Time to catch up

I'm not really sure anything about time. Day and night seem fairly interchangeable. A seven a.m. breakfast consisted of a chicken pasty only an hour after we finished a chocolate protein bar. I was overjoyed to find a shop selling toothbrushes after a couple unsuccessful attempts, so at least I can do some basic hygiene.

At 8:00 we went to the office we needed to meet at for our 8:30 matatu headed to Arusha. the matatu was a 25 seat van with only three other passengers and the driver's two children. I heard Tarika call out "Bwana" to catch the driver's attention and ask him about the route. He listened to American and Kenyan rap music for the whole trip, and the music seemed to have affected his driving, too. He raced to get us to our destination as soon as possible.

At the Kenya-Tanzania border he was angrily prodding us along to move faster. This did in fact worry us because he had started driving off at the pitstop wile we still had one passenger AWOL. Back in the bus we crossed the fence and repeated the process of getting our passports stamped. Messiah women and children hung around the border crossing selling art and jewelry and begging for money, knowing that foreigners would be there. We also picked up two more passengers.

Twice more we pulled over before hitting Arusha. The first time was to pick up a friend of a passenger and the second time was to let the driver's son take care of business.

In the end, we arrived about an hour earlyb into Arusha. A man, flashing the badge of the company that owned the matatu, hopped into the van and told the passengers that were exiting here that he was setting up for local taxi drivers to take us to our hotels free of charge. I could not understand how the tri would be free, but we chanced it anyway. The driver was really just looking for an opportunity to sell us on further tours.

We drove along an uneven dirt road with houses and shops packed closely on either side. The houses were made of mud or cement bricks and had either tin or thatch roofs. People walked along the streets on either side of us, crowding the car. Turning along an unmarked road, we traveled further on a narrow road and soon came to a sign with the name of our lodge on it. As we stopped a the gate, a man opened it, letting us through.

We dragged our tired bodies into reception and most happily learned that our rooms had been upgraded to a private cabin (but only after a worrysome first moment when it seemed that the friendly front desk attendant could not find our reservation).

The opporutnity to sleep in a bed for the first time in days was irresistable, and we slept until dinner. Even then there was still doubt to whether we'd actually get out of bed.

My bug spray is in my bag, sitting at some airport somewhere in the world (to be delivered to Kili tomorrow, we hope), but I haven't noticed any mosquitos here anyway. My blue pill didn't upset my stomach as much today. Progress.

And now the sun is down and the sounds of a party or festival can be heard.

Until next time! KWAHERI!

Airports for Dummies

Part I
The pile of newspapers outside the entrance to the plane should have been a warning. This flight from Denver to Frankfurt was going to be one of those flights we needed to entertain ourselves on.

On my right sat a German woman with a sarcastic sense of humor and an incredible life story as one of the first European women to live in Nigeria. The man to my left was from Eritrea, and eagerly taught me some of the local language.

I read, I ate, I slept, and I chatted, and soon I was in Frankfurt.

Part II
Landed in Frankfurt. Fortunately, my German studies allowed me to answer 'danke' and 'bitte' to questions asked to me in English. Unfortunately, it did not leave me with the means to say, "Can you find out what happened to my missing friend!"

As travelers left the Gate and hopped on buses to be driven to the waiting plane, the nice Kiwi lady I was whiling away the time with must have begun to worry if I was coming down with some new form of Tourettes as my head whipped back and forth like a high-speed lighthouse beam.

On the other hand, the emptying Gate area left me with lots of space to pace. I learned that Tarika's flight had just landed and I stared at the stairs (the only way into this area of the airport) wishing for her to appear. In fact, if staring at a spot and wishing for something to happen could make people appear, Tarika would have shown up twenty times over. But she never did walk down those stairs.

Nope. Never.

Instead she shows up standing right behind me having been bussed from her flight directly to the Gate. Now that's German ingenuity!

We met a couple named Reed and Staci that may have been following Tarika from Dulles. Staci had moved from Denver to Arlington not too long ago, but I seem to find doing things the other way around preferable! They ended up sitting in the seats directly behind us, earning themselves an impromptu Swedish lesson if they cared to eavesdrop. It was another murderously long flight, but at least there were tv's on the seats, even if the touch screens were temperamental.

