From Athens, Greece to Arusha, Tanzania (Post #59)
Mike types…
Well, its been a while since we’ve posted anything but computer access has been either really expensive (Dubai airport), inconvenient or impossible (Serengeti National Park). While Michele is presently writing about more recent events, i will fill in on how we got from Greece to Arusha, Tanzania…
We left our Athens, Greece hotel at about 1 p.m. to walk about 2 km to the metro station and rode the metro to the Athens airport. Our flight was scheduled to leave at about 6 p.m. and we arrived to check in just about 2.5 hours before departure. We had been dreading the trip from Athens to Tanzania because it would require us to spend the night in the Dubai, United Arab Emirates airport. Little worth mentioning happened in the Athens airport and we boarded our Emirates Air Airbus 330 without any trouble. Emirates is a very nice airline. Every seat (yes, including economy class) had its own display screen on which one could watch cameras displaying downward or forward views from the plane, a choice of about 6 movies or a choice of about 6 T.V. programs. It was also possible to play video games with a small phone-shaped control module detachable from the seatback in front of me. I chose the marvel comics-based ‘Fantastic Four’ movie while Michele watched ‘Crash’. Double F was fine while Michele reported Crash as being quite depressing. We recieved an excellent dinner meal of Greek Mezze, salad, bread and cheese, Chicken Piccata, Blueberry yougurt museli tort, chocolates and the beverages of our choice including (without charge) beer, wine or liquor.
We had heard and read that the Dubai airport was quite a spectacle with a shopping-mall-sized Duty Free shop and bars and lounges. Well, it certainly was something else. It was elaborately decorated and even had 15m lighted artificial palm trees in the middle of the terminal! see…
This was also probably the most cosmopolitan airport i had ever been to with every region of the globe being well-represented. Of course, since we were in a Muslim country, there were many Muslims and the requisit mosques and hammams. We searched around for the “quiet lounge” we had read about so that we could get some sleep before our 7 a.m. flight from Dubai to Nairobi, Kenya. The first quiet lounge we found was pretty full so we went to another. On the way we found an irish bar which advertized all types of stouts. A stout sounded excellent to me since Morroco had been completely dry and Greece had only pilsners. We had a few beers and i had some fried mushrooms before we headed over to the quiet lounge for some rest. The quiet lounge has vinyl upholstered recliners which seemed like they would be great for napping. Unfortunately, looks were deceiving. Due to the angle and the low coefficient of static friction, it was nearly impossible to recline in a comfortable position without sliding down almost off of the chair. I gave up after a few 15 minute naps and decided to do read some reading instead. Michele finally gave up too.
We did not have to retrieve our bags between flights as Emirates checked it the whole way through from Athens to Nairobi. This was good because we didn’t have to check it in again but bad because we had expected to have access to it while in the Dubai airport. Anyway, we headed over to our gate around boarding time and boarded without incident. This was another enjoyable flight with great food. I spent a few hours playing one of the video games (one of these break-out the bricks kind of games. very simple — my favorite kind.) While it was enjoyable we again found it nearly impossible to sleep for more than 15 minutes at a time. For me this was in large part due to some early teens boy in front of me who was playing electronic Battleship with his sister two seats away (this was possible through the video game system on board). Every 10 minutes he would scream “YES!” while practically jumping up and down in his seat. I guess his sister’s fleet was really taking a beating…
We arrived dog-tired in the Nairobi airport at 15 to 1 p.m. local time, grabbed our baggage and went looking for the appropriate shuttle to Arusha. The bus to Arusha was scheduled to take us another 4-5 hours. The reality is, we had spent the prior two weeks setting up airport transfer to Outpost Hotel in Arusha, safari and Kilimanjaro trek with Roy’s Safari but a few hours before we left Athens, they told us the only one of these things they would be able to arrange would be the Kili trek. Ugh! After a few moments of panic, we decided we could figure it out once we landed in Nairobi. Actually, it didn’t take too long to find someone willing to take us to Arusha since there were the expected 2 dozen touts waiting just outside baggage claim. Somehow we made a decision to go with a company called Davanu and paid $60 for the two of us. We had about 45 minutes before the shuttle was supposed to leave and in the meantime an employee of this company tried to sell us a Tanzanian safari and Kilimanjaro trek. We listened to the pitch and agreed to meet another employee when we arrived in Arusha. At least this way we would have someone to taxi us to find a suitable hotel.
The ride to Arusha took about 5 hours. We rode in a mini-bus with 6 other passengers one of which was a U.S. citizen born in Kenya. He had lots of incidental information for us about how to get by in Tanzania and it was a pleasure to speak with him. The road to Arusha while paved was pretty bumpy but ok. We had two quick stops – one for passport control out of Kenya and one for passport control into Tanzania. A visa for a U.S. citizen into Tanzania is pretty expensive — $50. oh well!
We arrived in Arusha around 7 p.m. met this representative from Arusha Safaris, Benjamin, and got a ride to a sleezy $10/night hotel. After a quick look at the room we told Benjamin we wanted to look at something else, perhaps in the $20-25 range. He took us to the Arusha Center Tourist Inn where we decided to stay the night. We have subsequently tried a few other (more expensive) hotels but we insist Arusha Center Tourist Inn is the absolute best at $18/night.
The next day we met with Benjamin to discuss a Safari and a Kili trek. Our decision about which company to go with is part of the safari story which will be the subject of the next post…
We love blog comments but if for some reason you want to say something to us more directly, please email us — mikeandmichelertw at hotmail dot com (appropriate punctuation changes will be required of course).
Tags: Category #17: Tanzania
Michele Harmon
We hadn’t heard from you in a while, so i was figuring you guys had been eaten by lions. And by “figuring” i mean “hoping”.
Did you see any of the crazy man-made Dubai islands?
Looking forward to Safari pictures. If one of you gets mauled, i’ll avenge your death.
Hi Mike & Michele. Glad to hear you guys are still rockin’. Love the blog – keep it up…
Keep it up, guys! Lookin’ great!
-Smith
Please provide the equation for the angle and the low coefficient of static friction problem. Show your work.