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.