Part III
The airport at Addis Ababa was an adventure in and of itself. People moved in herds and assistance, though present, was difficult to come by. Since I needed to pick up luggage and Tarika needed a boarding pass, this made life slightly difficult. Often all we'd get is a point and a wave, which we interpreted to mean, "Proceed to the Gate. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200." The fourth person we came across, sitting at a desk just outside the security checkpoint, was particularly memorable in his brevity. We were imperiously waved ahead with a abruptly spoken "Yes okay," as we explained our needs.

Even the security line was entertaining as we moved at a snails pace while being serenaded to the Barney song by a mother to her fussy baby.

At the Gate we received the biggest surprise yet. The guy at the desk looked up Tarika's info and started writing things down on a piece of paper. Finally he handed her the slip - it was her boarding pass.

From me he took my luggage claim ticket, got out one of those round dot stickers you can by in packs of 100 at the dollar store which he used to stick the claim to his desk, and told me to check in with him again right before boarding. No surprise, but this did not engender much confidence, but as we had been sitting all day and this was the way things were done, there wasn't much to do about it.

But to get a real perspective on the Ethiopian psyche (Or at least those that frequent airports) we only had to look across the hall to where three men were casually smoking directly underneath a no smoking sign.

Reed and Staci joined us for the last leg of the journey, once again sitting one row behind us. We sat with a Kenyan now living in Dallas named Cyprian, but whom we dubbed Dallas.

Trying to catch up on my sleep, I told people not to wake me until food came... and I suppose I jinxed myself because of that. The stewardess came by early to show me that they had my food at it was sealed, and they would now go to heat it up. Oh well, it seems that I've started a habit of only sleeping one to two hours at a time.

The next part is hard to write because tragedy struck. Again and again I watched bags that weren't mine file past and get picked up. Finally I had to ask, "are any more bags coming?"

Let me tell you: filling out lost baggage forms at 1:30 am local time is depressing. We settled in for the night right there in the baggage claim area, with the clamor of shifting property as our lullaby. Another hour or two of sleep for each of us was about all we took.

A couple of Mzungu crashing at baggage claim was the highlight for some of the airport workers. We had guys stopping by to chat throughout the night. One worker even promised to personally check into my missing luggage and gave us his mobile number. Even a foreigner stopped by to ask if we knew what happened to his missing bag - I guess leaning against our packs, covered in travel blankets sitting on those plastic chairs (which we somehow made look comfortable) made us look like baggage claim experts.

Itinerary is another word for pain in my butt

There's this song from the Chronicles of Narnia (the new one) that is really beautiful. It's written by Regina Spektor and begins like this:

"It started out as a feeling

Which then grew into a hope

Which then turned into a quiet thought

Which then turned into a quiet word"

It just so happened that I was listening to this song and thinking about that moment I decided to take this trip. She describes the growth of feelings so insightfully, I can really relate to it.

"Then that word grew louder and louder 'till it was a battle cry"

...and there was nothing for me to do but make a plan.

The first lesson in vacation planning is to figure out where you're going to go, followed closely by who is going with you.

A couple years back I decided on Peru. I just had to see Machu Picchu, I guess. Peru's a pretty safe place and my Spanish is passable, so I was good to go. Called my mom to let her know I would be buying tickets and she decided to come too.

Finding someone to travel with isn't always easy, though. There's the general problem of expressed interest verses actual interest. Tarika knew about my crazy past adventures and we've been really excited about this upcoming trip for ages. Nevertheless, Tarika's family was certain I would back out for months after purchased my flight tickets.

--Edit 8/25 @ 12:45 Have just discovered that Tarika's parents thought I was made up to get them to stop worrying. Afterall, who would actually want to go to Africa? --

I would strongly advise you to travel with people that move at the same pace as you, enjoy the same types of adventures, and are okay with the same level of comfort. 7:00am start or 10:00am? Go slowly through museums or weave quickly around crowds? Take a rafting trip or enjoy an expensive meal? Do everything and fall into an exhausted heap tangled up in your mosquito net or take things slowly because this is your time to relax (and the hotel has a very wonderful pool)?

Also important, once you know who is coming, you'll also know how many people you will need to book beds for. Also you can divide and conquer for the next phase of planning.

In New Zealand there were three of us, and we were going to the North Island, the South Island, and Samoa. Easy enough - each of us took a section.

**Pause. It's time to take my anti-malaria pill. This bright blue pill is to only be taken with food and must be taken at the same time every day. Dry swallow. My cousin asks how I can take it dry, but I've always found it easier.**

So you've got your travel buddies and you're ready to book tickets. If you are starting at different points you should know that it's generally not too difficult to get flights that land about the same time. With longer flights that have multiple legs it is pretty easy to get on the same flight for at least part of the journey. If you do that, take an extra moment to book together so that you can find seats that will be near each other.

