I don't quite understand many of the things I'm reading here.
It seems, and mayby I'm reading more into some of these posts than is really there, that many people are planning to, or have gone to Maun because they think it's easier to get a job there than at home.
Well, I haven't been there, haven't tried it, so I don't know, but from what I've read over the years, it's not quite like that.
About thirty years ago I fell in love with the idea of flying in Africa, of seeing the big five from the air, of going in and out of small dirt airstrips, of meeting people from completely different cultures, of seeing the Kalahari, the Okavango Delta, the Dunes of Namibia. And for those thirty years I've dreamed about it, read about it and studied it. It hasn't been all-consuming, but I don't think I've gone more than two weeks in the past thirty years without thinking about flying in Africa.
So I'm off on the adventure of a lifetime, three months starting the end of January, exploring southern Africa, meeting people from various cultures, meeting pilots, hopefully catching a ride here and there. I have a commercial pilots license, so I'd love the opportunity to fly for hire down there, but I know that's not in any way an easy job. From what I've read it will be the hardest job I've ever done. Getting up at 4am and working 14 hours in a day (hopefully not every day), getting only one day off a week - if I'm lucky, kissing up to tourists, lugging their baggage, dealing with their barf bags, eating strange food, meeting new, and sometimes uninviting people, getting diarhea a few times, sleeping in a tent, showering with bugs the size of a computer mouse, finding black mambas and other poisonous snakes in the toilet, and maybe making some new friends and meeting pilots from around the world, dealing with 45C heat (114F), torrential downpours, and oh, did I mention diahrhea?
I am not under the illusion that I'll arrive in Africa and be offered a job flying an air-conditioned twin flying 3 hour legs, with coffee and doughnuts served by a sexy blonde. I know that some operators (most) have legs of between 10 and 45 minutes, and turnaround times of 10 minutes (that's the TOTAL time allowed on the ground to unload the passengers and baggage, and then load the new passengers and baggage) and there's no baggage handler 'ceppin' the pilot, and it's 45C while this is happening.
What I'm going for is the adventure of a lifetime, and if, by some freaky circumstance, I should be offered the opportunity to work for an operator there, you better believe I'd jump at the chance to work my backside off to have the chance to explore Africa by air.
So, if you're in for an adventure, I'll see you there.