Sometimes you just get lucky and this was definitely one of those occasions. I reached out and took another sip from the chilled French champagne in the glass next to me and gazed out over the infinity pool, watching the water vanish into the flaming orange sunset.
To my left, Vincent (provider of champagne) and Jens (provider of generous hospitality and jaw-dropping views) sipped their drinks and chatted genially about business and holidays and the joys of parenthood.
It’s probably true to say that I was getting a bit “˜antsy’ in Dar and I was mostly thinking about the next leg of my trip: perhaps a brief return up the north coast to Bagamoyo, or maybe south and on towards the Malawian border. Vincent and I had already been talking motorbikes and he’d given me some good ideas on scenic routes down near Mbeya, an area he’d covered extensively with his KTM 520EXC.
With visions of endless single tracks twisting through my mind, I was a little startled when Vincent turned abruptly to me and asked: “Hey, d’ya wanna go flying tomorrow?” “Er, sure,” I stammered, “Um”¦ in what would we be flying exactly?”
Vincent, I knew, was a pilot and operated a small charter business out of Dar es Salaam. What I didn’t know was that he also had a 2-seater microlight hangered at the Dar es Salaam flying club and had already planned to take it up for a bit of a whirl in the morning. So there was a free seat – did I want to join him?
Now microlights, as far as I can gather, are a little notorious in the more conventional aeronautical world of fixed wings and closed cockpits. I have another pilot friend who at various times in the past, with a kind of morbid fascination, has regaled me with stories of these flimsy aircraft which most often seemed to involve them getting blown violently into stands of pine trees, or horribly tangled in unseen high-voltage lines.
But Vincent seemed like a responsible enough guy. Sure I’d only met him about 45 minutes ago, but Jens seemed to know him well enough and, hey, how irresponsible can a KTM owner really be?
The next morning, just after dawn, I found myself strapped in and taxiing onto the main runway at the Julius Nyerere International Airport, feeling a confidence I wasn’t sure I had any right to, but eager to get up and into the brooding sky.
It was more like being in a helicopter than a light aircraft. I’ve flown briefly in the nose bubble of a bel-air chopper and this felt a lot like that. The ground seemed to jump away from my feet and we climbed steeply up in a climb that felt more vertical than horizontal. We banked sharply to the left, with Vincent casually swinging the microlight’s steering bar and pointing out towards the centre of Dar. “We’ll head out that way,” he said through the helmet intercom, “then over the fish market, out to buzz some of the small islands off Msasani bay, then back round to the north west and home.” “Sounds good to me,” I replied and settled back to enjoy the ride.
Without warning, Vincent took his left hand off the bar and began beating a little frantically at his jump suit; switching hands and then flailing around again with his right. “Something’s crawling on me!” he shouted through the helmet, and as it registered I saw a long green lizard crawl up over his shoulder and around the back of his neck.
I feel a bit bad about it now, but at the time it was pure reflex. I reached out, steadied myself against the side of the seat, and backhanded the poor little guy out into the void. We were cruising at about 2000 feet at that stage, just cutting over the run-down outskirts of the city. It was, undeniably, a terminally long way to fall.
The rest of the flight was uneventful on the stowaway front, but exhilarating on every other. Vincent took us high over the city for a great 360 degree view, before zipping low to dhow-mast height to wave to the locals on the deserted Bongoyo beach.
It’s not something I’m ever likely to do again and I won’t forget it in a hurry. When opportunities like this come along it’s best to grab them and fly. Pity about that poor lizard though. I still feel bad about that.
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