Photo Credit: Peoples-parliament.org

Jahvanjee Gardens: I’m sitting in a lovely park where the benches are filled with beautiful Kenyans – perfectly content doing nothing. The park is filled with the purple jacaranda trees that covers CSULB campus at home.  There are cozy canopes fashioned out of tree branches, each houses two facing benches.

The city reminds me of another far-off capitol, Mexico City. There are even peasant women with tiny stands selling the African version of Chiclets.

Traffic is crazy and the taxi driver who brought me here exchanged some terse words with a bus driver who tried to squeeze us out of existence. The driver seat is located on the right, like in Europe.

The number of white people I have seen can be counted on one hand; as for the # of blonde women – I have seen 3. I never noticed how god-awful pale my skin is … I feel like a sore thumb.

I’m here at last.  I’ve just rustled myself from a nap that began at 9:30 a.m. … yesterday. Monster jet lag.

The last time I ate was before the nap – an orange and some Godiva chocolates left over from the First Class flight to Amsterdam.

I’m staying in a tiny room at the Sagret Hotel, the meeting point for the Bukima tour. I’ve done some laundry and have read a few more chapters of Isak Dinesen’s “Out of Africa”, an excellent book.

This room, (Room 177 – a skeleton key!) decorated sparingly in bright yellow and powder blue, has become my little cave. With lights that work on occasion, it’s the most stability I’m likely to see for the next three months.

It rains hard at night here and I haven’t even the cruel African sun. Maybe today.

Must eat now.

Later, at breakfast ….

I’ve ordered nearly everything on the menu. I hope I can eat it all.

Yesterday morning, there was a man who brought my bags up. He was very slim and dark with a quiet voice. He was probably in his mid-30s but his dark stained teeth looked much older.

After showing me the few amenities I had, such as a flushing toilet, I handed him 160 schillings and explained that I didn’t know if it was an appropriate amount. He hadn’t spoken until then: “Do not go into Nairobi by foot,” he warned. He went on to say that Sunday is a particularly fruitful day for pickpockets in the city and the hotel has a safe in case I wanted to stash my passport.

After my long-awaited meal, I must go into town to exchange more money. I didn’t have enough when I came to the Sagret even though I’d exchanged $60 at the airport. After my 826 schilling taxi ride to get here, I didn’t have enough (900 w/tip) left over for one night’s stay, $1,650. They don’t take AmEx or the U.S. dollar and I imagine I was a pitiful sight – dripping wet and surrounded by my heavy bags. They let me stay but I must leave my bags and go fetch money from town.

The flight from Amsterdam was surreal. I ended up sitting in the very last row and was so tired I fell asleep before the plane even took off. I was constantly dozing, waking, changing positions and dozing off again over the next 8+ hours.

At one point during the flight, the purser asked if there was a doctor on board. Later, I heard an old woman screaming obscenities. She was incoherent and stretched out in the next section, one row behind me. Evidently, we had to make an emergency stop on her behalf before we landed in Nairobi.

On the tarmac at a very-primitive Kilimanjaro Airport, an African man who was making everyone laugh, asked one of the stewardesses: “What is so special that we are at this airport with the candles on the runway?” His friends cackled loudly, meanwhile, they hooked the old woman up to an IV bag. I went back to sleep.

Here’s something to remember for next time:  Get the Kenyan visa from home. I waited for over an hour amidst a cluster – no, not an organized line – of foreigners crowding one tiny window.  The longer it took, the uglier the crowd got. When I pushed my papers through the window, two women on opposite sides of me faced off.

“It’s not your turn and you know it,” said the fair-haired Swede. The green-turbaned Sudanese woman backed off in agreement.

“It’s not the girl’s turn who is up there right now!” barked a large American man. I said nothing. In all honesty, there was no way of knowing. There had been a massive sea of people and the only way to the front was to press closer and give an inch to no one. I merely imitated the actions of those around me.

Still, being the object of mob hatred is one of my least favorite things – down there with removing tampons and talking to my mother when stoned.

I managed to get pretty wasted in that First Class seat – love those hot towels! The Frenchman and I cleaned our faces with them – so bourgois.

I lost track of Robin but Carol and I exchanged addresses, hugs and wishes of good luck. Her parents live in Washington so maybe one day we’ll meet again.

After being reunited with my luggage, a fellow 56′er named Nancy was kind enough to let me use her hotel room in Amsterdam to take a well-needed shower. Absolute heaven.

After saying my goodbyes to Nancy, Bill and Dave, I strapped on The Monster Pack and attempted to explore the city while carrying some 50-60 lbs. on my back. Right! After running into my friends from Idaho again, they convinced me to put it in a locker at the train station. Much better.

