From Dubai to Dar es Salaam

After several nights of uneasy rest, we woke the boys up around 5 am Dubai time. We had to literally be out of our hotel room and in the taxi heading for the airport by 6 am - we wanted to make sure we had enough time to catch our flight to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Fortunately, Dubai at 6 am means zero traffic! It was beautiful to see the city waking up- people running along the sidewalks because the temp is only 89 degrees vs. 106 that it will reach by noon; the sunrise sparkling off the giant buildings and the beautiful glow over the Persian Gulf with Iran in the distance. The Dubai airport is massive, amazingly efficient, and exceptional clean. Every employee we met while traveling in Dubai was from a different foreign country - we met staff from Kenya, Thailand, Russia, Georgia (not the state), Japan, Egypt, Greece, and many, many more different countries. It was such a cool melting pot of cultures. Once we finally got onboard our flight, we sat on the runway for a long time because of all the delays with planes avoiding the air space between Iran and Israel.  Once we finally took off, Paul and I both took a deep breath and then slept for the majority of this flight. Surprisingly, the boys slept too! After landing in Dar, we got our visas for Tanzania and headed over to the domestic terminal. Tanzania is such a cool country but one thing we have learned, do not ever be in a hurry over here. This whole process took a really, really, really long time! 

Finally, we took our 8 passenger plane from Dar es Salaam to Mtemere Airstrip (not airport or runway, an AIRSTRIP) which is a very bumpy, open road. As we were landing we saw a group of kids and teenagers playing soccer beside the "landing strip". Once we had our bags, Paul quickly aired up one of the soccer balls we had brought and Finn gave it to the kids. As we were leaving, some of the boys ran over with a huge smile on their faces saying "Asante sana" - thank you in Swahili. 

The drive from the air strip to our tent was around 2 hours. We saw lots of giraffes, a few elephants, some Impalas and then, walking down the main or only road were 5 male lion brothers. They walked right beside our safari vehicle. The boys were super excited to see so many lions together on our first drive in Tanzania!

Once we finally got back to our tent, it was completely dark. We had a bush dinner and then were escorted back to our tent to go to sleep. Neither Paul nor I slept much last night - the only thing between us and the outside world is/was a net- not a wall, not glass, nor thick canvas but only a net.

I kept hearing buffaloes snorting, hyena's howling and then, at around 3 am, something that sounded like a bulldozer knocking down the trees beside our tent. Paul and I both jump up, grab the spotlight and the emergency horn, and look outside our tent. It was a large elephant coming through the woods with 2 babies. They were trying to get to the lake that was directly in front of our tent. For some reason, they would walk out of the bushes, look at the water and then go back into the bushes. Finally, after loudly stomping directly beside our tent for around an hour, they decided to go to the lake to get some water. After this happened, I slept holding onto Finn clutched around my right arm and Nash the same on my left. I don't think Paul ever went back to sleep last night. He just held onto the fire extinguisher in one hand and the air horn in the other flenching at any noise he heard. 

Around 5 am I think I finally started to fall back asleep, but, as soon as the sun started to rise, the birds began singing and waking us all up.

Oh, I forgot to mention, last night, there were giant bats swooping down near our heads picking at the bugs while we were trying to enjoy our "bush dinner".

Paul literally looks at me this morning and says "we have 11 more nights of this"?