76 Addis Ababa - Nairobi

2. Mar 2010

Monday was spent on a walk around Addis Ababa – and a visit to the National Museum. Ethiopia is the only country in Africa, that never has been colonized – but it is a poor country, and that is obvious. I was approached by a number of beggars etc – but not hassled!  

This morning I was off to the airport again – in a 5 dollar hotel shuttle. Addis Ababa has a fairly new and pleasant airport, and I passed immigration without hassles. It took some time to find my contact from Ethiopian Air – I had lost his phone number – but I had his name: Million!

The name was ominous for the charges I would have to pay here. But the service provided had been excellent. I found Million, and in a short time I had filed a flight plan and paid the fees: 349$ in handling fees, and another 72$ in landing fees.

So again I can say, that the lower the general income is in a country  – the higher is the charge for the bus ride from parking to the terminal!   But at least here it was done with a smile. Avgas was available at 665$ for a barrel (200 liter).

But I had my own reserve, and I spent about 40 minutes filling my jerry-can and emptying it into the wing tanks. Siphoning it from the turtlepack on the back seat, worked like a dream: once I had the fuel flowing, gravity too care of the rest!

Ready for departure, I called the tower for permission for a start up – but I was asked to stand by? Then a guy came to look into the plane – and when reminding the tower, that I was still standing by,  I was told, that  the tower had to get a clearance from the boss of the guy who checked the plane. It was another 5 minutes, and I called tower once again, and pointed out, that standing by on the radio was draining my battery . Tower promised to inquire, and after waiting for about 20 minutes in all, I finally got the permission for the startup!

I climbed out to the minimum altitude of FL 170 – that is about as high as the Cessna can fly, and as I got over the clouds, I asked to fly VFR at flight level 145 – and it was approved.

It gave me some work navigating the towering Cumulus clouds, but a couple of hours out of Nairobi, I had perfect weather. I passed very barren landscape, but getting closer to Nairobi, it changed to lush green hills below.

The downside of flying VFR was, that I now had to look out for special airspace, and  100 NM out, I had to circumvent a prohibited area – and closer to Nairobi a military area was in front of me. I tried to get permission to pass it – but I could not raise the Radar – or the tower on the base. So I had to do a 180, and fly South of the restricted areas .

I landed in Wilson, a very busy GA airport in Nairobi. Passing immigration was a short process, and I could back in a plane with the guy who claimed to be in charged of parking. He directed me to a parking spot – and asked for a “tip” for the favor.

I got in contact with Shell to get fuel. I wanted 250 liters – but they only had 100 liters – then the truck was empty, and it would be another month, before Shell would have Avgas again! On the home page of Shell Aviation, the company informs, that they have some 128,000 liters of Avgas in Wilson?

I headed for the flying club here, which has rooms they rent out. I thought I had a reservation – but it was for a wrong date, and there were no rooms, and I had to head towards town for a hotel.