IF THERE IS A WILL, THERE IS A FLIGHT!
CHAPTER TEN

QUICK RECAP:
Libreville Airport. Bellview Airlines. LBV-LOS. Martin. Flight delayed. Cameroon Airlines. LBV-DLA. Refuelling stop. €400 deal. Passport stamped. Pilot befriended. Martin returns. €10,000 CASH. You can’t board, A Bomb? Show US! Loud Gasp. Flight boarded again. Take off. €500 again, Boarding Pass, Douala. Marcel the angel. Immigration cleared. Virgin Nigeria!

CHAPTER TEN:
Lagos, At long last!

As we walked towards the Virgin Nigeria counter, I thanked Marcel again and asked him how much I owed him, for the ticket purchase as well as, for ‘his services’, which have been of tremendous help to me. In all honestly, without Marcel it would have been almost impossible for me to get this far, without getting myself arrested or deported.

Marcel politely replied that the ticket had cost him an equivalent of €988/- and pointed to the ticket where the amount was printed. He also added that Mr. BS had personally insisted, that if I was short on the cash front, I should not bother about the payment, and that he would personally settle it with Marcel.
I was really impressed by this bond of trust that Marcel seemed to share with BS, but I insisted that cash what something I was definitely not short of.
I laid down my plastic bag on the floor, and handed him FCFA worth €1,000 and since he didn’t have any change, he actually told me;

“Let’s get the check-in sorted first. Then I will buy you some Cameroonian coffee”

The Virgin Nigeria counter was already operational and there were about three people ahead of us, as the two of us waited in the queue. Once our turn came, we walked to the check-in counter, where a pleasant African lady greeted me courteously. And then, I confronted the final obstacle of this trip.

It was about my cash and the bag carrying it. She insisted that I had to check it in, something I was not prepared to do at any cost. I was also unwilling to part with my cabin baggage and the cash was too voluminous to fit into my cabin baggage, despite being lighter by €1,500.
Marcel, the solver or all problems, stepped in yet again, and solved the problem for good. He asked me to step out of the queue, as he made a call to someone he knew. In a little more than twelve minutes, a gentleman appeared with a few bundles of cash, this time in Euros and suddenly, my huge volume of cash was converted into eight small bundles of €1,000 each, along with a few loose bills. And they all fit into my cabin baggage without much of a fuss.

Marcel asked something to the cash-man and he nodded in the affirmative. I heard him ask “Confirmed?” and the man replied “Yes, yes, I swear!”
Marcel then turned to me and declared with a smile, that there was one currency exchange in the corner, but for this amount of cash, he was surely going to add in some fake notes. With this guy, I could be absolutely sure that all the bills were original. If there was even one fake note, he would take responsibility.

We walked back to the check-in counter, where the same lady greeted us again, and this time the check-in was completed without any further hiccups. At this point, I had only one cabin baggage and a laptop bag to go with it.

Once done, Marcel insisted on that coffee promise, and as we sat down at a small coffee joint within the airport, he ordered ‘Cameroon Boyo Coffee’ for us. He promised that it would be something which I would remember for a long time, and the coffee really stood up to those words. It was rich and full bodied, but also mellow in a certain way. You should try it if you are in Cameroon.

As I sipped on this lovely coffee, I made two calls and completed two pending tasks, that were almost overdue.

First, I called our contact in Nigeria to inform him that I was somewhat delayed for various reasons, but I should reach Lagos in another two hrs. He was delighted to hear that and informed me that he had been waiting at the airport to pick me up, without much information on the whereabouts of my scheduled Bellview flight. I asked him to go and have his lunch, before coming back to pick me up.

Then I called good old BS and thanked him profusely for his timely support, and praised Marcel for his incredible ability to find solutions. I could almost hear him grin over the phone.
Marcel asked me out of curiosity, how I had managed to land in Douala without a visa or a ticket. I laughed jovially and narrated this amazing tale of adventure, which, by this time, seemed almost amusing. Marcel sounded quite serious though, as he remarked;

“You are lucky my friend, it is not worth taking all this risk in Africa. Especially, when you don’t have a visa and a boarding pass!”

“Oh! But I do have a boarding pass!” I replied with confidence.

He looked surprised and stared at me quizzically. With a wide smile, I reached into my jacket pocket and took out the hand written boarding pass, that was issued to me by the Captain of Cameroon Airlines. Marcel looked at it with disbelief and turned it over a few times, before asking me slowly;

“Have you shown this to anyone?”
“No, but that’s because your immigration guy didn’t ask me for it. But if he did, I was covered”

I gave him a confident smile.

Marcel tried to be respectful, but eventually stated;

“Boss, thank God they didn’t see this. This hand written Boarding Pass has already been discontinued since 2 years. if they saw this, they would have arrested you!”

“What?…” I looked straight at him to see if he was joking, but he seemed serious.
“But don’t worry my friend” he continued, “they might have arrested you, but no one can keep you arrested for long in Cameroon, not as long as Marcel is around.”

With that, he rose and indicated that it was time to board the flight. I stood up and quietly followed him to the departure area, where we shook hands one last time and while holding his right hand, I pleaded;
“Marcel, please, here’s a little token of appreciation, for your amazing help all the way” as I tried to hand him over a single bill of €100.

Marcel pushed my hand away and calmly answered;

“Noway boss, a friend of Mr. BS is a friend of Marcel. You don’t take money from a friend!”

and then he walked away slowly but surely.

I watched him for a few seconds and felt an overflowing sense of gratitude and respect. As I started walking to the security area, I reflected upon his comments on the Boarding pass and how it might have got me arrested, and felt a sudden chill go down my spine. I threw the boarding pass at the next waste bin I found.

A little more than two hours later, I walked out of the arrival gate in Lagos Airport, and amidst dozens of people holding hand written boards, I spotted my name and felt relieved. A stocky man walked towards me, as I raised a hand to acknowledge my name. Within minutes, I was seated in the passenger seat of a black Mitsubishi Pajero, and was headed towards the hotel where I was reserved to stay for the next few days, and where the official meet was supposed to be hosted.

I took a deep breath as it dawned upon me, that I had just completed an interesting adventure in life, that someday I would love to narrate to my near and dear ones, many of whom would never have the opportunity to experience such a fascinating experience in their own lives!!!

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