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We all met at the airport with over 3.5 hours to spare, much to Ruth's annoyance (an extra hour in bed would have been appreciated!). We instantly hit the first hurdle of the trip in the form of a very moody check in lady who informed us it was impossible to check our bags from Heathrow to Kilimanjaro airport even though we had phoned BA to check this and they had reassured us it was no problem. There appeared to be no budging on this point so we had no choice but to check in and pray the flight was on time and 2 hours would be enough to get our bags in Nairobi and get back into the airport to get our connecting flight.
After a full English at the airport we felt optimistic it was all going to work out and bordered the flight. The flight was uneventful except for limited meal choice causing Tarryn to momentarily loose her cool but a lovely Portuguese air host made up for this and despite landing late he was confident we would make our connection.
However when we (eventually) got off the plane the ground staff informed us we would not have time to get our bags and re-enter the airport to check in. There was a flicker of hope when the transfer lady said with our baggage receipts they may be able to get our bags on the plane. This was followed by an awful panic as Tarryn realised she had left her receipt on the plane. She valiantly sprinted around the airport to the BA desk returning triumphant with the lost number only for us to break the news that there was no way our bags could get on our booked flight.
We were faced with the choice of catching our flight and hoping our bags would be put on the flight the next day or missing our flight. A rushed discussion ensued after which we decided the trip would be ruined if our kit did not make it to Kilimanjaro and so we moved our flights to the next day and had an unscheduled night in Nairobi.
Tom luckily ran into an old colleague at the baggage claim who gave us a safe close hotel to stay in and taxi numbers to get us there.
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