Arusha

Day 33 2/16/99: Arusha

After breakfast at the Canal house we shared a van with Liza, Lois, and this man who lost his wife! Actually his wife was not lost. She had to go to the U.S. embassy because her purse, which had her passport, credit card, and money, was pickpockted on the bus in Amsterdam the day before. It was fortunate that she was able to make it to the airport in time! What a close call. From now then I'll always carry my passport inside a money pouch inside my shirt.

During the 8-hour flight from Amsterdam to Kilimanjaro airport in Tanzania Theresa passed the time by doing her cross-stitch. You have to wait until the last day of our vacation to find out whether she was able to complete her project :-) She was able to do this and also watched a movie titled "The Mighty."

  Overall Theresa and I were really impressed by KLM's service, and especially by the frequent offering of drinks to prevent dehydration. Here was a nice cup of coffee. Notice the interesting package of sugar and creamer for the coffee. The frozen yogurt was delicious, but the smoked salmon was even better!

We landed at Kilimanjaro International airport in Tanzania. We were back to Africa after 7.5 years, and this was our first time to Tanzania since our last trip was to Kenya only. After getting off the plane, we inhaled the warm and moist air. Theresa was instantly reminded of  her previous visit to Kenya.

  Here was the first time that the whole group met with each other and Alex, our trip leader.

Our duffel bags got stuffed into the back of the Landcruiser, and we were driven to Dik-Dik lodge, which is located near Arusha, Tanzania.

    We had a nice welcome dinner, which I skipped because it was 11pm in the evening! Theresa enjoyed the steak though.

  We had a nice room, with hot water and western plumbings. I liked the batik light box. Notice the mosquito net. I'm not sure about how effective it was in keeping out the mosquitoes because at ~3am I was awaken by a buzzing mosquito that was INSIDE the net! Oh well. I'm glad that I took Larium to prevent malaria. The danger with malaria is probably over exaggerated as this was the dry season. Even though Theresa and I got a few insect bites on this trip, we probably were not bitten by mosquito at all fortunately.

We got a nice plate of fruits inside our room. Even though we were told that everything is sanitized at this hotel, but we did not want to take a chance, so we skipped the opportunity to sample some African oranges, papaya, plums, and passion fruit. Yes, we also skipped the salad at dinner. You have to get to the end of the story to find out if we ever got sick.