Off We Go
By some miracle, we were able to get it together enough to leave for JFK Monday night around 6:30 pm rather than waking up at 3 am on Tuesday morning. We spent the night at the Marrott JFK airport hotel- literally, just checked in, put our bags in the room, got some dinner around 9 pm and then slept from 10 ish until the alarm clock abruptly sounded at 5:45 am. As our taxi is dropping us off at JFK airport, we hear loud sirens blaring behind us. Not paying much attention and trying to collect our bags (and children) from the car, I hear some of the airport security guards yelling "MOVE, MOVE, GET OUT OF THE WAY". Paul quickly grabs the boys and rushes them inside the airport. Dazed and completely confused at whats happening, I'm just trying to get our bags while I angrily glare at Paul for "running" inside the airport. As I'm walking inside and trying to drown out all the sirens and yelling, I look behind me and see this massive "bomb" proof vehicle parked directly behind our taxi driver. I then see several men wearing bullet proof vest while holding some type of machine looking gun as they are jump out of "the bomb squad" (as the boys called it). As I'm looking around, still dazed and confused, I find out someone has left unattended luggage outside for quite some time now and the airport security called the FBI bomb team to come deal with it. Fortunately, it was nothing and we just got to watch the bomb squad guys walk around our terminal patrolling with their AK machine gun weapons while we waited for over an hour to check in. As we are standing and watching this, I realize we are in the "middle east' terminal with EXTRA security.
What doesn't kill you only gets hungrier?
That's literally what Paul just asked me while I'm sitting here trying to remember how to use Webador again before we fly out tomorrow. After telling several friends and family members where we have finally decided to travel to this summer, the response we get is "you're going back to Africa, again?"
Me: Yes, we are.
Confused Friend: "But why?"
Paul: "We heard the lions are hungry and like to eat businessmen" (refer to BBC article about a lion eating a businessman leaving his tent to take a pee in the middle of the night article published about 2 weeks ago)
Confused Friend: "But, you have already been there a few times, don't you want to try someplace new'?
Me: "Tanzania is about the size of California, some of the areas we are traveling to we have actually never been to. Also, we know the people are friendly, it's a safe country, we already have all the vaccines and medications from our previous trip, the weather will be nice, and it's a lot easier to get to than other African countries.'
Anyways, we are leaving out bright and early tomorrow morning and below is our travel plans for this adventure.
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