• Mustang Mally
    3Good bye Singita Volcano Rwanda. I might see you again on my 70th
    Where's Ryan Gosling? We stopped at the Ellen DeGeneres Research Centre before heading to KigaliYou can do a personality quiz. Cantsbee is my gorilla match.Fascinating aerial shot of the efforts to reclaim the forest. They're aiming for 23 percent more.Our overnight at the modest Hemingway Hotel in Kigali turned into a day stay before an 0200 flight.We decided to relax rather then go to the genocide museum. Bad form??There's actually a priority pass/amex lounge in the tiny Kigali airport! Not great, but it's free.Looking fresh enough at this stage. Let's see how it goes.1We gambled leaving the middle seat vacant. We lost BIG time. Bel so happy he left at Uganda!1I had my eye on the 3 vacant seats next to me but they all filled up. Boo.3Still alive at Istanbul and happy to discover TAs hotel offerAs our layover met the criteria they put us up at a 5 Star hotel for free including food & transferIt ended up being a private minivan just for usThe Hotel was the Renaissance Polat overlooking the Mamara Sea! Beats 12hrs at the airport.Yummy Turkish sweets but not the right time to caffeinate. One more leg to go.

    Running the Gauntlet

    March 7 in Uganda ⋅ ☁️ 20 °C

    The big orange turd didn't take our travel plans into account when he decided to vent his frustrations on Iran. This left us with 3 options:
    Risk our Qatar flight to KTM via Doha (which ended up being officially cancelled)
    Cut the Nepal leg out without a refund and source a flight home early (flights are scarce and crazy $$$)
    Take the only viable route to Nepal: Istanbul then KTM with Turkish Airlines (What can go wrong on a flight route that splits Iran and Ukraine?)
    We've gone with option 3 but it has created a looong travel day: 2 night flights with a 12 hr layover in Istanbul! I'll let the pictures do the talking.    Read more