The boat then sailed overnight to Madang, Papua New Guinea where we disembarked on a lovely clear morning. The ship was continuing on to Melanesia, South Pacific, but I had taken that portion of the trip in 2014. A few people stayed on, but 3 and a half, almost 4 weeks was enough for me. They took a tour of the city that has been labeled the prettiest city in Papua New Guinea, we took the bus to the airport to fly to Port Moresby where we spent the night and then flew onward to home.
I do not recommend the Hilton in Port Moresby. It is not particularly well run.
But the next morning, one of the friends I was traveling with managed to shut down the entire Port Moresby airport. We’d gotten there early enough and were sitting at the gate waiting on the flight for Brisbane, where I would break off to head east to Los Angelos and they were flying Brisbane -> Melbourne -> Christchurch. When suddenly all power was shut off to the airport and they were announcing one of my travel companion’s name. They came and got her, took her away. Apparently they were concerned about her luggage. So, she asked them if it was the sharp metal objects that she’d bought somewhere along the way. And they said, no, they know what they are, they see them all the time. So, she asked if it was this, was it that. And they were, no, no, we see that, we’re fine with that. It turned out to be that she had ankle weights so that when her feet sank a little in the water when she snorkeled and made the fins more efficient. They had never seen ankle weights before. Everyone had a good laugh, they turned the power back on, we were allowed to board the plane. Though we sat there on the tarmac because the plane that had just come in from Brisbane and was turning around, had brought a passenger “without the necessary documentation”, so they were waiting to reboard him and take him back to Australia.
This made my friends rather nervous because they had a short layover in Brisbane for this Melbourne flight and had to exit through immigration to catch that flight. I, on the other hand, had been informed that my layover in Brisbane had gone from 7 to 10 hours. Making my window in Los Angelos to catch my San Jose flight very short and I had to go through immigration, collect my bag, change terminals, and re-checkin at the counter because it wasn’t a single itinerary. And it was the last flight of the night into San Jose. But I used the time and airport WiFi in Brisbane to checkout that there was a flight an hour later to San Francisco (which was the last LA -> SFO flight of the night). So, I had an option and if I failed to make that, well, I have relatives in LA.
In Brisbane as I was getting on the flight, they had a woman wandering the crowd, asking security questions and if you answered correctly, you got a sticker for your boarding pass. And one of her questions to me was, what’s your final destination? So, I said, San Jose. And she looked at me, very puzzled, and asked why are you going THERE? And I said, because I live there? Is there another reason why someone would go to San Jose?
But to make matters worse, when we got to LA, there had been a medical emergency on the plane, so we were all forced to remain in our seats until the EMTs wandered up to the gate and checked that person out. And I’m really tapping my foot because I have slightly more than an hour. But the good news is that I made the last flight home just fine. Fate cleared a path for me. Apparently with global entry, they don’t even ask the “What are you bringing back to the US / Have you visited a farm / Have you been around anyone with Ebola” questions any more. You just scan your passport at one of several unused kiosks and they call your name and you’re done. Bag came out in a reasonable amount of time. My watch tells me it was a 1.5 mile trot from the international terminal to Alaska Airlines which I managed without harming any grandmothers or small children. No one in line at the Alaska counter. No one in line at TSA. First gate past security. Home before midnight.