The Birds!" "Those birds and their STUPID SCREECHING!" I just wanted them to SHUT-UP!
As I lay there under my pillow I could swear that one of them sounded like the "death aria" from Mozart's Magic Flute Opera ... "Damn Birds!"
Finally I realized that it was not a bird, but was Geert calling on my cell phone. (Duuh~) I reached out through the mosquito netting and retrieved the phone.
"Hello?"
"Hey Flounder, Geert here ... from The Netherlands?"
"Yes Geert. You are the only Geert I know. What's up?"
"The FOTM boss ... you always want to know early where it will be ..."
"And .........?"
"You can head to Oslo or Amsterdam or Hamburg!"
"That's great Geert. What day is it anyway?"
"Sunday Boss. March 23rd."
"Geert, do you have any idea what time it is?"
"Sure Boss, it's 7 AM here - but I know how you like to plan ahead and all ..."
"Thank you Geert." I said, "I'll meet you in Hamburg in about a week."
My head was reeling. Okay, 7 AM in Holland means it must be about .... 8 o'clock here in Rwanda. The birds have been peeping and chirping and squawking and SCREECHING for about 4 hours!
"Aaaargghhhh!" The air is warm and heavy, kinda smells like wet dirt ... with a hint of sweet flowers and ... is that ... maybe ... rotting bananas? If I really listened I could also hear the buzzing of the flies and mosquitos in my room. The two friendly Geckos on the wall had done little, it seems, to decrease the insect population! Yet even so, despite this verbal picture, this area(Rwanda, Eastern Congo, SW Uganda, Burundi) has to be one of my favorite, most "natural" places on earth.
Those who actually follow these stories and keep track will wonder how I ended up here, outside Kigali, when I last left off in Beirut. Well, that's a story unto itself but suffice it to say that an acquaintance of mine who works for an undisclosed international aide organization invited me to pay a visit (and help out) so, here I am. On the up side, even here in the middle of Africa I can tune into http://www.plr.org/.
I had planned on leaving Kigali on Sunday March 30th but by Saturday afternoon I was ill - some tropical something had gotten the better of me. Saturday night was a miserable night of fever and .... ummmm, ... well, "voiding my system of toxins!" Sunday I was pretty wiped out so I didn't leave. I spent Monday stressing about getting to Hamburg and by the middle of the afternoon I figured I may as well just wait out the official FOTM information.
On schedule, Tuesday, we learned that, "Malta is more than just sunshine." This sounded really good because Tuesday afternoon we were having one of those big, fierce, tropical thunderstorms which left everything soppy, muddy and wet. The rain and lightning was amazing as my Air Malta 737 departed on it's nearly 2,500-mile flight from Kigali to Malta International. Yes, it's a VERY LONG flight but I figured with few passengers and really full fuel tanks I could make it.
Enroute, I began planning this month's adventure. Nothing against Geert or his suggestions of six possible flights but he makes it sound like once we arrive in Malta and maybe take a general tour of the area we'll be done - I like more. Some say I like TooMuchMore but I opted to make this more like one of Dick's past FOTM in the Philippines where I could spend the month flying commuter hops out of Malta. Fly more ... fly less, we'll see how things come about.
As usual, I was anxious to begin! I've flown into Malta a time or two before but the scenery always seemed to be lacking ... something. I hoped that a month-full of adventures based from here would be something exciting. (I believe there is at least one Virtual Airline out there based from Malta) I figured I'd start out looking to the four compass posts: NORTH; SOUTH; EAST and WEST, then we'll see how I was feeling. As we cruised along high over the North African deserts I did some additional reading - who knew that Malta was "The Land of Honey"? Cool. (I also found the quotes Geert had taken from Wikipedia.) As the sun set I concluded that I would indeed be SHORT on the fuel so I had to make a quick "Gas-and-Go" in Hamada Nc-8 (HLNM).
After arriving I made arrangements to see the island(s) from a "Tucano" Military plane which I had learned about from Joao Mario and found thanks to "The Collector."
This would be my first real introduction to Malta before starting my regional flights for the month. Flight One = North to Zurich: I flew an Avro RJ in old Swiss livery up
and a Dash-8 in Swiss livery back to Malta. To quote Dick, "nominal flight." Flight Two = South to Libya:
I flew into the FOTM from the south and really, there isn't a whole lot to see down that way. (Granted, I arrived after dark but trust me, there's not much there) So I took a Do328 turboprop on a little tour into Libya finally landing for lunch and fuel at Tripoli before heading back to Malta. (The Biblical Apostle Paul is famous 'round here - in fact, he was shipwrecked on Malta at one point)
livery to Greece and a JS-31 in "LGFC" livery back. 
Flight Four = West to Alicante, Spain: A pre-dawn flight over Tunisia and Algeria using an Air Catalonia ATR-72 going and an Air Catalonia Do328jet returning after lunch.
on some additional hops around the western Mediterranean (pict32). In fact, I have some landing videos at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwISnJsjACkTHANKS MUCH!
