Another new destination for me to head to, and I was eager to be heading away on this 6 day trip with work to tick off not one but two new countries. The first sector of the trip was to Conakry in Guinea, on the west coast of Africa. It was 9 hours and 45 minutes over to Gbessia International Airport with 2 services and 2 hours crew rest.

Landing at 13:40 local time, we exchanged with the other crew on this transit stop and then made our way over to the hotel. However, upon landing into Conakry we were informed both by ground staff and by Emirates that student protests were happening within the city in relation to professor pay grades. And whilst googling to find out more information we sadly saw that two people had also unfortunately been killed. Therefore it was deemed unsafe for us to leave the hotel complex whilst on our 48 hour layover.

My safety and well being whilst on a layover are paramount, but it’s also sad we weren’t able to go out and properly explore this beautiful city and all that it has to offer. However, my thoughts are with the families of all those affected by these protests. It seems that the unrest has died down now, as when we spoke with the crew after us, they were able to go out and explore the city.

So, unsure what else we were able to do, we all agreed to meet down at the pool for food, cocktails and sunshine instead.

We had the perfect spot for sunset too and we jumped into the infinity pool that overlooked the coastline for the perfect picture opportunity.

We spent the rest of the evening chatting away by the pool as the sun went down before calling it a night.

The next morning, I met three of the girls downstairs to see if there was ANYTHING we could do with the concierge and if it was safe. He spoke with a driver who said it wasn’t safe in the city at that time, so a little disheartened we went for breakfast in the hotel to kill some time before checking if the situation had improved later on.

At lunchtime the concierge got back to us saying that things had improved however there was no driver able to take us out. So it was back to tanning by the pool again.

Early evening I had managed to get an appointment at the spa and booked myself in for a facial which was incredibly relaxing and left me feeling with a squeaky clean complexion. I hadn’t expected to be spending my time at the spa in Conakry!!

That evening, the hotel was having a BBQ and 12 of us piled around a big table and ordered an array of fresh grilled meat and seafood dishes. I opted for the T Bone steak with salad which was lovely and my long day of not doing very much had tired me out, and I went to bed for a nice long sleep before our next exhausting duty. A 1 hour flight over to Dakar in Senegal. Can you believe it, a 48 hour layover, followed by an hour flight, and then another 48 hour layover… exhausting right? 😜

Stay posted for what I got up to in Dakar! As always, feel free to follow me on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook:
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