A Couple Days of Travel, Then Home!

The Indian Ocean at Dar es Salaam

11-19-15

Happy birthday to Adam! What a way to spend a birthday. It started out at 5am getting up and packed and ready to go by car by 630 from Iringa to Dar es Salaam. I am not a great traveler as I get anxious, and to think of being trapped in a car for ten hours, I was not feeling great.

They really like their speed bumps in Tanzania. Driving down the hill from Iringa town there are a bunch of speed bumps, so you go fast for a few feet, then slam on the breaks to go slow over the bumps. Sometimes there is one big wide bump, and other times there are three or four smaller ones all in a row. I think there are more bumps when I have a tummy ache.

Spring has sprung in Tanzania. There are definitely more leaves on the trees now than when we came two and a half weeks ago. Bo and Juli really noticed the difference as they were here almost six weeks. The hills were all brown when they drove past them last time in October, and now they're filling up with green. There is a tree here that has bright red flowers that is just beautiful. The baobab trees are mostly bare but those that have started flowering have the occasional white bloom that from far away looks like a rose.

We saw baboons playing on the side of the road. Mama baboon would be carrying baby on her back, and I saw a single one in a ditch maybe looking for food, and it must have gotten startled, because I saw it jump a couple feet straight in the air. That was kind of cute.

Driving through the game preserve again, we saw giraffe, zebras, more baboons, warthogs, gazelle, water buffalo, etc. Water buffalo are funny – their horns make them look like Moe from the Three Stooges.

I slept quite a bit on the drive to Dar. It was easy to do, because everyone was tired, and there wasn't a ton of talking. Our driver was different from the one who picked us up a couple weeks ago and drove us to Iringa. This one is Roger, brother and business partner of Miraji, but not as talkative. We got into town in good time and went to a restaurant right on the Indian Ocean to meet Tom and Beth.

Happy birthday to Adam!

We sat and visited; we ordered cake and they brought it with a sparkler in it and the wait staff sang “Happy Birthday” to Adam. After that we got a ride from Roger to another spot on the coast close by. This time Adam told me to sit in the front, so I did and it turns out Roger isn't so quiet – I asked him like one question and he started chatting us up! He must have been tired of ten hours of near silence. :)

This next place we stopped at had shops so we went looking for things to spend the rest of our money on. Then we found a restaurant and had supper. It was a lovely evening. We took another stroll down by the water and then had to get to the airport.

The traffic in Dar is just terrible apparently all day and most of the night long. It can take four hours to get from one side of the city to another. I don't think I've ever seen anything like it. And people drive crazy. We're always within inches of getting hit by a truck it seems. Luckily, our drivers know what they're doing, and we were safe.  We get to the airport in plenty of time for our midnight flight.

That's about it!  It's 29 hours later, and we're home.  The kids were happy to see us, and we're back to normal - except that I'm pretty tired!  We put the kids to bed at 7:30; it's now almost 8 and I'm ready to call it in as well.  :)  Thanks for reading.