Regardless, found my way to the lifts underground, and to the Air France lounge with plenty of time to spare. To top it off, my flight would be leaving from the main terminal 2E building, meaning a short walk from the lounge. Looked like everything was going well today!

Since I’d only grabbed a quick coffee at Starbucks, I decided to find out what my food options were in the lounge.

A lounge with real cheese and not Tilamook? Score!

Main course of a chicken and mushroom stew of some sort, and cheese wrapped in ham…with an apple tart for dessert. Not at all bad for lounge food Air France. Not bad at all!

Since I had plenty of extra time thanks to the RER running well today, it left me a few extra hours to get some work done in the lounge before it was time to take the short walk to the boarding gate.

Air France flight 770
Paris Charles de Gaulle (CDG) to Freetown, Sierra Leone (FNA)
Depart 13:35, Arrive 19:10, Flight Time: 6:35
Airbus A330-200, Registration F-GLCB, Manufactured 2001, Seat 5E
Miles Flown Year-to-Date: 9,374
Lifetime Miles Flown: 2,176,412

As soon as I was seated, pre-departure champagne was offered along with amenity kits. I decided to fit in this time, and when I wasn’t offered a blue one on the tray, asked if they might have any blue ones. The flight attendant apologized, and immediately went off to fetch one. Hah!

Today’s menu…rather tasty looking once again!

Today’s flight was the same number as my flight from Conakry two days prior, and apparently it does a circle Paris-Freetown-Conakry-Paris every couple of days. Worked out perfectly for me, and obviously lots of others because today’s flight appeared to be completely sold out in all classes. Everyone I could see in business had either American passports of Chinese, leading me to believe it was largely a mix of development workers and the usual Chinese “infrastructure” people. Tasty snack of cashews and cranberries along with a creamed pea mousse:

Shrimp starter, along with more fois gras. Looking around – I found almost everyone poking at…and then refusing to touch the fois gras. Next time I’m on Air France I’m going to ask for them to take double helpings for me from all those who can’t or won’t appreciate it!

Extremely tasty risotto, and cheese! I’m branching out from my usual beef offerings this trip with vegetarian risottos, scallops, monkfish…what is this world coming to?!

Trio of desserts. It’s no Jeff Sundae, but it’s way tastier!

My impression after two medium-haul flights on Air France: nobody can beat them for business class food. Sure, Emirates and Singapore can try and be “fancy” but they save the truly impressive stuff like lobster and caviar for first class anyways. Air France serves good, solid, high quality food in business class that doesn’t taste and look like it came out of the dollar bin at your local WalMart. Normally I’m the first to find airplane food boring and meh, but I can honestly say the Air France meals were things I would order in a restaurant. Well done Air France!

…and as a nod to Air France, my seatmate was displaying extremely Haute Couture – a bedazzled New York Yankees sweatshirt:

This is where stuff got interesting. After a great flight, we landed at Lungi International Airport where the passport queues were extremely slow and sweaty. Country #189 visited! Now, Lungi Airport is rather interesting. It’s about 10 miles or so from the capital of Freetown, but those 10 miles are if you can walk on water. If you can’t you take the long way around the bay by car, which usually takes 3-4 hours. Yes, that’s right, hours. So, what most people do is take the ferry.

I had read nightmares about the ferry, and the process of procuring tickets, which were approximately $35-40. For $60, the Radisson would send someone to meet you at arrivals, transfer you to the ferry, give you your ticket, and pick you up on the other end. Sounded like a bargain to me…and I went with it.

My driver was waiting for me in the arrivals area, and handed me my ticket. He took me to the bus area, where I would wait for the bus to the ferry. Yes, that’s right, first you need a ferry ticket. Then the ferry company drives you to the pier. Then you take a ferry. Then you need transport on the other side. Well worth the premium I paid.

