My triumphant entry into Conakry

The first time I entered Conakry, the capital of Guinea, I was greeted by a military marching band and women in native dress.  It all started with a flight from Monrovia, Liberia to Freetown, Sierra Leone.  There are not any good, reliable commercial flights between the cities that we trust, so the five business companions and I chartered a plane to take us.  We boarded the comfortable 12-seat plane and handed the pilot $8000 in $100 bills.  They only take cash if you don't have an established bank account in the country, and since we had been carrying that much money on our person since we arrived in Africa, we were ready to get rid of it.  The pilots then took off heading for Freetown for the 90 minute flight.  As we approached Freetown, the pilots - who are not separated by a wall or door from us - became agitated on the radio with the ground.  They finally informed us that it was a national holiday in Sierra Leone and the airports were closed.  Of course they didn't find this out BEFORE we handed them the money, but that's another story.  We had to land somewhere, and the nearest airport that was not celebrating a national holiday was Conakry, about 45 minutes away.

We landed in Conakry with no problems, and were the only plane on the taxiway.  We pulled up within walking distance to the main terminal and noticed a large contingency of people and trucks parked in the shade of the building.  After the engines shut down, the door was lowered onto the tarmac and we began to walk down the stairs.  Instantly, we heard a marching band start to play and saw several trucks with people standing in the open flat-beds begin to approach the plane.  The trucks were carrying many women waving and clapping in beautiful, colorful native dress.  The band, in dark green uniforms, was marching toward us right behind them.  It was only a few moments later when the faces of the people stopped smiling, the arms stopped waving and the band sounded like someone had let the air out of them.  We stood there just as confused as they were as we watched the trucks make a u-turn and the band, after some shouting and arm-waving, turned around to head back to the shade.

We were then told to hurry and exit the tarmac.  Another plane was right behind us and about to land.  That was when we found out that the President of Ghana was flying in for an official visit to Guinea.  The crowd of well-wishers and the band was there to greet his arrival.  No wonder they all looked surprised and confused to see six fat white guys come down the stairs of the plane.