Idlelo 2: The trip there

Perhaps falsely, I consider myself to be reasonably able to avoid emotion overtaking logical thought. My trip to Nairobi, however, made The Incredible Hulk seem a calm and collected individual.

It didn't help that there was some pre-trip tension - the travel agent's last request to me was an address to send my tickets to. On the day before my early-morning departure (not helped again by the electrical blackouts during my pre-trip bug-fighting), I was not encouraged by the lack of the tickets.

I phoned up my favourite airline (that would be sarcasm), SAA, and was told that if my tickets didn't arrive, I couldn't get a new ticket issued. And no real explanation of why this was the case. So, after abusing the front-line service staff-person without any real attempt to resolve the situation, I asked to speak with someone more senior.

This didn't start well either. No explanation or attempt to make a plan to get me to Nairobi without me paying a number of thousand rands for the privilege of being on a plane that already had a paid seat on it.

At some point, the second-line staff-person asked my name (not too politely) and discovered my ticket was an "e-Ticket", and thus I need only arrive at the airport.

So, I started feeling pretty bad, as it wasn't really SAA's fault (for once!) that I was initially irritated (but they did little to help), and then I felt even worse when the second-line staff-person corrected the travel agent's forgetfulness in giving me vegetarian food on my trip back (somehow 12 hours isn't enough time to organise food on the way out) and assigned me some decent seats. Wow, some initiative! I even though perhaps SAA didn't suck for a second.

In the morning, I checked in well in time, booked my luggage to Nairobi, and relaxed. On boarding, however, I noticed that I was not in the decent seating allocated to me (or on the aisle at all). I guess I should have realised then...

But I got to Johannesburg without problems, and met up with fellow conference circuit junkie, Joris Komen from Schoolnet Namibia. Since I checked-in all the way to Nairobi, I still didn't have an aisle seat.

Uneventful, but also wakeful, journey to Nairobi. Cleared immigration without a visa (as expected), and off to fetch my luggage. Joris and I waited for a bit, assuming that since about 10-15 passengers were also waiting that there was another set of luggage coming. And then it was 15 minutes since the last set of luggage was put on the conveyor. Then the news: the transfer of luggage between CT and JHB "hadn't had enough time to take place".

I'm not sure if it just felt like it was an hour waiting in the queue, or if it really was that long. Having described the luggage, I was told SAA would give me some money to tide me over and get new clothes.

Off to the SAA counter at departures. Except the departures queue was over 50 people long. Using the single operational scanner to enter the building. The helpful Kenyan Airport Authority guard seemed to take sadistic joy on denying us the ability to go through to maybe not hate our Kenyan experience. So, hand over my passport to some guy, and wait for about 20 minutes, and then I have KSH5000 (about USD70 or ZAR450).

The Kenyan Airlines flight arrives with other South Africans. I hate them for flying Kenyan while I was stuck on SAA.

I have to wait for a fellow lost-luggage passenger to get his "First Needs" allowance so that we can head and get food, and then we're off.

At this point, I've recovered sufficiently - we're out of the troublesome airport zone and into Nairobi. We buy some clothes (Kenyans seem to rarely come in my size), and head to the hotel.

What the hotel staff didn't want to do is tell me that there is no room for me. Not that I took it out of them - the conference staffers suffered from my combination of total lack of surprise and total astonishment that the day could get worse.

I pace, sit down in various places, do breathing exercises, vent to fellow conference delegates. I mostly scare those who suggest I go to another hotel away by my mood, but a few make the silly mistake of engaging me.

Eventually, someone has a brainwave - maybe I can share with someone with two beds in their room. And guess what, Tectonic founder and editor Alastair Otter just happens to be there then and mentions he has such a spare bed.

It took about two seconds to transform from the most trying day of my life to sheer pleasure at being in Nairobi and surrounded by my fellow Open Source advocates (sans, unfortunately, a friend or two who couldn't make it).