Packing Up and Heading Out

On March 17th, we packed up our bags and headed to the airport for our flight to Tanzania, Africa. After 4 hours of sitting in the airport, we were on our way. The plan was to meet up with my dad in NYC, but because our flight was delayed over 2 hours, we would have missed our connection. With some quick thinking, we decided to look into flying through Detroit instead, which put us in Amsterdam in time to meet up with my dad and make our connection to Kilimanjaro. Luckily it all  worked out.

Tanzania is a long way away. The flight to Amsterdam was about 7 1/2 hours, and then we had another flight to the Kilimanjaro airport in Tanzania, which was another 9 hours. We arrived in Tanzania at about 8:30pm, and we were exhausted.

I sat by the window and was loving the scenery as we flew from Amsterdam to Tanzania. We flew over the Alps,  over Sicily, and the adjacent volcano (which was still smoking), and over the Sahara Desert (which took several hours to cross). 

Luckily, to our great relief, all of our checked baggage also made it to Tanzania (from what we read, 1/7 bags don't make it). We grabbed our bags and headed outside to find someone waiting for us to take us to our hotel. The air outside felt warm and humid and wonderful.

The first thing we all noticed as we drove away from the airport was how dark it was outside. No street lights and no lights in homes (we later learned that very few people have electricity in their homes). 

Our driver was very polite, and was driving especially slow. My first thought was that it was the law to drive very slowly in Tanzania. But after a few cars zoomed by us, we realized it wasn't the norm, just our driver (he was going about 25 mph). Adrian politely inquired about his speed, to which he responded that he wanted to speak with us, and he couldn't do that and drive quickly. We were tired, and would have preferred the latter.

We spent the night at Hotel Arusha. The next morning our tour guide picked us up to start our hike of Mt. Kilimanjaro. My next post will be about meeting him and our porters.

Adrian's things, ready to pack.

 Put into waterproof bags.

 Then packed into the duffel bag. Everything he would need for the hike.

 Crossing over the Sahara Desert.

We arrived! Happy to make it and excited to start hiking.

Breakfast before the hike.

Ready to go.