Such a long trip; I should have taken notes.
Luckily, I took pictures: picasaweb …
Ok, first day. Meh. We had this REALLY REALLY long Emirates flight to DXB (Dubai International Airport) where we had an additional like 15 hour layover before our flight (also via Emirates) to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. “We”, at first, Laura and I and her mom, Peggy were met in Dubai by Laura’s aunt (and Peggy’s sister), Chris — making us a party of 4.
Pictures are here: LAX; DXB (DUBAI); more Dubai
Louise and John — Laura’s Aunt and Uncle — met us at DAR (the 3-letter code for the Julius Nyerere International Airport in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania) with 2 SUVs for our selves and our bags. It took a LONG time for them to unload our luggage and we waited in a very hot airport. Also, before that, when we got off the plane, we had to walk across the tarmac and were greeted with a fire at the airport which kept us out of the immigration / declaration / visa / security room, at first, then it was just dark (no electricity immediately after the fire) and smoky … and fumes — like burning plastic.
Now a party of 6, the trip from the airport to Louise and John’s place “on a peninsula” in Dar es Salaam was mostly uneventful; we saw street vendors (if you want to call them that) and beggars nearer the airport and the more trafficked locations as we drove. Laura and I went with John who filled us in on a few things and apparently Louise did not do so with Peggy and Chris, because later, I remember smugly saying: “Well, if you’d come in with John, you’d know that.” (leaning hard on my assumption of other people’s sense of humor, of course).
See the larger group of ‘Dubai’ pictures for images of when we arrived. Maybe my camera / eye-fi card were still on LA time, but more pictures are dated ‘the next day’ and are here. I may have to fix the timeline, but from the images, it looks like we arrived, maybe showered (?) and immediately went with Louise to ‘the office’ and then ’shopping with Deborah in Dar’ — the office is where John and Louise work, they’re Media for Development International (this may be inaccurate, look at the production company for the movie Yellow Card, it’s them) — the shopping is something I maybe should have skipped, for a number of reasons, mostly because I didn’t actually shop! I like followed these guys around and etc. But I got some cool pictures of like parasols saying that smoking is bad for you.
After we went shopping and had lunch (in town, Indian, actually) we (well, sorta, Louise and Deborah went back to the office) visited Crista’s where we saw her, two dogs, her two kids — Ely and Jasper. Laura got a mosquito bite and her new nickname is Skeeter. Crista is Laura’s cousin and Louise and John’s daughter. Crista’s husband is Kyle. It looks like Jordan (and Deborah — who ultimately get married on this trip) lives in a house on the same property as Crista and Kyle (and Ely and Jasper).
We had a night over at Louise and John’s and (if you believe my pictures) the next day flew to Zanzibar. You’ll see pictures of the plane, the flight, the hotel, shopping and maybe a definition of CRV, by Honda.
Maybe the camera really is on LA time, because there is now a mysterious break and for no reason, we’re suddenly … having dinner at the roof-top restaurant in our hotel (in Zanzibar) and taking a mini-bus to ‘the ruins’ from which we depart to Chumbe Island where we did some snorkeling and took a walking tour of the island and briefly stayed in little bungalows there — it was really cool and very peaceful. Some of those really cool pictures were after climbing the 132 steps to the top of the lighthouse. Another mysterious break in the pictures and …
We’re taking our boat back from Chumbe to Zanzibar (the ‘ruins’ hotel) where, after another mini-bus drive, we have dinner on a tall roof-top restaurant on top of another hotel where the owner met us after we ate and we had a friendly chat. While in Zanzibar, we ate at “Amore Mio” like 3 times, maybe 4 times. We originally went there for ‘coffee’ (but it’s so hot…?!) and ‘desert’ … but I had at least 2 meals there; and several ice-cream / coffee deserts. A few pictures from the trip back to DAR.
I think we were at Louise and John’s for at least another night, but I can’t remember. Anyway, I had some kind of problem with my Eye-Fi card, something about a file not being able to be read (by the camera) and I messed with the thing and put the pictures I could get onto my 702 machine (via F-Spot / Picasa / Mint Isadora) and took this picture of Laura to prove the camera / Eye-Fi card would work now.
