LAYOVER STORIES

CAMEROON AIRLINES
MEMORANDUM (INTER)

Date: May 8, 1975

Subject: Arrival of Mr. James Brown

This is to inform all airport personnel the American entertainer, Mr. James Brown, will be arriving this afternoon in Douala Airport aboard. Cameroon Airlines #UY710 at 18:15 PM. Arriving From Dakar (via Lagos and Younde) B737.

Upon arrival of the aircraft, the boarding steps will rolled to the aircraft, and Mr. Brown and his party will exit first. After disembarkation of the aircraft...

Journal Entry: 

Tuesday January 21, 1986

Montserrat, W.I. 
Three planes, JFK to PTP (Pointe-a-Pitret,Guadeloupe), then PTP to Antigua, and finally another small plane to Liberta, Montserrat. It was a shlep. However, when Elliot and Jennifer said they were getting married on Montserrat, I didn’t really get. But now that I am here. I am starting to understand a little more. It reminded of my favorite line from Don't Stop the Carnival,  "this is the Caribbean, Mon. Things move slower here". The weather is warm, the drinks are cold and the company is... well, mostly tolerable. My lodging is the lovely Coconut Hill Hotel...

6/17/1993

Hi Mom,

My apologies, I know I promised I would write sooner. I just wanted to drop you a quick note from my luxurious hotel room in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia. You know, the place I was supposed to just have a 10-hour layover in before jetting off to Singapore to meet up with my friends. But, as fate would have it, a little thing called a tropical cyclone had other plans for me. So here I am, stuck in this jungle paradise for an additional 30 hours.

 I shouldn’t complain....

1-4-98 Île’s les de Guadeloupe

Kevin, 

Greetings from Guadeloupe! (Or as the locals say “Gwadloup”), the butterfly island, (l'île Papillon), where the sun is always shining, and the locals are always sipping on rum. I've been surviving on a diet of conch fricassée, and callaloo soup. I didn't know seafood could be this delicious or this spicy. (The rum helps to cool the spice.) I must tell you, the beaches here are quite lovely. I’ve discovered a small cove that is very special- there are no people, just turtles and me. I’ve become quite fond...