Fortunately, the ferry company’s van had awesome air conditioning, and soon we were off. About a 10 minute drive to the pier in complete darkness, but it didn’t matter, because once we got to the pier we waited nearly an hour to board the ferry. No answer why, other than soon soon. Eventually we boarded, and it was clear they were going to cram an entire A330 of passengers on a ferry which was marked “Capacity: 55”

I personally counted at least 80-90 people, and there was lots of yelling and complaining about the boat being overloaded. But, see, there’s a problem. It had one deck. With one door. In my foolish rush to board I had moved away from the door, and if this thing sank, there was absolutely no way I was getting off on time. I was hoping reason would win it, but no, they just slammed the door. A staff member gave some half-hearted safety demonstration that included comments about life jackets and the easter bunny…not sure if either really existed..and the motors sputtered to life.

Fortunately, it was pitch black outside, and we couldn’t feel the terror we were about to embark on…the first five minutes weren’t too bad, but then the waves started, and the boat started pitching pretty hard side to side as the waves would hit the boat which was loaded down worse than a pregnant woman well past her third trimester. I tried to strike up a conversation with the local couple seated next to me (we were some of the lucky ones with seats) but that didn’t work when they told me they’d taken this ferry dozens of times…and it had never been loaded down this badly. They were clearly worried.

I started looking for small and weak people between me and the door, deciding who I would trample when we capsized. I also started practicing holding my breath, trying to figure out how long I would have to get to the door once the water came rushing in.

Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, that’s when it started. Now, Sierra Leone had recently been declared free of Ebola, and to do so they constantly reminded people of the way it spread: avoid bodily fluids of sick and dead people. Well, that’s when the first woman lost her cookies…all over a couple of people also standing in the middle of the boat.

A couple of minutes later, it happened again with another person. All told four people threw up all over other passengers. While it made the time pass by quickly, if a sinking boat didn’t kill us there was a reasonable chance Ebola would. Eventually, we made it to the other side…the air heavy with the smell of vomit and fear.

True to their world, the Radisson shuttle driver was waiting for me, and soon we were off to the hotel. Quickly messaged Jordan and Dan that I’d arrived, and that they were free to meet me in the hotel bar/restaurant as after checking in I would need something to make me forget my near death experience.

This item on the menu didn’t reassure me:

Yes, you may have a beer, but only after you sanitize your hands:

After a couple of beers and some food, it was time to head to bed so I could get up at a reasonable hour and maximize my time in Sierra Leone. Unfortunately, the room air conditioning in no way met my standards, nor did the internet which only reached about a foot into my room. I was too tired to care, and had good data service on my cell phone, and eventually passed out for eight solid hours of well-needed sleep.

Got up to have a bit of breakfast before heading out, and was surprised to run into Dan and Jordan there. They had some sort of buy one get one free rate that didn’t include breakfast, and given the hotel wanted over $25 for it I hadn’t expected to see them. The buffet was rather basic, but enough to do the trick, and certainly better than several we had had on this trip.

They had arrived the prior day, and agreed to show me around the area near the hotel so I could maximize my time before leaving. We headed down to Lumley Beach, which thanks to “National Exercise Day” on Sunday, was packed:

I was doing my best to “STOP the EBOLA Virus” but given all the vomiting on the ferry the night before, I wasn’t overly confident.

The beach was packed with people playing football, lots of people just walking, and vendors selling water and other drinks in the incredibly hot sun:

I spotted one football team getting ready to take a picture, and rushed over to ask if I could take their picture as well. This got them to do their championship pose, and I found out they had just won the beach league tournament of some sort. Given the dozens of games going on at the beach, there seemed to be tons of different leagues and casual games going on, and most of them even had referees. It was a rather large affair and apparently THE thing to do in Freetown on a Sunday.

After a while of walking around we eventually headed back to the Radisson to try in vain to cool down ever so slightly with some cold drinks before heading to the airport for our onward flight to the final new country of this trip: Liberia!

Uyuni to La Paz, and La Paz Part II

Airports, Bolivia, Bolivia and Ecuador plus Medellin, Flights, hotels, Restaurants 1 Response »

May 182014

Originally when I’d booked the trip, my flight back from Uyuni to La Paz was scheduled for 9:35a, which would allow me to sleep in slightly, and still get to La Paz in time to have a nice relaxing day to see the city. Unfortunately, once again, Amaszonas had other ideas. Points to them for communications, but 48 hours before my flight I got an email that the flight had been moved to 6:45am. Are you KIDDING me people? UGH.

