Trip Disaster

Sometime during the preparations for our trip to Afghanistan my travel buddy, Jill, informed me she has absolutely the “worst luck ever” when traveling. I thought she was joking. She wasn’t.

Trip Disaster #1—Arrive at the airport. The shuttle driver asks us to pay him—in the amount of 68 euro. I have 10…dollars. Panic. Convince the man that our company is paying. Not us.

Trip Disaster #2—Check in counter. Jill’s bag weighs too much. I have two. The woman won’t let us pass. We rearrange. I now have a backpack with two laptops, our orders, a book, Nutella, and some peanuts. Jill has a sleeping bag. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem. But we are going to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Yes, a real country. Yes, they lose luggage. Almost always. And now ALL my underwear is in their control. Along with my malaria medicine and EpiPens.

Trip Disaster #3—Arrive in Turkey. Head to transfers. Show the man our orders and ID card. He has no idea what I’m showing him. He tells me to buy a visa and go to passport control. We skip the visa. Passport control tells us to buy a visa. We argue. They direct us to the Turkish airport police. Turkish airport police tell us to buy a visa. No one has any idea what our orders are. Orders that we were told would get us in and out of all three countries we are stopping in. We both panic. Call the company. No one answers. Maybe because we’re in Turkey. Maybe, because it was lunch. Jill buys us visas. We enter Turkey.

The rest of the journey was pretty uneventful. Bishkek didn’t lose my luggage. The military plane was awesome. I was able to lean against the parachute door and watch the Himalaya’s pass (there are no windows on military planes). I successfully made it to Afghanistan and work. In six months I’ll once again travel back to Germany—with Jill. I’m more than scared. She really does have the “worst luck ever”.

Asleep in the Turkish Airport due to the exhaustion of 36+ hours of travel