Tag Archives: flying

Arusha, Tanzania

by

We spent more time in transit getting from London to Arusha than you would normally spend getting from Australia to the UK, which is twice the distance. Mainly because we had a huge gap between arriving in Tanzania and the domestic flight to Arusha, Tanzania’s second largest city, not far from Mt Kilamanjaro.

Dar Es Salaam airport, where we landed, was possibly the most basic airport we’ve been to so far. We arrived at about 2:30am and, apart from all the people getting off the plane, the airport was almost deserted. We found a shop in the airport complex that would mind our bags for the night. Not a shop that actually advertised bag minding, mind you, just somewhere the lady at the check in counter recommended and I found the owner asleep in a plastic chair out the front of his shop. Thank goodness we bought the pac safe before we left. We were farewelled with ‘Hakuna Matata’, which you will be instantly familiar with from the Lion King and is either something people here say all the time or something people here think tourists expect to hear all the time.

Divested of our huge travel packs, we lay down on some purgatorial metal benches and managed to fall asleep for a few hours, despite garbled loud speaker announcements, occasional blaring of soccer on the nearby tv and the bright fluorescent lights.

We looked, felt and smelled like hobos when we woke up at about 8am to check in for our 11am flight. Fortunately so did half the other people in the airport. The other half were dressed in the fantastically bright colours that I associate with Africa. One lady had on what looked like a black business suit that has had a terminal collision with a flamingo. And shoes! African women like them with gigantic wedge heels with as much sparkle as can be managed. The obvious choice for long haul flights.

We sampled the rather limited fare at the airport… canteen? I’d use the word ‘cafe’ but that would give entirely the wrong impression. It was a lot like a school canteen but nearly everyone looked miserable. So actually more like a hospital canteen. They also refused to take the pre 2003 US dollars which the bank in London had given Luke. Fortunately there weren’t too many of those notes. Apparently people do not like them because they are easily forged.

The flight to Arusha was in a quite small plane. I did not realise how much the size of the plane affects the amount it shudders and bumps in the air. Getting up to cruising altitude and down again was somewhat hair-raising. It was a relatively modern plane – no crates of chickens or wooden benches to sit on a la Indiana Jones (to my disappointment) but the lady in front of me did leave her rather large bag in the aisle nearly the whole flight and the attendants just stepped over it. It seemed a minor thing but so unthinkable to me – how many microseconds exactly would a bag last in the aisle of an Australian plane?

Speaking of planes, the flight from Istanbul was 7 hours and the guy next to me was one of those charming people who does not fit into his seat and does not do anything to help matters, sitting with his foot in my footwell (he was in the aisle seat) and having his elbow and shoulder in my space. It’s a difficult issue – no one wants their space invaded, and yet telling people to buy a more expensive seat or lose 30 kgs doesn’t seem right either. Or does it? I don’t know.

We made it to our Arusha hotel without incident and checked into our rather sparse two bedroom suite. It’s right in the middle of town with a view over the local, rather derelict, sporting field. From our room the sound of car horns is pretty much constant and the mosques can be frequently heard.

We lay down for a rather long nap then headed out for dinner to a place called ‘Khan’s’, which advertises itself as ‘chicken on the bonnet’ because it is a mechanic’s by day and then they grill food out the front at night. The guys there were all super friendly and the food smelled amazing. It also happened to be on the same street as the hotel but two blocks down so nice and easy to find. Another Tripadvisor find. I must say that, while it seems almost lazy to be getting recommendations for things from just one website, Tripadvisor is yet to steer us wrong.

We had a shared meal and drinks for about $7 US each. We helped ourselves to a plate of salad each then they brought over plates of meat, bread and chips. The chips were not great but everything else was really tasty. Tandoori-style chicken, mince cooked on skewers, beef pieces were all really nice.

Chicken pieces over coals.

My ‘passionfruit’ drink was a disturbingly radioactive colour but turned out to be quite nice. The boys got totally retro coke and pepsi bottles.

As we finished a lady, obviously quite poor, wandered up and made motions towards the food. We had eaten everything except the chips so I said she could have them. A couple of guys from the restaurant wandered over and she tipped the chips into her bag. They were telling her to go but she was saying something back (it was all in Swahili) but then hit them and they started fighting! The men were trying to restrain her and push her away then she started ranting at us and called us ‘Americanos’ but we had no idea what she was saying. We got up to go and pay and the owners were very angry with her. Seems like they get people like this coming by and causing trouble. I felt a bit guilty for starting it but they said it happens. They did not have the most charitable attitude towards her, which I can understand, but she genuinely seemed mentally disturbed to me. You wouldn’t think giving unwanted food to a person would start a fight. I couldn’t help but think it was like feeding a seagull at the beach. Things start off calm then swiftly descend into madness.

We wandered back up the road, buying one of those ubiquitous woven bracelets (‘Because it is Ramadan! You help!’) for a couple of dollars. Touts here, as Luke observed, seem more friendly than in Asia. At least they will walk and talk with you for a bit before trying to sell you something. not just ‘You buy! You buy!’.

An early start tomorrow, hopefully the World Vision meet up goes well and then I can relax!

