[Luke Skyfreeper]

Africa is considered the "wild west" of civilian aviation.

I know that's right.

Africa is far worse even than Turkey, where the terminal staff totally mixed up two flights that were leaving the same morning, and one of the flights flew away about half an hour early.

Fortunately, ours was the other flight. I think it left a few minutes early too. Amazingly, it arrived in the correct city.

[Luke Skyfreeper]

In fact, this thread reminds me of a video presentation I saw a few years ago that involved travel to and from a certain country in Africa that will remain nameless (mostly because it's actually one of the better countries).

The folks who put the show together had it "narrated" by an "African pilot." One of the scenes showing the jet taking off from the African airport, quite deliberately, showed a big jumbo jet taking off backwards.

Needless to say, it got the expected laughs. :-)