The Big Trip, Part 3

Once we de-planed onto the tarmac and took the bus to the terminal (with much help from the team in lugging masses of kid gear, and no help from the double stroller, which went with the rest of the luggage to baggage claim), it was smooth sailing through customs and baggage claim. We made a phone call to our hotel to have their airport shuttle pick us up, and they told us it would be 30 minutes (translation in local time: at least an hour). By then, it was, like, 8:30pm, and that’s rush hour around there. So, we waited in the lobby. And waited. And waited. And waited. Finally, Tim made another call to the hotel. According to them, there was just too much traffic, so they weren’t coming. Of course not, right? Thankfully, since we had been there before, Robert knew where to get transportation without getting totally ripped off with major tourist-price mark-ups. We managed to get a small bus, maybe 1.5 or 2 hours after we landed, and we were off. We were prepared and had decent info to give the driver to help him get there, and even spoke a little Arabic to help us communicate. He still ended up calling them to get directions, but at least we had the phone number and it wasn’t the middle of the night.

Finally, we got there, except, not quite. The street the hotel is on is a side street that you can’t get at from the parallel main street. After circling around the block and not being able to get on the right series of side streets, our driver decided that he would back up to get to the hotel. We convinced him to try circling once more, but the result was the same. So, we conceded that backing up might be the best option, after all. Now, we’re not talking a short back up, here. It was at least 200 yards, maybe more, in rush hour. Insane. The thing about driving there is that just about anything goes. There are really no lanes, and even if there were, everyone would just ignore them. Our driving backward apparently didn’t really faze anyone else, because there was no more honking than usual (which is to say, there was a lot of honking on both our part and everyone else’s). It was a very surreal moment for our first major experience there. Thankfully, we made it to the hotel in one piece, and didn’t even hit anyone. Our driver got a good tip.

Up the old, rickety elevator we went to the 6th floor to check in. After much discussion back and forth with Robert and the people at the front desk, it was determined that, in spite of what we had understood, we did NOT have a reservation. The travel agency had only emailed them to check pricing, but hadn’t actually booked us there. GREAT. But, God is good, and they had enough rooms for our whole team. Talk about an exercise in trusting Him! He always provides. By this time, we were starving, so we had them order us in some food. I put the girls to bed in their travel tents, ate a few bites, and then crashed. It was late at that point, and we had to get up in the morning.

Many details of the nights there are a little fuzzy at this point, but I think the nighttime waking for the girls started on the first night and pretty much continued through the entire trip. Katherine spent some time in my bed (there were 2 full-size beds, so Robert & I each took one). There was crying, and talking, and nursing, and bottles, and a lot of wakefulness. When you’re all in one room, if one kid is awake, everyone is pretty much awake. Not sleeping at night = cranky kids and parents. This would play out throughout the trip, and I’ll get to that in the next post.