Once the VIP party had left the immediate vicinity we had a look around and indulged in a bit of a photo session.
As you can see we got a bit closer to the Migs but that is as far as we dare go.
Then one of the minister's party came back and said the crew had been invited on a tour of the town and it would perhaps be 'diplomatic' if we accepted.
I was not at all keen on this but agreed .Even if there was trouble we could not have departed and left the VIP party ! However myself and the G/E remained with the a/c whist the rest went on their tour. Some of you may remember images from that period of the 'technicals' in their pickups with heavy machine guns mounted on the back. Well that was the crew escort for the trip.
After they left we cranked up the GTC and put the power on.On the way to Hargeisa we had not been able to contact base on the HF to update them so I decided to try now.
We must have been in an HF black hole as try as I might I could not raise anyone on any of the normal frequencies on either HF box. I could hear the fans in the sets running as we transmitted. I even tried listening to the Radio Amateur bands to no avail. The G/E had a go with the same result.
So after opening the ramp and door we shut down the GTC and sat in the breeze to try to cool down as the temperature rose. As the racket of the GTC died away all I could hear was the HF aerials sighing in the wind as if mocking our puny efforts at communication.
As the G/E and I swapped 'war' stories a Brit arrived at the back of the a/c.
He had a VERY interesting bit of information !