Good morning from Juba, the capital of South Sudan! Although all roads out of Juba are reportedly closed to travel and there is a curfew in place from 6pm to 6am, on the surface the situation at the airport as well as the drive into town were just as typical as any other day on the African continent. That said, the arrival at the airport was quite edgy in that I am traveling with a large box with the South Sudan trail markers for the Baker trail (www.thebakertrail.org) so during the mandatory baggage examination with customs the signs were red flagged since they have a map of the country.

The map of the country on the signs was deemed as potentially assisting the ‘rebels’. I have learned to keep quiet when dealing eye to eye with customs officials and so I politely explained, the maps were for the ministry of tourism.

The official then said, “Well call a minister in tourism and tell them to come to the airport to claim the signs since you have no documentation.”

I then countered by saying, “my tourism contact lives about 120 kms east of here and since the road is closed she can’t get to Juba, and I can’t get to her hometown of Torit”. As for the rebels, well they surely have at least two cellphones for each fighter so they can probably learn the landscape via Google Earth.

*later that afternoon*

Curfew begins in 1.5 hours, at 6pm local time. The helicopter traffic has ceased for the day. Although the road east is reportedly closed, I have hired a driver and will depart for the town of Torit in a day or so.

It’s kind of surreal, where I am sitting has a large flat screen tv on the wall playing non stop Aljazeera English. Everytime they do the top of the hour ‘live’ report from Juba they turn up the volume. Just after the last one, the on-air commentator and her film crew stopped in for lunch.

I spoke to soon, another group of helicopters just buzzed overhead. The AJ crew just loaded up, I guess I’ll see what’s happening during the next hourly update.