An entry in the TFS Travel Journal
A last, laconic morning in Zanzibar. Just too hot to venture out before our travels, so we soaked up our last bit of ac before departing for the airport. To really get the authentic local experience, we rode in the back of the hotel’s semi-covered pick-up truck, as we’d seen the natives ride around doing.
The airport turned out to be a reprise of the sauna of Iguazu (how fitting to end each segment of our trips in such similar fashion), so we sat as motionless as we could, and spent time wandering in the small, air-conditioned duty-free shop. We finally boarded the turbo-prop with no air circulation, and flew first to Mombasa for a 35-minute layover, then on to Nairobi. Along the way we spoke with the couple seated in front of us who were traveling in Kenya with their 6-year-old boy and 3-year-old girl. She works for British Airways at JFK, and ended up telling us that there is actually an earlier flight to NYC out of Heathrow (we fly into Gatwick) than the one we were inexplicably scheduled on. These in-flight conversations seem to pay dividends. . .
After being besieged by the many taxi drivers at the Nairobi airport, we settled on Sam, a nice and sober driver with a clean car. He took us to the Serena, but they had no rooms, despite Justin’s refusal to accept a reservation from us when we stayed here 10 days ago saying that it was totally unnecessary! We ended up with a day room at the Intercontinental, which was barely adequate (but definitely no Serena!), where we did our emailing (no easy feat in their amateurish “business center”!), Milton had a great bike ride workout in their gym, then we watched a vintage Charlie’s Angels episode, had great showers (and didn’t have to slather bug stuff on afterward!) and a mediocre room-service dinner. Then Sam reappeared and whisked us back to the airport.
Our overnight flight to London was nice and snooze-filled. We took the speed-link bus to Heathrow, then spent a few hours in the Club Lounge, where we did the next round of emailing (thanks, again, MG & KC!) and enjoyed their Walker’s shortbread assortment. Then it was on to the next marathon flight back to home sweet home for a few weeks of an urban safari.
We zoomed home with virtually no traffic, after 20 hours of flying time plus layovers, but are now safe and sound in NYC, unpacking, developing film, doing laundry and trying to stay awake. . .
Things we’ll definitely not miss from the past 47 days and nights:
Sleeping in a tent in the wild (one of us, anyway); Not sleeping in a tent in the wild (the other one); wearing bug repellant instead of perfume; having mud, volcanic ash, or dead bugs on all our clothing; life in a third world country; a different bed every night or so; bucket showers; tse-tse flies; fear of malaria, and so wearing long pants and sleeves in tropical heat; termite hatches; needing a guard to walk around our lodging; East Africa’s cratered roads; the road from Punta Arenas to the Explora; holes in the ozone layer; 70 mph winds;
What we definitely will miss: see previous 46 journals!