I’ve decided that I love this city – again. The Dutch are so precise and posess great style. Watching them on their bicycles always amazes me – it’s like a part of their bodies. The sing out loud, eat, hold conversations and run through their shopping list all from their bike seat. Small children sit on the handlebars with their parents riding and no one seems concerned about these babies falling off.

In a fancy mall housed in a building right out of Red Square, several stores reveal that the American West is THE fashion look. There is even a Marlboro clothing store. I think about the Dutch imitating the American look and I cringe with a strange reluctant pride.

We should be imitating them but bikes would never catch on in LA – we worship the automobile for its speed and independence. Shame.

[Random observation noted in the margins: "Um, there are trees in the Amsterdam Airport ... and they have real birds in them, okay? Birds flying by - very weird." ]

For more of my photos from Amsterdam, circa 1994, go here.

CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS POST:

Another line at the doorway and I get a familiar whiff of tension coming from the cabin. When I move to the front, a hand stops me. A stewardess turns to Mary and says, “We’re full.”

Outrage behind me and I stand there stunned. And then, pandemonium. People are frantically running and racing everywhere and I hear a woman yell, “Everybody! Please find a seat!” Instinctively, I run up to First Class and do just that. I’m seated next to a handsome young Frenchman who speaks no English and doesn’t belong there any more than I do. Together, we gloat.

Amazingly, the plane gets off the ground amidst much cheering. The mood on board is New Year’s Eve. Everyone gets drunk immediately and social circles quickly form throughout the plane. Never before has such a large group of passengers become so familiar with one another. There is talk of having t-shirts made – ‘I survived Flight 656 but I’m still on medication’ was one suggestion. The Frenchman and I just keep laughing and toasting one another with our selection of wine glasses.

Meanwhile, a Russian boy who loves basketball hangs on the every word of Charlie, a towering athlete who is going to play in Spain. I notice Mrs. Klink and her daughter in the back, speaking with great animation and delight to the old man next to them. No one is sleeping and the movie is cancelled because that would mean quiet.

Even the cheery, complacent Flight Crew facade has fallen, replaced by real people with real personalities. We encourage Mary to celebrate with us and she admits to temptation but declines with a sigh. “However, when and if we make it to Amsterdam,” she said, “I have a nice coma planned.”

I jot down a few notes on the ordeal and Debbie walks by with a champagne bottle in one hand and a coffee pot in the other. “You’re not actually writing about this nightmare, are you?” she asks, incredulous. “I’m telling you, I’ve been flying for 28 years and I’ve never seen a fiasco this bad. More bubbly?”

When the plane finally touches down at Schipol Airport, we are dizzy from random sleep and amazed that we’ve made it. There is a big fuss, much cheering and clapping. When we leave the plane, personal well wishes are extended and private jokes are exchanged. Carol and I trade addresses but we’ve lost Robin in the crowd.

I meet Nancy and Bill at the baggage carousel, they are traveling on business from Idaho to the Netherlands.  They kindly offer me their hotel room to shower and relax. They are sympathetic because they know that I must board yet another plane in the early evening bound for Nairobi.

Which is another story entirely ….

CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS POST:

Getting a ride to the Thunderbird Hotel was just another excercise in theatrics, despite the fact that our luggage was not released to us. There weren’t enough shuttle buses until drivers from other hotels felt sorry for us and pitched in to help. Everyone agreed to tip them heavily.

So we are stuffed into the lobby of this David Lynch-ian hotel with stuffed grizzlies and Indian Chiefs staring down at us. A befuddled old man and his scared son are frantically assigning rooms to the mob. At this point, the group is bonded. We are living in a bad movie script, we tell each other; this isn’t really happening. Any second now, Steve Martin and John Candy will come walking through the door and we’ll simply tell them to join the line and get used to it. Delirium has set in and we are acting silly.

As it turns out, I couldn’t have hand-picked two finer people to share my sleeping space with. Carol, a 49-year-old Gloria Steinhem-look-a-like from Iowa, is trying to meet up with her husband who is conducting agricultural research in Moscow.

Robin, a 40-year-old ex-Army brat who resembles a brunette Cybill Shepard, is desperately anxious about reuniting with her French husband at their house in Mulhouse, France. She, unlike Carol and myself, is at the end of her trip after spending a week in Tucson clearing up the details of her previous life.

Carol is a psychologist, Robin is an English teacher and yet all three of us refer to ourselves as writers. Both are happily married, happily child-free and well-traveled; they are living their lives with their minds open, their hearts taken and their passports full.  They are an inspiration to this 29-year-old and, after staying up the rest of the night talking, I tell them as such. If you are going to be in Hell, quality company sure helps.

