February 16
Ok – so I just posted how I wasn’t the biggest fan of the Seychelles. I was pumped to leave on the 15th and head to Madagascar. We left with ample time to get to the airport. The boards said our flight was delayed 2 hours. This is the first time on our trip that any flight has been delayed. But we have a 4 hour layover in Nairobi on our way to Madagascar, so we were not at all concerned approaching the desk. Big mistake.
We went to get our tickets and the guy had an issue with my passport. I know that I need more pages in my passport. But I have two blank pages at the end of my passport, so I was feeling ok about waiting until we got to Madagascar, when we have 8 days in one place, to fix this problem. Big mistake. Apparently, on my US passport, the last two pages aren’t real pages. They don’t say the words “visa” on them, like the other pages. What the heck. I had never noticed and no person had ever voiced a concern with me. They look the exact same as the other pages!!!
But the people with Kenya Airways wouldn’t give me tickets to Madagascar. They suggested I fly to my connection, Nairobi, go to the US embassy there, fix my problem and then continue on our travels. So I did. I emailed that embassy. Immediately. They told me to come in at 7:15am and get an emergency passport and it could be ready in an hour. Boom. Before leaving the Seychelles, Michael and I tied to get some information/documentation/vouchers outlining what Kenya Airways told me about my passport. But they refused. They told me to get my passport sorted and then come back to a ticketing desk in Nairobi and they would adjust our tickets. No need to worry, but no benefit to talking to them before we had my passport issues sorted.
So we went through customs at Nairobi, got an extra hotel, popped into the super cool bar in town for a few beers:
Note: in Nairobi, you dress up for a brewery. We looked a little foolish in our super casual clothing. But the bar was really cool. It was Havana night and they had a huge band with horns that was keeping a bunch of people dancing. We stayed for our beers and some apps, but I could have stayed for hours. It was clearly where the young professionals in Nairobi hang out. But we had an early meeting at the embassy, so off to bed for us!
We were at the embassy by 7:30 and after a very thorough screening process I was on American soil by 7:45. It felt… just like I was in Kenya. I was out the door by 8:30 with an “emergency passport” which means I need to get this issue dealt with again in the next 2 weeks or so. But at least it’ll let me get into Madagascar!
So we took a taxi right to airport to try to get on the 11am flight. We got there by 9:30 and were feeling good about our odds for about 2 and a half minutes. And then we were pretty sure we weren’t making the flight. They wanted to charge us almost $600 to get on the next flight. What?!?! We were told free!
The woman told us that our reservation didn’t have any memos or notations with it, so she didn’t know anything about our talks in Seychelles. I knew I should have gotten a voucher! My grievances:
1. They told me free and it is nearly 300 per person. If we knew it was going to cost anything, Michael would have gone ahead and I would have dealt with my problem.
2. The woman in Nairobi told us that Seychelles didn’t need to be concerned with my number of passport pages… that I would have been fine arriving in Madagascar. What the heck!?!? All I wanted was to be dropped off in Madagascar to deal with customs. I’m confident I could have convinced them to let me in to see my embassy. But they refused to give me a boarding pass to Madagascar.
3. We found out that the biggest problem we had in Nairobi is that we didn’t go speak with them when we first landed the night before – while Seychelles told us not to bother until we had my passport problems situated. Apparently going to the desk last night would have fixed a lot of problems, but we were advised otherwise.
We walked away with a $200 discount against the total cost and a $360 charge. Needless to say, Kenya Airways is getting an angry letter. But in the meantime, we’re enjoying the Kenya Airways lounge while waiting for our late night flight. That’s why there have been so many blog posts in one day. Great wifi!!! So sorry for the overload. But for now, it’s off to Madagascar!!!