Hello everyone,
Greece. The very first country to visit after leaving my comfort zone of being at home with my family and my people. What a beautiful country with lots of great history. I would like to visit here again in the future, although it is a very expensive country.
Luckily, the people are very nice and are customer-care oriented. Unfortunately, their services end up costing you an arm and a leg. I had to pay $5 for a cup of hot chocolate – the most I’ve ever paid in my life! Handling fees for our Cessna 172 (which weighs slightly over a ton) were 197 Euros. Fuel was almost 2 Euros a liter and they added another 20% for tax. Additionally, to have the fuel pumped into the airplane was 33 Euros.
For three hours of flight, I had to deal with another three hours of bureaucratic nightmares. This is probably the hardest, continuing frustration of the mission – the bureaucratic issues in each country.
At least the two airports in Western Greece were much better and easier to deal with (though the fuel prices didn’t seem to change). They also had a very friendly staff.
First country of the Africa portion of our mission is now complete!