After a much-needed sleep, we (a huge family now), swarm the hotel’s coffee shop, breakfast vouchers in hand, demanding to be fed. People visit from table to table:

“Ready for another go at it today?”

“How’d ya sleep?”

“Try the pancakes, they’re fantastic!”

“I woke up this morning and thought the whole things was a nightmare until I saw this ugly guy in the room,” said one fellow, gently teasing his new buddy, a French-Canadian heading to Portugal who offers a big smile.

Word is out, a plane (our plane? any plane!) is scheduled for take-off today at 4 p.m. After the leisurely breakfast, we retire to our rooms for more conversation and packing.

Later, we leave the glaring wild animals and Native American motif of the Thunderbird behind and take shuttle after shuttle to that most familiar airport. It’s plane #2 from the night before and the seating arrangement is still puzzle so the lines are long, again.

Northwest brass are there supposedly easing the process along. Big men with ties and walkie-talkies mumble codes to one another and I wonder if we’re all part of some secret government experiment. It’s all just too much and Robin begins to crack; her chin quivers and when tears appear, Robin moves her to a faraway seat while I hold her place in the queue.

Oddities continue. A handful of us, after reaching the counter for seat numbers, are told to stand off to the side. Helplessly, I watch Carol and Robin board while casting worried glances over their shoulders. Soon, all but 10 of us remain.

A letter of apology and a $200 travel voucher from Northwest offers no comfort. Today’s snafu seems to have something to do with our passport numbers – un-luck of the draw. We are a small but verbal group and eventaully, we are let through, one by one, after threats of wild disorder.

Another line at the doorway and I get a familiar whiff of tension coming from the cabin. When I move to the front, a hand stops me. A stewardess turns to Mary and says, “We’re full.”

Next … THE CONCLUSION!

I didn't take this, someone else did - but this is what it kinda looked like.

CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS POST:

Ultimately, they locate another plane for us to try.

The sullen group boards the craft, praying in several languages that it can deliver our bodies, preferably alive, to Europe. However, because the seating arrangements are slightly different, some people are confused and yes, unhappy about where they are told to sit.

It comes down to one of the Italian men arguing with a very panicked stewardess. Sure, they have a seat for him but it is several aisles from his friend/brother/whatever and he simply cannot accept this.  There is much yelling and the stewardess keeps looking at her watch, pleading – no, begging – him to sit. The plane cannot take-off while he is standing, she says, checking her timepiece.

Then, quick as smoke, she stops speaking, turns around and marches off, her face burning with frustation. The Italian is left in the aisle with no one to scream at. He looks around at everyone and we throw woeful stares back at him. There is an erie silence. Once again, all the flight crew have disappeared and I’m reminded of The Langoliers, a short story by Stephen King where a handful of passengers awake to find themselves completely alone  – 30,000 feet above Earth. This is the only thought that makes me happily grounded.

Nearly an hour later, Mary apologizes over the intercom, her voice full of real dread. According to FAA regulations, she tenderly explains, a flight crew can only spend so many hours in the air and, although they were hoping to get off the ground before the deadline passed, it was now too late. We were asked to deplane – now an all-too-familar verb – and collect our hotel/meal vouchers at the Northwest counter.

Welcome to Minneapolis – again.

The airport is virtually empty save for the hideously long lines we are forced to stand in. I can’t even see the front and it’s nearly 3 a.m. The scene crackles with tension and the airport police are even called in to keep the peace. (Although one confides that after what we’ve been through – for we are quickly becoming the stuff of legend – he would gladly help organize the riot should we take that route.)

At this point, the faces of my fellow victims are becoming familiar. Conversations, started with bitter complaints, have begun. Everyone has a story, and because of our significant destination, not one of them is dull.

There’s Rob, for instance, who moved from his native Jerusalem in 1984 to Fargo, North Dakota (huh?) and is trying to meet up with his brother in Spain. Elizabeth, traveling with her engaged daughter, has planned a three-week shopping spree in Vienna, Paris and Milan in hopes of finding the perfect wedding dress. Anna, a tall, good-humored woman, was hoping to explore Berlin, the home of her ancestors while the talkative chap behind me was returning to his home in Switzerland. His jokes were weak but everyone laughed hard, grateful for a dose of silliness to cure the absurdity.

To our great delight, another counter opens and those of us standing pathetically at the end make a run for it. I quickly make friends with two sane-looking women and suggest we share a room …

TO BE CONTINUED …

CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS POST:

After about 45 minutes of heading eastward, the captain casually announces that the aircraft is experiencing wingflap difficulty and “Just to be on the safe side, ladies and gentlemen, we will be heading  back to Minneapolis.”