Our next vacation-within-a-vacation was to The Selous Safari Camp. This was really really cool. We arrived in the AM, like 10-ish and took a boat safari, then we hung out, had lunch, and had a driving safari. The next day our group broke up into smaller groups, maybe, probably because I was being bitchy (it’s a longer story) and in the AM, Laura and I went on a long walking safari where they surprised us with breakfast ‘bush breakfast’ by the lake. In the PM Laura and I went on our second drive — most of our group went on their second drive while Laura and I were on the AM walking safari, Peggy and Kathy — oh! Kathy, Laura’s friend from … well, they were in Vet school together and Kathy lives in the LA area too … joined us after the Zanzibar / Chumbe Island mini-vacation, before I went with 10 other guys for ‘bachelor party’ — went on the walking safari in the PM, Chris, Louise and John took another boat safari (where I’m told they saw Elephants bathing!) … on our first driving safari (the ‘party of 7′ was one group for that) we also saw elephants, a ‘local’ with one tusk, and a mother with 3 (I’m told — though I only saw 2) babies.
Between the walking safari and our second driving safari, Laura and I swam in the pool and we all had lunch.
The last day (if you can call it that) we basically got up, had breakfast and exited to the airstrip where we waited briefly for our plane. Pix — first day our bungalow last day — I didn’t expect to have electricity, so I was afraid my camera’s battery would die. I did, however, get a few pictures before we left.
Because we were going to ‘the beach house’ for the wedding and it was the last mini-vacation and we wouldn’t have time, we went to an Ethiopian restaurant (Addis in Dar, see the image in the last of The Selous pix above). Now, I love Ethiopian food and I may have made Laura into a fan, as well, idk; I met a guy named PK at the bachelor party the night before we left for The Selous and he is Ethiopian and his mom, he told me, owns an Ethiopian restaurant ‘here in Dar’ … I asked Louise and she added it to the agenda, but then I made sure to bug her so we would actually go — she had lists and lists and something like this is likely to be forgotten. But I did NOT want to leave Africa without having Ethiopian food while I was there. Not that I’d travel to Ethiopia to get it, mind you, but if it was possible, I wanted to make sure I got some. It was great. Sterling and Joslyn sat with us — I don’t know if you know about Ethiopian food — if you live in the LA area, there’s a little Ethiopia on Fairfax — but it’s this communal table with bread … well, it’s an experience, I’ll just say that. Anyway, as I was saying, fortunately we had Sterling and Joslyn at our table because they knew some of the best stuff to get and none of it was fish *winks* … Sparrow (what I infrequently call Laura’s friend Kathy) sat between the two tables and was able to sample some of all– she seemed pleased.
Finally! The last mini-vacation-within-a-vacation. We had to get up early, or did we? Because the story in Africa for us was more-or-less, ‘hurry-hurry-hurry’ and ‘wait-wait-wait’ … so dutifully got up early and then waited … and waited … and finally we were loaded into a mini-bus that Louise had hired to take us to ‘the beach’. A note here: Where Louise and John live in Dar es Salaam is /on the beach/, they’re on a peninsula so their beach looks out and in the distance is AFRICA.
The drive to ‘the beach’ was … took … omfg … it was long and bumpy … there was waiting (of course) and a ferry … at the beginning, then a bumpy-ass-road where we passed these shanty-town-like villages and gave Laura and I an uneasy feeling (next to our car-sickness for easy cataloging) that our ‘hotel’ may be a ‘tad rustic’ in the same way that Laura and I have ’some cats’ (we have 4 total) … but /finally/ after what seemed like forever, we made it to the end of a road somewhere in East Africa, south of Dar es Salaam … and it looked like we were going to be screwed … meanwhile, I was trying to make my legs work — throughout the drive, I could move and flex one leg, but not the other, Laura and I were in the first seats behind the driver, Chris was shotgun and Sparrow and Mom were in the back seats … we were surrounded with luggage, some of it not even ours(!) — anyway, after the inevitable conversation about everything including where/when to meet back up (as if we could honestly have such a conversation at this point) I followed a couple guys with Sparrow and Laura’s bags (I had mine) to ‘our rooms’ … and relief! it was a normal hotel a-la The Selous … You can see the pictures here, here, here and here.
