Our day begins (ends?) at the Kilimanjaro Airport at 4:00am. We are the first people off the airplane and we are escorted across the tarmac. It was so refreshing not to have to board a shuttle bus only to be driven 3 minutes to the other side.
As it is 4:00am, the airport is a dead zone. We walk right up to the counter so we can get our passports stamped – yes, literally stamped!! So exciting and so old school. Then we switch counters to get our Visas confirmed. We are all good, now to find the luggage carousel. Oh, it is 30 feet from where we are standing. And believe it or not, all of our luggage is on the belt!! In fact, ours was the only luggage on the belt…weird…but at least it was ours. We grab it and go find our driver. Hope he is here!
All told, we were off the airplane and out of the airport in 16 minutes. 16 minutes!
Paul, our guide, is there with the Land Cruiser, he packs up our bags and gets us settled into the car. We are a bit delirious, a whole lot discombobulated, and it is really dark out so we can’t really tell where we are or what we are seeing. Paul is great though, lucky for us, he is really patient and we have a feeling that we are going to like him just fine – which is a good thing because he will be our guide, the one and only, for our whole safari. 10 whole days. Liking him is very important.
An hour and a half later, we are pulling up to our hotel – The Four Points Sheraton right in the heart of Arusha. It takes us no time at all to pass our bags through the security scanner and get our room sorted out. It is time to say good-bye to Paul, for now and then we have a big decision to make; do we stay awake long enough to enjoy breakfast – which has already been paid for – or do we opt to go straight to bed so we can hopefully wake up at a decent time to turn our internal clocks around. Hmmm…
Two bellmen take our bags and we follow them to our room. Sleeping won the contest by a long shot. We are absolutely pleased with our room. Before long, we are tucked into bed setting our alarm for noon. Just over 5.5 hours of sleep should be fine, right?
Ha! We are finally able to open our eyes and keep them open at 3:00pm. Late, but not too late I hope. Time to see what Arusha has to offer. We have a full day and a half here, so we figure we can see lots, figure out our jet-lag and repack our bags to make them more ‘safari friendly.’
Things we learned (so far):
- Hello -> Jambo
- Hello/hi -> Mambo Jambo
- Welcome -> Karibu
- Thank you (very much) -> Asante (sana)
- Slowly -> Pole pole
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