This meant instead of getting breakfast and leaving for the airport at the sane hour of 7:45 or so, I would have to leave for the airport no later than 5am. Yes, this meant another 4:15am wakeup call. UGH.

I went out front at 5:15a as agreed with my driver, and he was there…sleeping in his car….with heavy metal music blaring. I was slightly disturbed, but after knocking on the windows to wake him up, we had a safe 30-40 minute drive to the airport. All the stars were out, and it was gorgeous in the complete darkness.

There was already quite a long queue to check in which took 15 minutes or so in the semi-open air terminal, and I was stuck in the back of the plane this time. No big deal. The problem was, after security, we were in a waiting room that was semi-open to the elements and it was -5C outside. It was absolutely freezing, and I hadn’t brought a jacket. I sat hunched up in a little ball for about 30 minutes and ran for the plane the minute they let us board. There was absolutely zero to see or do in the airport, except freeze and wait for the plane.

Amaszonas flight 301
Uyuni, Bolivia (UYU) to La Paz, Bolivia (LPB)
Depart 6:45, Arrive 7:35, Flight Time 50 minutes
Canadair CRJ-200, Registration CP-2733, Manufactured 1998, Seat 11D

This flight was completely full, and I had the pleasure of an overly chatty Indian seatmate from Mumbai who insisted on talking for the entire 50 minutes. Even when I put in my earbuds, he prattled on and on. Ugh. Not at this hour, please. Impressively, for a full flight of 50 people and only 40 minutes in the air, the flight attendants made two full passes with drinks. I was impressed! The Coke Zero was the only thing keeping me going.

Landed in La Paz right on time, but there was one problem. It was rush hour, and it took nearly 90 minutes to get to the Radisson. Fortunately I knew the fair price this time, and the taxi driver was happy to accept it. Got to the hotel just after 9, but my room wasn’t ready yet…so they invited me to go up to the executive lounge for breakfast. Well, that was nice! Had a small breakfast, and by the time I was done my room was ready.

They’d upgraded me to the executive floor for some reason, which was slightly nicer in furnishings than my previous room. I collapsed on the bed, and caught an hour nap to try and feel somewhat human.

After I woke up, I headed out to walk the city. My first stop was the office of Crillon Tours, where I had to pay for my trip to Lake Titicaca the next day. The walk there was about 15 minutes, and it was a good chance to watch the city going about its business on a week day. There was, once again, nearly no English spoken in the office when I got there, but eventually I found the person I needed, got the tour paid by credit card, and I was off to walk some more.

I was headed to the old part of the city where some colonial buildings still stood, but on the way I ran into a group of…zebras? I have no idea what this was all about….

Just ten minutes further along, I ran into a chain gang of prisoners doing some hard manual labour repairing a road. And being supervised by….a police dog? I was beginning to wonder about Bolivians and animal costumes….

Finally, after a 20 minute walk uphill, and stopping frequently to catch my breath, I reached Calle Jaen, where some old colonial buildings stood. The streets were narrow, and the angle of the sun made it hard to get a good pic, but this was my best attempt:

I kept walking back through the city, and my next stop was the Mercado de las Brujas – the witches’ market. You could by all sorts of interesting “ingredients here” including dried llama fetuses. Supposedly when you’re building a new building, be it a house, office, or whatever, you bury one of these dried llama fetuses in the foundation for good luck. Go figure….

Almaty, Kazakhstan to Tashkent, Uzbekistan on Uzbekistan Airways

Airports, Europe and Central Asia 2013, Flights, hotels, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan No Responses »

Jun 082013

Wrapped up our session at around 4pm, and our driver picked us up at the office at 5pm to head to the airport, promising there would be lots of traffic…and you “must” get there early. Since it’s the largest city in Kazakhstan, I figured the airport would be pretty good-sized, so maybe there was reason. Plus, things move slowly with bureaucracy in central asia sometimes, so we’d see.