Groans throughout the cabin. Eyes roll, heads rubbed and heavy sighs all around. ‘Oh well,’ I think optimistcally, ‘a hassle is always preferable to crashing.’ Yeah, right. After landing, we are told to remain seated while mechanics set about fixing the problem. There, in that faulty tube, we sit for two very stuffy hours.

“I vant somezing to eat. NOW.”

I shudder to think what a hungry Mrs. Klink might become and keep my gaze out the window. A handful of men atop ladders have out their very best toolkits and are desperately trying to locate the problem. Eventually, I catch one scratching his head and then another shrug his greasy shoulders. I press my forehead against the window and shut my eyes. Mrs. Klink is not going to take this well.

Meanwhile, not a single flight crew member is aboard the craft and anarchy sets in. Adolescents raid the kitchen and began tossing juice cartons to thirsty people with arms raised. Someones finds a box of those paltry peanut snacks and the mob quickly consumes. I was hoping – for entertainment’s sake – that someone would yell: “Let’s trash the place!” and real live pandemonium would set in. No such luck.

A few minutes after eternity, the senior stewardess, Mary, attempted the unsavory task of forcing us to deplane. Take one grumpy traveler, multiply by 350, then try to move herd (plus gear) and you have Mary’s job.

So now it’s past midnight and we are milling around in some forgotten corner of Minneapolis airport, which has the distinction of  being entirely – and strictly – smoke-free. Nevertheless, here are beings at the end of their collective ropes. A small group begins to smoke at the opposite gate and a Dutch woman begins crying and yells at two men who puff away in frustration: “You are those selfish peoples!” she wails, “You care for yourselves only!”

The level of dramatics has even worn thin for the two men who are Italian and who, I can guess, would normally appreciate a loud, public yelling scene. But it’s now 2 a.m. in America, quite far from where they’d like to be. They wave her off like a noisy fly, scrunch their thick moustaches in annoyance and continue to smoke. Dutch lady escapes to another gate, still weeping.

Ultimately, they locate another plane for us to try.

TO BE CONTINUED …

This is how I looked at my 10-year high school reunion, a month before my trip.

The previous post was taken directly from my travel journal, back when I thought my global adventure was underway. Turns out, my domestic adventure was just beginning. When I got home, I wrote about my ‘launch’ experience for a travel magazine called BIG WORLD, probably published in 1996. Turns out, I have no actual copy but thankfully, had posted it on my ClizBiz site. So I typed it directly from there – tedius but fun. Unfortunately, it’s quite long so I’m chopping it up here for our 2009 ADD brains. Enjoy!

GROUNDED!

Africa was no problem for Heather Clisby. The trouble was getting out of Minneapolis.

After three years of working, two jobs, scrounging pennies, salivating over maps and fondling my passport, my dream was about to come true – one year on the road alone, beginning in Africa. Plenty of time for fantasy overgrowth. There I am! Swing from vines, one continent to the next, knife in my teeth, pack on my back, gory wounds at the knees, I wear a smug grin of underbrushed teeth! Bathing with hippos, flirting with death, drinking with doom – look at me, She-Ra! Queen of Excitement! Look how easily she deals with bizarre situations! Such brazen courage! Such a diplomatic hand! A-hem.

Yes, well, I was so busy becoming a legend in my own mind, that I conveniently forgot the true definition of adventure, unplanned event which one is totally unprepared for, at the mercy of an unscheduled situation. See also: surprise.

Not once did my comic book storylines consider what obstacles might exist between Point A (Los Angeles) and Point B (Nairobi).

***

It is, I think naively to myself, my last American meal. What could be more patriotic than sharing a Budweiser and hot dog with your mother? Goodbyes, hugs, a few tears and a final wave. I board the plan, tingling with excitement, a zillion thoughts ricochet within my skull.

The day has finally come, November 3, 1994. How could this possibly work – me, the world and everything? What if we don’t’ get along? The Northwest DC-10 bound for Minneapolis is completely full. The flight is scheduled for take-off at 2:35 p.m. but we remain earthbound in Los Angeles for 45 minutes.

After landing in Minneapolis, I catch Flight 656 for Amsterdam. The schedule take-off, 9:20 p.m., has been delayed for most of us coming from L.A. The first imbalance of many.

As I wait to board, CNN announces that Susan Smith has admitted to killing her children in order to make herself more romantically available. Stunned and heartsick, I congratulate myself for leaving such a troubled country behind. A bad taste comes to my mouth and stays there.