In Africa, we will be going to Kenya and Tanzania. Tarika, took over planning Kenya while I got to do Tanzania.

This is probably one of the most exciting parts of planning. It's the trips to the library and the internet research that tell the story of the places you will be visiting.

Learning about the history of a place you will be visiting increases the pleasure of a visit exponentially. Even if it's a brand new spa that opened up last year, knowing why the spa was created seems to make a difference. When it comes to planning visits to countries... well you can only imagine. You get to find out all the things you can do and places you should see and that is thrilling. Narrowing down that huge list to a much smaller, achievable one that is tailored to you is fun and a bit heartbreaking.

You see, even after our preliminary culling is complete, we have to again come to the table and discuss what we wanted to keep and what to discard. For instance, during this upcoming trip we couldn't find a good way of going on a Rwandan Gorilla trek, or hiking Kilimanjaro and had to skip both. Neither really fit within our budget or within our time constraints.

Which brings us to the schedule or timeline. This isn't something yet set in stone. Not everything runs daily, so you must figure out how you're getting from place to place to really know when you're going from place to place. That, of course, is the next stage of planning.

Only then do we plan out where to stay - after we know what we'll be doing and how long we will be in each place. Some places book out quickly, so planning early may be essential to stay at the places you want to.

Oh yeah, don't forget people. Talk with people that went or who know people that went and find out what they like. You might even get lucky and score their itinerary!

The Reason to Go

"There are three questions," my friend tells me, "that determine true compatibility."

This is research, he assures me, is based upon what an internet dating website found led to marriage. Or something. Not really important, right?

Pause for a second. You probably have it in your mind that it's something to do with ambition or familial values or money (let's face it, more marriages break up because of money then because of sex. I think this is common knowledge, but if not I will find a footnote). However, if you think so, you were not on the team that discovered what questions really did make matches. Are you ready for this?

1) Do you like horror films?

2) Would you vacation by yourself?

3) If you had the chance to drop everything and travel the world, would you?

Now, I'm no psychologist to spend a long time analyzing this, but the math part of my brain noticed that the majority of these questions deal with travel. That thing that happens when you remove yourself from familiar surroundings and reinsert yourself completely ...well... foreign. Are you comfortable finding yourself in situations vastly different than what you would encounter in daily life? More to the point, does it excite you?

That anyone can travel for the pure pleasure of it is actually a fairly new concept in the scheme of things. That it doesn't seem so is due to a very robust travel and tourism industry. Don't get me wrong, young British nobility liked to do European tours before they settled in to help with the managing of the estate, but the kind of wealth that took made such forays somewhat limited by nature.

Need proof? Look at language. Language is one of the more incredible ways of showing just this... and here I digress to a point where I just shake my head. More on language later.

As I was saying, travel for pleasure was limited because the distribution of wealth made it so. Until, that is, faster and nicer modes of transportation made travel so much easier. Buses, trains, airplanes, and cruise liners, all of which were designed to take mass numbers of people from one place to another. But it took some very clever prodding to get people to actually desire travel.

Why do I say that? Well, actions speak louder than words, so let's take the example of the honeymoon. While the concept of giving the newly wed some time together is written in the bible, and granted in writing to Roman soldiers, it wasn't until the 19th century that newly married couples would travel together, around the same time the omnibus was introduced to London and parts of France. The honeymoon is actually one of the first instances of mass tourism. Which was the cause and which the effect, I don't rightly know.

One thing is certain, though. Something about starting a new life together in new surroundings appealed to the population as a whole. It certainly appealed to me. I had my honeymoon planned years and years ago, so you can only imagine my disappointment when my older brother told me earlier this year that the groom is responsible for planning the honeymoon! Shattered. Really.

I have been traveling for as long as I can remember. It is something I can count on to enliven my life. Every stage of the journey, from planning to execution teaches me and brings value to my life. Geography, history, language, culture, nature, society, politics, food and fun...

And tomorrow I'll be embarking on the biggest vacation yet and completing one of my major life goals. I promised myself that by the time I turned 30, I would visit every continent sans Antarctica. At 1800 tomorrow I will leave American soil and not return for a month. This is my travel journal. Geography, history, culture, language, nature, society, politics, food and fun - be prepared to hear it all.