At the beach, Laura and I (and the ‘kids’ — Laura’s cousins, Sterling (his girlfriend Joclyn) and Crista (her husband, Kyle, and kids, Ely and Jasper) stayed at ‘The Lighthouse Beach Resort’ hosted by Helena and Ivan who were either helping, explaining or completely out of the way. Laura and I swam in the Indian Ocean together and I spent too much time trying to figure out how there were hermit crab trails (hermit crabs are all over Chumbe Island and you can easily spot them and pick them up, for the most part, they aren’t shy of humans and I had one, usually, in my hand or crawling in my hands and on my arms) but no hermit crabs — in the entire time we were at the beach, I saw (and picked up) only one hermit crab and it was dark red / pink — most of the ones I saw at Chumbe were brown/tan. We saw Louise and John’s “investment property” on the beach and their ‘annex’ which they use exclusively — three buildings in all, two are like rental beach houses and the ‘annex’ which is their ’secret’ — see the images.
The culmination of the trip was Jordan and Deborah’s wedding and the reception which followed. The night before, there was the rehearsal dinner (after the rehearsal, which Laura and I narrowly missed as we tracked the wedding party from Louise and John’s to the beach then gave up following them on their way up to /our/ beach at the Lighthouse Resort) where Laura and I (and the rest of our party which, like L and I, were not in the wedding party / rehearsal) were welcomed and it was really really good food (cooked by Frank whom I’d met earlier; this guy has a sense of humor that I sincerely like). The rehearsal dinner was originally set to be on the roof of the restaurant at the Lighthouse Resort (our hotel) … but then we had weather — the weather threatened more than dinner, it threatened the entire wedding ceremony and, well, everything. Ultimately they had to move the rehearsal dinner downstairs — we had to wait ‘at the other bar’ (which was also Kyle and Crista’s porch and also, the gift shop for the ‘resort’) while the breakfast / lunch restaurant / bar was turned into the rehearsal dinner restaurant … but dinner, when we had it, was really really good. Unfortunately, the weather was looking worse and worse. We did manage to have the ceremony on the beach, luckily for L and I (and Kathy and the ‘kids’) it was on ‘our beach’ so we didn’t have to walk down the beach half a km to find it, etc. The reception was also held at the Lighthouse Resort — causing a panic / political issue (I’m told) with the owner of the original set location — oh well, we don’t control the weather — Laura and I helped put up tents for the reception, between the ceremony and the reception, L and Sparrow (sounds like mostly Sparrow) helped B — Beatrix, an ‘adopted daughter’ of Louise and John — decorate the cake — this, left me with two purses and nothing to do and no one to talk to; but Frank and B and even Louise and Kyle came by and said ‘hi’.
Meanwhile to our whole trip was the World Cup which was being held in South Africa and Africans — well, the whole fucking planet, really, minus the US — LOVE football (which Americans call ’soccer’) and there was always: “Who’s playing” and “who won” types of questions. While I waited with Sparrow and Laura’s bags, someone turned on the tv at the bar and a game was on. At the bachelor party… yep, you guessed it, we watched football — a game and a half at one of Jordan and Kyle’s friends’ house and then at a bar where we went looking for trouble — I’m told that the Brazilian team was even on our flight from DXB to DAR.
Other African stuff–
1- Electricity as we know it in the US is NOT DEPENDABLE, however, that said, it wasn’t difficult to find. I didn’t take the adapter/converter and camera battery charger with us to The Selous and was disappointed to find that voila! I could easily have recharged my camera battery there.
2- Internet? fagetaboutit. Seriously. They’re /at best/ 1993 about it, they pay by the MB. You won’t find ‘free’ wifi, or internet cafes unless they’re lying. But maybe you will, it is a little like electricity; when you do find internet, it’s a surprise but it works just the same.
3- Tanzania reminds me of Illinois. No shit. It wasn’t as humid as Florida, and minus the palm trees, the scrub bush / forest we saw reminded me of camping with my brother at ‘the creek’ in Gibson City. Naturally, we didn’t have wildebeest, zebra, eland, lions, leopards, elephants, hippos … impalas, etc … in Illinois, but climate-wise… *shrugs shoulders*
4- You can’t take me very seriously when I talk about my trip. Laura and I (and, by extension, the rest of our US contingent, Sparrow, Chris and Mom [Peggy]) were totally coddled. At The Selous and ‘The Beach’ we stayed in what amounts to hotel accommodations, The Selous Safari Camp was probably 5-star, and I’d probably say the same for The Lighthouse, because that road makes me think what we did have was luxury. The hotel in Zanzibar and the bungalows on Chumbe Island were really really nice. So we were protected from any possible unpleasantness and, other than being careful not to drink the water, and being especially careful about mosquitoes, it was simply the most gorgeous and comfortable vacation possible.
