So, it's been well over a week since I wrote -- and it's not because nothing interesting has happened. To the contrary, we had a great week on the main land in Tanzania visiting with Chaim's cousin Carolyn & her family and we even squeezed in a two day safari to Lake Manyara & the Ngorongoro Crater.
Backtracking a little....
Last sat night we grabbed the night time ferry from Zanzibar back to Dar Es Salam. After a night sleeping on the boat, we arrived in time for customs on the main land to open at 6am. From there it was straight to the bus station where, after a very confusing financial transaction - in which we found ourselves short on shillings, we boarded a very uncomfortable bus (last row of course) for the 9 hour trip to Arusha.
We arrived in Arusha around 6ish and Carolyn, Freddy & their kids picked us up from the bus station. They are both from Canada - but Freddy's dad is from Tanzania and they've decided to raise their family there. Freddy has been working as an atorney for the UN on the Rawandan War Crimes Tribunal and Carolyn is home schooling their 4 very smart, cute & funny kids (ages 7 to 1yr). I can't tell you what a treat it was for us to spend a couple of days in a nice clean house with nice clean bathrooms & kitchen. While their house is crowded (six of them in two bedrooms) they were nice enough to let us set out tent up in their back yard where we slept for the better part of the week. I can't say enough about how welcoming they were to us and how at home we felt.
From Arusha we arranged a two day safari -- the highlights of which were (#1)Jon getting to see these amazing animals for the first time, and (#2)for me & Chaim who had already done three days in Kenya the big difference was that this time we saw a pride of Lions chowing down on a Wildebeast that they had just killed while a Jackal waited in the background for a chance at the carcas after the lions were finished. It was amazing -- if not a little gross to see in action. I almost threw up on a couple of different occasions.
So, then we came to Moshi -- where we are now and we'll catch a bus from here in a couple of hours to Uganda. The trip will take us through Kenya (crossing two boarders in under 24 hrs.). I hope it won't be too painful! Our first stop there will be Jinja where we're planning to go rafting (class 5 rapids the whole way) and then from there to the Abuyadaya in time to spend shabbat & tisha b'av with them.
I'll check back in once we've gotten our barrings in Uganda.
>hillary
