Reservations Fail

So this trip was a little last minute and we haven't had internet in my office for a week which throws everything off and the person who usually takes care of my travel reservations was overwhelmed so I did them myself... all of this is to say there are a lot of excuses for my mega fail, none of which are particularly compelling.

So in order to get a reasonably priced ticket, I had to agree to a terrible itinerary that sends me on TAP airlines and had terrible timing and weird layovers (weird like 16 hours in Lisbon on the way there and 30 hours on the way back). So I left NY Saturday night, arrived in Lisbon Sunday morning, took a day room all day Sunday to sleep and then left for Mali Sunday night and arrived in Mali at 2am on Monday. Now in my mind I made a hotel reservation for Sunday in Lisbon and Monday in Mali and I was all set... except the problem with that is that 2am on Monday is effectively Sunday. FAIL.

So I get to the airport and at about 2:30 I'm outside in the mass of people trying to help me with my baggage, sell me CDs, and offer their services as guides (apparently they never sleep). No driver with a little sign with my name on it. I hang out for a bit and stave off the first few extremely persistent guides but it became clear I needed an ally so I grabbed one to help me look for the driver. No driver (because he was scheduled to pick me up the next night, when I actually had a room reserved). So eventually I took a cab to the hotel with the guide. It was so late, all travel no-nos out the door. It ended up being fine, as most sketchy situations in Mali do.

I arrived at the hotel and the night guard was there and said they were totally full and didn't have space for me. This was 3am. We went up to the terrace to try to call the management to see what to do but it became clear that he has a phone, but no credit and can't read the numbers that are programmed in. So I went through his phone looking for the right number and then used my phone to call and after about 30 tries, we got a hold of someone. At this point my scheduling error becomes clear. Devastation. I ended up going down the street to their sister hotel and got to spend the hours of 4am-8am sleeping there before I had to get up for my first meeting. Not the best way to start a trip.