Mideast tour: how to get in and out of Djibouti

Getting to Djibouti from Qatar required five and a half hours on a C-130 -- a cargo plane in which you sit on a pull-out, lawn-chair-like seat, and pee in a bucket in the back of the plane, behind the cargo.

Our flight here began with about fifteen minutes of sitting on the plane, inserting our earplugs, melting in 120+ degree heat. Then the A/C came on and the temperature dropped to about 40. I borrowed a windbreaker and slept, on and off, and tried to limit my fluids. Seriously, watch this video:



Somewhere in the last half of the flight, I woke up and decided I'd have to just suck it up and pee in the bucket. I started to squeeze past the cargo to the bathroom area when a female airman (er, airwoman) -- a tall, young black woman looking hot in her aviator glasses, and forevermore to be known as the Angel of Pants On -- signaled for me to take out my airplugs, and then shouted that we were landing in ten minutes.

We're about to board another C-130. It's 4:30am here, and our flight's been canceled once already, meaning we're behind schedule. We may have to travel and do a show in the same day, which isn't supposed to happen, but we're pretty good at bucking up and doing the show. Someone will meet us in Bahrain and let us know if we're off to a hotel, or a show on a base, or helicopter to a show on a ship.

I'm sleepy.