Northwest’s 747 is, once again, packed to capacity. There is a wide variety of accents and plenty of odd-shaped baggage – the usual flight-to-Europe scene. Initially, I am in the wrong seat which causes a furor in the French contingent. My linguistic skills are deplorable but if there’s one thing I can communicate in French, it’s an apology.

Or so I thought.

Leaving some of the loveliest-sounding profanities behind me, I locate my true seat, squished up against a window, in economy class, as always.

A German woman and her teenage daughter arrive in the aisle. She opens the overhead compartment and shrieks in the soothing German way, “Vat is dis?!” She holds my tightly compacted sleeping bag, scowling with a vengeance.

“Uh, yeah, that’s mine,” I murmur weakly. (Where is SheRa when you really need her?)

“There is now no room for mine things! This cannot be! I vill now call air voman to tell her,” she rages.

“Uh, but it’s my only carry-on and it’s not any bigger than …”

“Air Voman! Air Voman!” She is relentless. WWII flashback – I am the enemy. Fortunately, we won that war so my evil parcel is not thrown on to the oily tarmac. In fact, nobody bothers with her at all at the pushing crowd finally forces her to sit down…next to me.

Yep, elbow-to-elbow with the Baroness of Laughs for the width of the Atlantic Ocean. My tingles of excitement have become dull throbs of trepidation. Finally, we are in the air even Mrs. Klink (wife of a colonel, I decide) seems to relax a bit.

After about 45 minutes of heading eastward, the captain casually announces that the aircraft is experiencing wingflap difficutly and “Just to be on the safe side, ladies and gentlemen, we will be heading back to Minneapolis.”

TO BE CONTINUED ….

First journal entry:

“The has finally come and here I sit, hovering above my country in a DC-10, not really believing it. How could this possibly work … me, the world and everything? What if we don’t get along?

Sharing a hot dog and a Budweiser with my mother in the (LAX) airport ($12) was a poetic act. She’s been so supportive, meanwhile, enduring all kinds of disturbances in her own life. I will worry about her and she about me because that’s how this sort of thing works.”

Hungover but happy at the Sossusvlei Dunes in the Namib Desert, West Africa. January 15, 1995

Gather ’round children, time for a story:

Many years ago – before cell phones, before email and yes, even before the Internet – I got a wild hair up me bum. Sometime in 1993, I realized that world was not going to come and fetch me. If I wanted to see it for myself, I was going to have to leave the house in a big way. The two-year process of saving, scrimping and planning began. (I even took on a second job to boost the savings.)

With the guidance of my Aussie friends, Simon and Karen, I mapped out my year. Karen informed me, (as a travel professional, her title at the time was “Adventure Specialist”) there was such a thing called a ‘Round-the-World’ airline ticket. You pay for it in one lump sum, pick your route and determine (as best you can,) your airport cities and arrival/departure dates. The main rule was this: You can only move in one direction – no backtracking.

With Simon, I recall spreading out a map of the world on the trunk of my mother’s car and discussing my route. The world was so big, where to start? I knew that I wanted to be immersed in a culture so starkly different from my own that there would be no question that I was far away. In essence, I wanted to get in over my head. Naturally, my priority became Africa, (With an quick stop in Amsterdam, just to get in the travel mood …)  

From there, I focused on Australia and New Zealand. The woman who sold me the ticket told me that I could then choose between the Mauritius-Tahiti route or the Fiji-Hawaii route. I chose the latter since I had a good friend living in Hawaii and Tahiti sounded expensive. The total cost of the ticket was $1200 and the woman sold it to me on one condition: “If anyone asks you how you got this ticket, you say you have an uncle in the oil business in Dubai.”

Seemed fair enough. After meeting up with Karen in Australia, she took one look a the ticket and gasped. “This ticket is highly illegal and obviously off the black market! I can’t believe you haven’t been arrested!” Fun stuff.

I recently came across my detailed journals and recall that I had hopes of publishing a book someday. Obviously, I never got around to it but after reading ‘Eat, Pray, Love’, the excellent book by Elizabeth Gilbert, I’ve decided to put my words and photos from that era into a blog. So maybe mine wasn’t a specific spiritual journey but it was a true adventure, nonetheless.

It will be fun to relive that period in my life when I was so carefree. Every day brought new amazing sights, sounds, people and, most of all, aromas. Every day was so radical and amazing that a week seemed like years – a bizarre time-warp sensation common to all hardcore travelers. Who knows? Maybe by the time I get through all this, I’ll get my nerve up to do it again. You know I’ve never been to Asia ….