February 19-20: Routine Travel Day

We left home at 7:30 pm to go to San Francisco airport to catch the first flight on our trip to Tanzania. We left at 10:00 pm on a US Air leg to Philadelphia. I had been watching the weather with trepidation, but there was no snow in the area, so nothing to worry about. Nothing, that is, save the outside temp of -1 Fahrenheit.

We had a four hour layover, which we spent most of in the British Air Lounge courtesy of Qatar Air. The only plug I could find for recharging was near a window, and somehow cold air leaked in. I had to dig my fleece from the rollaboard just to stay reasonably warm. Naturally, we were dressed for our destination, where the only snow is on the top of Kilimanjaro. (See below.)

Finally, we boarded Qatar for a long flight to Doha. We had splurged on Business Class, where Qatar was undercutting the market price by a significant amount. For a flight of 11 hours, it was well worth the extra cost. We had two superb meals (on an airplane!) and seats that reclined to full horizontal for sleeping. I still couldn’t sleep and wound up watching two so-so movies while Linda slept in the next seat.

In Doha, we had about an hour to make a connection to Dar es Salaam. At 5:50 am, I expected no problem. That was until I saw the “transfer security screening” area, which was a mob scene. Why is it that airlines want you to go thru screening when you have just gotten of an 11 hour flight? We opined that they simply don’t trust the screening on the other end.

Fortunately, there was a shortcut for “premium” customers. That got us into the scrum sooner, but we still had to cope with the crowds forcing their way thru an inadequate number of metal detectors.

No problem. We arrived at the gate in time to wait for the announcement, which came after about 20 minutes. “Economy class passengers for flight 1437 should proceed to gate 21 now. Business class passengers, please wait for us to call you.” What? We thought that paying extra meant you got on the plane early, before all the overhead bins were taken. I inquired about the wait and learned that “the coach was not ready.”

This was one of those airports where you take a bus ride to get to the plane. Of course, you don’t want premium customers mixing with the hoi polloi, so we waited for the appropriate vehicle. There was still a small space left for our rollaboards, and even our backpacks, excuse me, our personal items. Then it was time for the five hour trip to Dar es Salaam, with another leg to Kilimanjaro.

Ironically, I slept for about two hours on this flight.

Finally, we had arrived at the last airport, facing only a car trip to the lodge. We got thru immigration and customs and emerged onto a typical tropical climate, where we saw no one holding a sign with our names on it. Alerted to this lack, several people attached themselves to us offering suggestions for alternatives. We refused all these, thinking back to an encounter we had in Caracas once, where we were sorry to accept an offer from a gypsy taxi. We opted to wait, and after about 30 minutes, our driver appeared, very apologetic, and we were off.

We traveled on a two-lane paved road mostly populated by large trucks and motorcycles. The former were much slower than us, and the latter much faster. Passing was an interesting exercise in long range planning.

We turned off onto a dirt track that appeared to go nowhere, but in fact led to the Ngare Sero Mountain Lodge, our final destination. We had arrived. It was about 4:00 in the afternoon. I always get confused when trying to figure out how long we have been gone, due to the big change in time zones. I think the trip took 34 hours door to door, not even close to a record, but long enough that we were a bit tired.

We found Kevin Zimmer, our trip leader, as he headed out for some birding around the grounds. Tired? Not us. We spent the next couple of hours walking around, finding 35 species, 3 lifers, on what was not officially part of the trip. When we returned to the lodge, we were happy to find that the mountain had emerged from the clouds

. Here it is, as seen from the veranda of the lodge.

After a quick shower and dinner, we finally hit the wall. Slept until time for breakfast the next morning.