Arrived in Tanzania

Tanzania is far away from everything we know, that's why it deserves a visit.

We are fully aware that the Ebola virus outbreak is currently getting a lot of press, but to make it very clear, we are very far away from West Africa. There are many other illnesses that should be taken just as seriously here locally, malaria and dengue are just 2 I can think of. Malaria itself kills hundreds of thousands every year, even though treatments for it is available. Well, we are taking precautions not to get bitten by anything in the first place, so hopefully we should get through with only pictures and a lot of fund memories.

In Kilimanjaro airport we were greeted by some health workers, which would measure our pupil dilation and temperature. They do not want to introduce this very serious illness to the country of Tanzania. I can totally understand them, but do not understand people who think they can travel through the West African countries, just because they want to? That in my eyes, is an unnecessary risk for sure.

The last few weeks before the trip, we had tried to get hold of the trekking company with a bunch of questions, but received no response. I have to admit, I was starting to worry that we had been scammed. We had deposited 10% of the total amount of the trek to them a few months earlier. There was a problem with the transfer and I had to do a second one. That day the company representative went to the bank and had both transfers go through. Great... or?

I could just imagine that we show up in the airport and there is nobody there, no company by that name, nothing. Just 2 receipts for money transfers to a guy in Tanzania.

We paid for our visas in the airport, $50, at least those not being US citizens who had to pay $100. Oh, the price of being free, haha. Afterwards we found our luggage, everything was there, very good sign. We started to exit the airport building and then luckily my worries were put to shame and a guy was waiting in the airport with a sign "McSmarte", yeah.

We drove to our bed and breakfast in the near by town, Moshi, where we were going to stay a few days to get used to the time difference and recover from the traveling. The place was called Hibiscus and was located a few minutes away from the Moshi "downtown" area, but outside in a more jungle like setting.

I had not been sleeping at all on the flights, so as soon as we got our rooms, I passed out and slept until the evening. I was totally busted.

We got to meet with the trekking company owner, Evarist, he was a quite funny guy and everything seemed to be in order. We went out with him for dinner and called it a night pretty early.

The only problem now was that there was no internet at the Bed&Breakfast. Uh oh....