Stressed!

by

We’re in Gatwick at a B&B for the night before heading to the airport at 8:30 tomorrow morning. We both woke up feeling a bit stressed and frantic this morning. I realised I’d left a few important jobs until it was to late – no time now to get my legs waxed (do people wax their legs in Tanzania? My complete lack of knowledge about Africa is becoming painfully apparent. Can we buy clothes? Pillows if we need them for camping? Somehow my brain has substituted the environment of Mars for Eastern Africa).

Malaria meds were another thing on the list. I’m planning on buying them when I get there because I went into Tesco to buy it at the in-store pharmacy and the non-prescription tablets were over 100 pounds for a 7 week course so I went to the doctor in Bar Hill but it was 45 pounds for a consultation. Online research says I could get the tablets far cheaper in Dar Es Salaam so I’ll aim for that and try to avoid getting bitten before I can stock up. Considering that you’re supposed to start malaria meds before you leave… well… there’s no point in telling me off in the comments box because it’s too late. So don’t bother. Besides, I can feel your judgement from here. And yes I know malaria can be fatal. Quiet!

So, I woke up at 6:45 and couldn’t get back to sleep, not only because I’m disorganised but because we’ve got three flights in a row in 48 hours, which multiplies my punctuality anxiety by a million. If any flight is cancelled or delayed that’s about $2000 down the toilet. Just thinking about it raises my blood pressure. We’re flying London to Istanbul (7 hours) then Istanbul to Dar Es Salaam (about 6 I think) and we arrive there at about 3am and have to wait until 11am for our flight to Arusha. Long airport layovers are among the more serious first world problems, I’m sure you’ll agree. We’re spending one night in Arusha because my school’s World Vision sponsor child lives there and although the tour we’re doing passes through Arusha, it passes through on a Sunday and, being a Christian organisation (but not in the slightest bit charitable or relenting), they won’t offer any visits to students on a holy day. Which has cost me quite a bit of money but I’m sure it’ll all be worth it. The bonus of doing it this way is that we get to visit with this student at school, which is more interesting for me and will also mean better footage for the short film we’re planning to make and send back to the kids at my school to show them where their sponsor money is going.

But until we’re in Arusha and in the hands of our WV rep I’m going to be stressing about getting there on time and with all baggage accounted for. Our carrier, ‘Precision Air’ (ahaha! The irony!) is apparently renowned for losing baggage.

I’ve probably mentioned before that I’m somewhat notorious among friends for being chronically dreadful with times and dates, so organising these flights, the hotels and everything means I’m just waiting for that heart-stopping moment when I realise that I’ve booked a hotel for the wrong night, or that our flights don’t match up or some other obvious and costly thing has been miscalculated. Honestly, it’s only a matter of time.

Today’s mission, to get from Cambridge to London, change our pounds for US dollars (popular in Africa) and then get to our B&B went hearteningly smoothly. Fingers crossed for the rest of the trip.

I should add, before we fly out, that we have no idea what internet access is going to be like over the course of the tour. Hopefully we’ll get occasional opportunities to update but otherwise we’ll be offline for ages and ages. I might die from blog withdrawal, only time will tell. I am planning to buy a paper diary so that I can then transcribe every bit of the trip into blog posts when we get to somewhere with wifi. This, probably, is one of my traditional grand-plans-that-never-happen. We’ll see. I’m envisaging my African tour as heaps of fun with me moaning every half hour or so to anyone who’ll listen that I wish I could put this in the blog and then forgetting about it half an hour later. Just in time to moan about the next thing.

You see what Luke has to put up with.

We get back to Turkey at the end of August. Catch y’all on the flip side!

Bratislava to Cambridge – a quick update.

by

We left rainy Bratislava at 10am after an inordinately expensive taxi ride (when will I learn to look for a meter right away?!) to the airport and then the expected undignified crush to get onto the non-allocated Ryanair flight. Crammed together like sardines, we were at least grateful that the flight was only 2 and a half hours.

Stansted airport was bathed in glorious sunshine when we got there and after a long wait in a short line at customs we emerged, ready to give Matt a big hug and head to the nearest pub for a pint and a catch up. No Matt at the arrivals gate so we waited. And waited. And waited. Luke tried to call, sent messages to no avail. We’d spoken to Matt only the week before to confirm that he was picking us up so we started to get worried, both for his sake and ours. After a couple of hours and considering plans of hiring a car, heading to Nottingham by coach or catching the train into London and staying at a hostel, I realised that my friend (and former housemate when I lived in the UK) Andrew wasn’t too far away. We called him and he offered to come pick us up, which was amazingly generous, and was with us in half an hour. Thank god Cambridge is so close to Stansted!

We were overjoyed at Andrew’s arrival – he’s such a champ. He’s just bought his own place so we’re staying there for the moment and working out what we’re doing. This coming week was supposed to be a long drive along the south coast with the car that Matt was buying but we still haven’t heard from him. My guess is he’s either mixed up the dates or he’s had some sort of accident on the road and couldn’t reach us.

Hopefully we’ll find out what happened soon, but until then we’re hanging out at Andrew’s doing internet stuff, eating ridiculously cheap cheese from the omg-huge Tesco across the way. Apparently the third largest in the UK. It’s seriously the size of an aircraft hanger and just as charming.

…..oo00oo…..

To jump forward in time, since I wrote the above Matt called us to say that he thought we were arriving tomorrow and he feels awful about getting mixed up and hopefully will have acquired a car by the end of the weekend.

Fingers crossed! Now we’re off to the pub.