Got to the airport in about 25 minute, and it was still nearly three hours until flight time. Oops! The entry way was a long hallway left to right, but there were no check-in desks anywhere in sight. Oh, wait, they’re through the security checkpoint. That’s odd…but ok. Checkin took a couple of minutes, asked for a window seat in row two after being shown the wide-open seatmap…and ened up with 1B. Um, ok? I asked for row two aisle. She switched from Russian back to English, saying “yes, you take.” Sigh, ok. This was a non-winnable battle.

There were two lines for passport control, for business class and everyone else. It didn’t matter in the end, as both seemed to take about 20 minutes to get through. Right on the other side was security again, which had no line. So, in about 30 minutes, two hours before the flight, we were in the terminal. Let’s find a lounge!

There was a lounge it turns out, but it’s only open to passengers of Air Astana. Business class on Uzbekistan? Nyet, go wait in the terminal. Priority Pass? Nyet! Sigh. The terminal? It was one large room with a few hundred seats, shared by all flights. There were a couple small outrageously priced cafes around the edge of the room, and a good-sized duty free shop that was pretty well-stocked. That was it…we were just going to have to wait it out. Time went pretty fast due to free WiFi which was nice, and soon it was time to board!

Uzbekistan Airways flight 764
Almaty, Kazakhstan (ALA) to Tashkent, Uzbekistan (TAS)
Depart 20:15, Arrive 21:05, Flight Time 1:50
Airbus A320, Registration UK32014, Manufactured 2010, Seat 2F

There was no such thing as priority boarding, so I did what lots of developing country travel has taught me to do well and stood up for myself….using all 6’3 210 lbs of me to make sure I stayed at the front of the scrum. Fortunately, once on board, someone was already in my seat. I took that as a cue to take the seat I wanted…2F…and in the end, I don’t think anyone ended up in their assigned seats. That works!

The sun was setting, and the view out the window onto the tarmac over the bright green engine was pretty cool:

…and what’s this in the seatback pocket? An “amenity kit” for a two hour flight? Neat!

Hotel Review: Radisson Blu in Dakar, Senegal

hotels, Senegal, West Africa 2012 No Responses »

Dec 192012

Yeah, I know I’ve gotten a bit behind with this trip, but travel and travel planning keeps getting in the way. I need to find a way to use plane time productively to write blogs. That said, on to a review of the hotel I stayed at on my second trip to Dakar, and the second half of my first trip. It seemed to be a consensus that this was “the” place to stay in Dakar, although some people seemed to prefer the Terrou-Bi instead because it was “just as nice, but less pretentious.” Well, as I just mentioned I came back here for my second trip, so you can guess I was pretty pleased with it.

One other random cool thing, and this had nothing in particular to do with the hotel – but I do think it speaks to the quality of it – is the guests. One morning in the hotel, absolutely by chance, who did I run into but Canadian PM Stephen Harper! He was there with his entourage on the way to DR Congo for le sommet de la francophie, so either it was the best place in town or it was the only place they considered secure enough. Considering the distinct lack of visible security (compared to a U.S. Presidential visit, for example) it was pretty amazing.

Room:

Had a standard city view room the first trip, and a “business” oceanview on the second trip. Main difference, other than the obvious view was that the business room had a bit bigger desk as well as having a Nespresso machine. That was a huge help in the mornings, since I don’t get moving in the morning without coffee, and having that so easy was a huge plus. They were also willing to restock the capsules as often as you wanted during the day, so big win there. Air Conditioning worked much much better than the Terranga, and overall I was pretty happy with it. Housekeeping wasn’t perfect – seemed most days they’d miss one small thing (maybe towels one day, refilling bath gels the next, etc) but a quick call and things were fixed. Overall, the room was leaps and bounds above the Terranga. Most importantly, it was cool, quiet, clean, and safe, with a rather comfortable bed and a nice (albeit a bit weak) rain shower.

Oh, and the view from my room in the morning was absolutely terrible on the second trip! 😉 Well, there was a construction pit at the end for the large expansion to the hotel that is underway, but the noise never occurred in the morning/evening so it didn’t bother me.

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