"'Tis ever common that men are merriest when they are from home." (Henry V)

.....Recently my son, Joel turned 60 so he and my daughter-in-law, Barbara, were given an expense paid gift of a safari in Africa.  He kept very good records of their experience both in a journal and hundreds of photos.  So that his record of the trip ought not to be lost to posterity, I decided it might not be a bad idea to use it in this blog so that all my readers can follow his adventures through this posting.

Tanzania (Jul/Aug 2012)

Flights

This was the toughest part of the trip. We had a total of four international flights, and each way (U.S.-Africa, Africa-U.S.) took about 17 hours of flying time. On the way there, we had a 3-hour stopover in Amsterdam, so we had something to eat and just hung out until re-boarding. On the way back, the stopover was more than 6 hours. However, I have a good friend who lives in Amsterdam, so he picked us up at the terminal, drove 

around the Holland countryside (rivers, canals, bridges, ferries, cows), and then we went to apartment in Amsterdam to have some lunch with him and his wife. Afterwards, he drove us back to the terminal, and we continued home. All flights were with KLM, and they were nice – good meals, and individual screens for watching movies/TV. I watched every movie I could that I wouldn’t normally watch in a theater or with a DVD. I can’t even remember which movies they were, but I do have a vague recollection of being reminded why I never really cared for the Three Stooges.

.....Within Tanzania, we had three short flights with small aircraft: Serengeti to Arusha; Arusha to Zanzibar; Zanzibar to Dar Es Salaam. They didn’t crash, so there’s not much else to add. 

Hotels
.....We had a wide range of places to sleep, some of which you saw in the photos we sent. In many cases, there was a central building (with restaurant, bar, entertainment, gift shop, wifi, etc.) and then individual housing stretching away from it. We always seemed to have a room that was almost the furthest away from the central building. In two of the cases, they were actually “tents,” which means the walls were made of canvas, and the “door” was really a large zipper. However, the tent was on a raised wooden platform, and had a private bathroom/shower, and usually electricity. Hot water was also usually available, but sometimes it wasn’t there if the person in charge of the fire didn’t heat our water ahead of time. The final nights in Zanzibar 
and Dar Es Salaam were at two of the best hotels available, which really spoiled us, and was intended to make us forget the previous accommodations. Especially nice was the buffet with all the lobster tails, shrimp, and crab claws you could eat (after bringing them to the grill to be heated on the spot while you wait).

Food

......Did I mention the seafood buffet? Most of the other times, we either had a more traditional buffet (beef, chicken, pasta, etc.) or a sitdown meal with a set menu. When we were out on the plains on safari, they even set up “picnics” with a heated buffet. Each morning, there usually was a breakfast buffet as well. There was not too much in the way of “local” foods, whatever that might have been.

Tour Group

.....Unlike most of our previous trips, where we might be the only Americans, this group of about 20 was entirely American. It included two family groups (parents and two daughters in their 20’s; and a mother, daughter, aunt) and one single. The rest were couples from around the country. One couple was actually from Chevy Chase, walking distance from Hannah’s place. There also was an incredible woman there: A Jewish woman, originally from Austria, now living in New York, and in May she will be 100 years old! She came with a caretaker, but she did just about everything else that the rest of us did. We couldn’t believe it. It does tend to stifle any complaints we have about how rough or tough things were, since a 99-year-old lady was able to do it. Geez.

.....There is a lot more to come, especially about the natives and the animals--which may be of greater interest than what you have read today.  But I do not want to make this much longer than most of my posts on this blog.