Coming In On A Charter: The Flight

When I left off in my last post, my teammates the Farises and I had just gotten onto the MAF plane for our flight from Nairobi to Malualkon, South Sudan on April 4. The route for our flight was the following, which is the route our charters usually take to go in:

A. Nairobi to B. Lokichoggio, Kenya: 2 1/2 hours flying time
B. Lokichoggio, Kenya to C. Rumbek, South Sudan: 2 1/4 hours flying time
C. Rumbek to D. Malualkon, South Sudan: 1 hour flying time
The stops in Loki and in Rumbek are for re-fueling.

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To continue on with the timeline from the previous post:
9:30 - Passengers load onto to the MAF plane, which is a Cessna 208 Caravan with a single turboprop engine. Our pilot is Jane, who as far as we know is the only Kenyan and only woman pilot currently flying with MAF.

Daniel and Liam are sitting in the back of the plane behind the freight.

There are three passenger seats in front of the freight, just behind the pilot and co-pilot's seats (on our flight we only have a pilot). I'm sitting behind the pilot and Natalie and Liam are behind the co-pilot's seat.

My view of the control panel. The screen with green and brown in the upper middle of the panel is a map showing the position of the plane. It's fun to follow along our route.





9:50 - Take off from Wilson Airport to fly north up to Lokichoggio (Loki). I got some nice views of Nairobi (Wilson is located right in the city).

View of Nairobi city centre

Recent housing complexes

Slums

12:20 - Arrive in Loki.

View over the pilot's should as we were heading towards the runway in Loki, which you can see in the distance in the middle of the photo.

Loki airport official buildings (police and immigration)

Our plane being refueled

The official reason for stopping in Loki may be refueling, but for me (and I'm sure most women passangers), what Loki means is: toilets!
(There's no toilet on the Caravan.)
 

And the women's washroom in Loki is actually very decent for rural Africa. It's spacious and clean, the toilet usually flushes, there's toilet paper and soap and running water for handwashing.

13:00 - Leave Loki to fly to Rumbek.

13:40 - Cross into South Sudan. The route map below shows the plane right on the border. 

 

15:20 - Arrive in Rumbek, South Sudan for refueling. It's about 40 degrees C (approx. 105 F.)

Rumbek airport

We passengers go to the immigration office at the airport to pay a registration fee and have our passports stamped.

16:00  - Leave Rumbek for our last leg, a short flight to Malualkon. The Caravan plane cabin is not pressurized so it's quite warm in the plane.

Getting close to Malualkon - notice the plane's shadow, bottom left

Good view of typical Dinka compound in foreground

Coming in to the runway at Malualkon

It's always great to see our truck waiting at the end of the runway

Teammate James who came to pick us up, greeting pilot Jane

Unloading

Lots of interest on the part of onlookers

17:40 - Leave airstrip 

We can't fit all the freight on the truck at one time. We take one load plus all us passengers and pilot Jane, who will spend the night at our compound. The next morning, James will drive her back to the plane and pick up the rest of the freight.

18:05 - Arrive at our compound in Parot. We made it!

So sorry, no pictures of this. Guess my mind was a little fuzzy.  And I didn't even think of taking pictures of the final step: unloading the truck.

 

Thanks for coming along on this journey!