Tanzania | Here Comes The Planet

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!

Luke and I returned from Iceland with altered circadian rhythms, a craving for fresh food and somewhat lightened wallets.

We booked a cheap B&B in West Drayton, apparently home to the kind of people who enjoy spending a sunny Saturday afternoon with their shirts off, large stomachs on display, drinking pints outside a sticky looking pub by the side of a major highway, shouting at each other incomprehensibly. The B&B was a tad dodgy and the room was tiny but we were close to a train station so we could get into the city.
After an unexpectedly dark night’s sleep after the twilight of Iceland, we caught the train (remarking frequently, as I’m sure all Australians do, how amazing public transport is here) into the city. Our current mission was to acquire our Tanzanian visas.

So we navigated to Bond St, dropped off out passports and forms and then went back after 3 hours and they were ready to collect. Simple! All other embassies take note. If there was a TripAdvisor section for embassies Tanzania would get 5 stars from us.

While we waited I had lunch (Luke watched because he said he wasn’t hungry) at a place called ‘Pitt Cue‘, which I’d read about in one of the newspapers. Only about 30 seats and a very limited menu, they served American style bbq dishes. I had the ribs, which were possibly the best beef ribs I’ve yet had (not that there’s been much competition) and a really great potato and (bone) marrow mash. I highly recommend it if you’re in London and like meat. There’s no booking, you just show up about 15 minutes before opening and are seated elbow-to-elbow with strangers. The service was quick and friendly. The prices were high-ish but this is London, after all.

Served in a tin dish, it made up for in taste what it lacked in presentation. Which isn’t helped by me taking the phone in dim light with my phone.

I also spent a bit of the wait time window shopping around the area and found a shoe shop that many of my female friends would love. Insanely colourful, decorated heels, some reminded me of Carmen Miranda, others were like drag queens crossed with Mexican wrestlers. The prices weren’t bad and I’m sorely tempted to go back and get a pair of the less insane ones.

I don’t know where I’d wear something like these, or what I’d wear them with but damnit, I’d find a way!

The next day we tried to book two more nights at our B&B so we could go in to the Rwandan embassy on Monday but they were all booked out, so we took it as a sign and decided to head back to Cambridge and grace Andrew with our presence. Lucky guy. First though, a trip back to Camden markets for a wander around in the sun. We ate a giant burrito between the two of us, had ice-cream made freshly in front of us using liquid nitrogen (this means there’s no ice crystals and I must say, it was exceptionally creamy and smooth) and I bought a couple of things.

A splodge of heaven.

After this, what with the weather being pretty much perfect, we agreed Hampstead Heath would be the ideal place to chill out. We were oh-so-wrong. The closer we got to the Heath the more my eyes itched until, once we got there, I could barely concentrate thanks to my sneezing and scratching. Curse you, hayfever! I took some tablets… actually I took a lot of tablets… and we headed back to Van Failen. Luke drove home and I semi-slept in the car then crashed out for several hours after Andrew told me I looked like a hedgehog. I’m still not entirely sure what he meant.