Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Getting to Africa!

We arrived, after 28 hours or so of grueling (yet, also, it's pretty incredible that in just over a day you can be on the other side of the globe!) flights and layovers, in the Kilimanjaro Airport outside of Arusha, Tanzania.  (Seems pretty crazy to say...we were at the Kilimanjaro Airport...in Africa?!)
After waiting, in what can best be described as a herd, to get through a Visa line and then customs, we gathered our luggage and found our driver just outside the building.  He was holding a small sign, a piece of paper, upside-down, with the name Henry Holdsworth.
Henry is a wildlife and landscape photographer out of Jackson, Wyoming, whom we've met and admired for over 10 years now.  His work is amazing and has always inspired us!  We decided, about 20 minutes after the email arrived explaining that Henry was putting together an African photo safari, to go to Africa!  It was definitely a "Bucket List" item, one that we may never have gotten around to had this wonderful opportunity not shown up in our inbox.
So, now here we were, in Africa, with our driver, Martin, taking us to our first night's rest.  It was a small bed and breakfast type of place, about 45 minutes from the airport, tucked into a little sanctuary of what looked to be a generally poverty-stricken area.  A gated entrance led us into a small courtyard and a quaint, a little bit European, B&B.  Sluggishly, we climbed the stairs to our really lovely room and, as quickly as we could, crawled into bed to try to sleep for our early wake up call...

From top left to lower right:
A magazine in the Amsterdam airport, looks similar to a Glamour magazine...but it caught my eye because of the article/interview with Aung San Suu Kyi listed among the headline articles.  She is a leader in the National League for Democracy in Burma (Myanmar) and a 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner, for her non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights.  I thought it was an interesting headline on what appears to be a fashionable magazine...perhaps the US could take a page from Europe's 'rags'and start including some news...?
The "Mother Teresa" was our plane, from the Netherlands to Tanzania...I thought that was a good omen!
A rack of newspapers...I wish I could tell you the headlines, I just thought it was fun to see the language!
And, this is what heaven looked like to two weary travelers...the Deco room's bed at the Bay Leaf Boutique Hotel in Arusha, Tanzania.

Note: These are all iPhone pictures...I didn't pull out the big guns (the "real" cameras) until we got on our way!  Those images are coming next!

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