Homeward Bound

After a very early breakfast, we'll leave Dar es Salaam at 07:25am for a flight to Johannesburg.

We'll have to kill a few hours in Jozi until our 16:25pm flight back to Cape Town.

After arriving in CT and transferring home, we'll finally be done travelling at 8-ish or so.

After another very long day of travelling, I think we'll leave the unpacking for a few days. Perhaps a hot shower then a cold beer and some delicious food will be called for?

THAT'S WHAT THE BROCHURE SAID, THIS IS WHAT REALLY HAPPENED:

We were collected at 5:30 so too early for breakfast. The airport, thankfully is just around the corner. By this point Marco and I were ready to be home. We were tired of lugging our gear with us from place to place.

We got to the airport with no Tanzanian shillings and to get a cup of coffee would have cost $1, with a minimum $5 spend on cards... so we waited till good old SAA served us in the air! (Have I mentioned yet the quality of coffee in Tanzania?? It's not that we're not willing to pay for coffee, but when it's really, really crap coffee - it just ain't worth it!)

We got to Jozi airport and headed straight for Mugg & Bean. We ordered the most delicious double cappuccinos and a range of items for breakfast! We pigged out and chilled out until about 4:30pm for our final flight to CT.

After a steers supper and a nice hot shower we were finally home SWEET home!!

And that... is what REALLY HAPPENED!

Ferry to Dar es Salaam

After breakfast we spend another leisurely morning in Nungwe

In the afternoon we check out and transfer to Zanzibar harbour. From there we will join the ferry from Zanzibar to Dar es Salaam.

We'll be staying at the Peacock Hotel again, so in familiar territory. We'll hopefully be able to explore on our last evening

in Tanzania.

THAT'S WHAT THE BROCHURE SAID, THIS IS WHAT REALLY HAPPENED:

We did have a very relaxing morning. We packed our things, checked out of the room. We mostly chilled on the beach and took in the last few sites until our taxi arrived.

After a mini-panic where I thought I had lost not only our ferry tickets but our passports as well, we eventually found them and got going. 

After only a few minutes on the road we came across a very hectic accident. I won't go into details, but suffice to say, Pray to God that you don't end up in a road accident while out there. That pretty much shook me up for the rest of the trip - hence the complete lack of photos until we reached Dar again.

Also (to try and calm me down) Marco thought this would be the perfect time to teach me how to play chess. You know, on one of those teeny tiny magnetic boards. In a taxi doing about 100km's an hour in the pouring rain on very, very dodgy roads. 

I lost that game!

(Nerves wrecked..) we eventually arrived at the harbour with plenty of time to spare. 

On the brochure we were told we'd have to pay $30 departure tax, each, to leave Zanzibar. That must be an airline thing because we weren't asked for it (yippeee! & Score!!)

The ferry itself took about 2 1/2 hours. They did have air-con on the ferry but it was still unbelievably hot!

On arrival at Dar es Salaam, our trusty Leopard Tours rep met us and took us to the hotel. This would be the last night before heading home.

That night we decided to go to the hotel for dinner - we were both hungry after days of being ill and not eating much over the past few days.

We didn't realise until we were already seated that it was a buffet dinner. (Buffet included banana soup and goats meat.) (PS: banana is in EVERYTHING)

Anyway, aside from it being exorbitantly expensive (R1000 (US$100) for 2 bottles of (cheap) wine and a buffet dinner!) it was our last night and we were determined to have fun!

We had, after all just climbed Kilimanjaro!!

And so it begins

Fly from Cape Town 6:45am to Johannesburg 8:45am

Fly from Johannesburg 14:55pm to Dar es Salaam 19:25pm

Transfer from Dar es Salaam airport to Peacock Hotel

Overnight at the Peacock Hotel

THAT'S WHAT THE BROCHURE SAID AND THIS IS WHAT REALLY HAPPENED:

The night before we left we sent our cat to the cattery, packed the last of our gear and headed out to my dad's house. He lives much closer to the airport and we had an early start - we had to be there by 5am so we were up at around 4 am.

The flight from Cape Town to Joburg wasn't too bad - we did have 2 men sitting behind us who chatted non-stop for the entire flight (more than even Joy & I could manage!) and I gathered from the conversation that they had just met... They had business in common - but sheesh... 2 hours of jibber jabber! 

Upon arrival at O.R. Tambo International Airport Marco's stomach bug that he'd already had for nearly a week at this point starting giving him trouble again. The man was wallowing in agony, doubled over in pain (you know how boys are when they get sick!!)

** Just to add a note in at this point - it emerged much later that he's taken all six Imodium a few days prior - which may account for the pain he was currently feeling!

We were lucky to find a company that stores your luggage while you wait at the airport as we had a good few hours to kill and walking around with a trolly full of gear was just a little too much to bear.

We also managed to find a pharmacy and bought all sorts of natural 'fix your gut' type meds and prayed that Marco would be fine in 2 days time when we actually begin the climb.

After spending a delightful (!) 6 hours at Jozi airport, we finally headed off to Dar es Salaam. The flight was little over 3 hours long and nearly empty so we each had 3 seats to stretch out on and relax.

On arrival at Dar we were surprised at how hot (humid) it was. It was nearly 8pm and we could not stand the heat. 

Hot and bothered, we headed out to the luggage collection area and realised after not too long that my luggage had not arrived.

We spoke to some guy, who seems to be permanently set up there to give you forms to complete when your luggage does not turn up. From his broken English we gathered that this 'happens all the time'. Especially on SAA and KLM flights. Great.

He says they just don't bother putting all the luggage on - they just send it on the next flight which is 24 hours later. In fact while we were there completing forms and cursing SAA another couple who had arrived the previous day were there collecting their belated luggage.

The problem of course that we had was the very next morning we were flying out to Arusha and could therefore not be there to collect the luggage 24 hours later.

We arranged for them to send the luggage (when it arrived the following night) to Kilimanjaro Airport in the hopes that we would be able to intercept it in time for our climb. This particular bag had all my Kili kit and included some other essentials such as our anti-mosquito creams and patches, which we'd need in the coming days...

We left the airport with the rest of our kit that did manage to turn up and were collected by Leopard Tours, the ground organisers for the trip, who took us directly to the Peacock Hotel.

We checked in and pretty much went to bed as we were tired and we were being collected again at 7am for our flight to Arusha.