Fausch's in Tanzania 2015: Two Days of Travel

11-02-2015

Adam & I arrived at the airport at about 10:45 – extremely early for our 1:12pm flight. We got checked in and got to our gate and still had two hours to spare. About an hour later, Tom & Beth Hansen showed up at the gate and we visited with them until we boarded.

We flew to Chicago and sat next to Beth on that flight. It was very nice getting to know them, and it sounds like we'll be seeing them intermittently throughout our visit in Iringa. They will also go on safari with us to Ruaha.

Our flight from Chicago to Amsterdam left at 4:30pm. We are expected to arrive around 7am. I'm sitting across the aisle from a gal named Beatrice from Chicago. She's travelling in a group of about eight to Italy. She and her friends seem very nice. Adam commented that he's never been on as lively a flight as this one. It could be because there is a group of dozens of I think French kids on their way back home; it could be because Beatrice and her friends are mostly retired-aged women. Everybody is very chatty. :)

My computer says 8:31. That must be p.m., and must be Minnesota time.

11-03-2015

We got into Amsterdam at about 7. We had a few hours to kill, so walked around the airport for a bit and stopped to have a dutch beer. We met up with Bo's sister Michelle and boarded the plan to Kilimanjaro at 10. This one's a long flight – I think nine hours. I was super lucky to get to sit by the window, so I saw the mountains of southern Europe and then the Sahara. I marvelled at God's beauty for quite a while. We had to sit on the plane for an hour while we picked up more passengers before flying on to Dar es Salaam, where I think it was like 11:30pm or so before we got out of the airport and got our money changed to Tanzanian schillings. I got well over a million of the things. The exchange rate was something like 2100 Tschillings to 1 USD.

We got picked up by our driver Miraji who is a very nice fellow. He drove us to Wista's Chalet in Dar where we stayed the night. I finally got to bed at almost 1am.

11-04-2015

It was tough sleeping. For one thing, there was a ceiling fan that kept tick-tick-ticking all night. Adam told me that I would sit up in bed and “shh” it. Ha - I don't remember that. I got up and dressed and took a little walk at about 5am. It was very humid, even that early – reminded me of summertime at home. :) We went to breakfast, which was very good, eggs, potatoes, “lefsa” and coffee. (It wasn't actually lefsa, but looked like it and tasted a bit sweeter. Very good.)

We left Wista's at 8:30am when Miraji came to pick us up. Then we started on our 10 hour car ride to Iringa. We drove through a wildlife game preserve where we saw baboons, zebras, giraffes, buffalo, impala, warthogs, and elephants. The baboons were right on the road, there were tons of impala, and the elephants were off in the distance. It was very cool to see these animals so close up.

We stopped for lunch at 3:30pm at a Tanzanian-Swiss restaurant. They had a varied menu and it was really good. Then we were off again with about three hours drive left.

We arrived at the Lutheran Home, where Adam and I are staying, at about quarter to 8pm. Bo & Juli came over to meet us and we all went over to their apartment to have another wonderful meal and to visit.

It's now 11pm and we've got to be up again about 6:15, I think. We will go to Ihemi for a short visit tomorrow.

God's' peace!