To continue with the airport security story, first I need to go back a few days to the Amsterdam airport. We went through all the checks and gates and rigamarole and got to our waiting area, the actual area where you board the plane. Normally you just get on the plane, but this gate had yet another security to go through. I had had no "beeping" problems up until this point, but when I went through this one, I heard the dreaded beep. Before I even had a chance to react and maybe remove my shoes or watch, this woman guard came zipping over and proceeded to pat me down, and I mean a pretty damn complete patdown, I was rather taken aback, but you don't really want to object. I was quite sure it was my bra, and it was, but why she didn't just want that area right away is beyond me. I prefer to not thinkj about why she wanted to pat me down. Anyhow, I quickly put the whole thing out of my mind until I beeped here. There was no female guard near, so I said to the fellow, trying to be tactful: "umm...I htink it might be my...undergarment?" He looked a little panicked and said "Oh, let's take off your shoes first." I did, and to my surprise and to the relief of both of us, there was no beep. ***Whew***.

They asked Nicole if she had any scissors in her bag, after scrutinizing the x-ray machine, and she said she didn't, but they asked her to open it anyhow and to her great amazement, she had fingernail clippers and they just snapped off the file and let her take them. She SAID she thought she didn't have them, but I think she was planning something with that deadly 1 inch dull file.

The flight had "free" seating so we took our seats quite close to the front, I thought we were a little further from the props, for pictures, but we were not quite up front enough so some of the pix have a bit of the prop in them, but pretty good anyhow. I love this digital camera so much.

The announcements were made in Swahili first and then English, and the cockpit door was open almost the whole time and when it wasn't open, it was only pulled shut, not locked. You don't see that in North America and Europe anymore.

While we were taxiing down the runway I saw a large hanger with "Air Police" witten on it, and various helicopters and small poice planes.

It was very hot for the first few minutes and I was fearful that there would be no cool air, but it did kick in soon and was rather comfortable. Everyone here carries small cottin hankies to mop their faces with, the ladies have nice coloured ones, often trimmed with bits of lace and the men seem to have plain white or red. It was be very common, the hotel laundry washes them for 9 U.S. cents each.

So, instead of Jan 12-13-14 in Zanzibar, we have done the 12 and 13 back in Dar and we will do the 14 tonight in Arusha. We think we have seen all that we need to in Dar and Arusha is supposed to be a little cooler, and also has some different things to do and see, which I will tell you about later.

The Kilimanjaro Airport was a pleasant surprise, largre than we had thought and it had some green grass, a few nice trees and plants and seemed very well maintained. It was quite empty and our luggage arrived right away, well, mine did. We had a moment of panic when the carrousel was empyt and Nicoles luggage wasn't thre, and then we realized that a second cart was coming.

Then we had an adventuresome taxi ride into Arusha town, but I want to tell about the flight first.

As we lifter off drom dar I was surprised at how huge and sprawling the city is--miles and miles of tin roofs as far as the eye can see, it looks like a giant shantytown. As we climbed and headed North we flew a little way up the coastline, it was looking down at an atlas, seeing the shape of the Tanzanian coast and the Indian ocean. We headed a lit west and the land looked flat and very dry and arid. I could see a dry riverbed that looked like a long, narrow, brown snake, writhing its way through the countryside. The roads were all very straight and would suddenly angle off and head in totally new directions and where they met or crossed you could see tiny settlements. The land is very red and the sun was hitting the tin roofs and it looked like someone had thrown handfulls of glittering sparkles onto a huge piece of red burlap. So beautiful and I kept thinking: "I am looking down at Africa."

As we flew further towards Arusha the landscape became a little greener and more lush, there were a few small ranges of hills that we passed over and then the land became flat again and you could actually see small villages, and not the tin roofed kind, but circular thatched huts. There would be one large one in the centre, then 4 or 5 smaller ones around it, and then something that was either hedges or branches surrounding the while "village" There were often some small single huts too, in their own tiny circle of protection. I wondered why just one hut, if it was a shepherd, or someone who was ostricized from the tribe? It was exactly what I imagined and it made me very happy to see it.

Now we take the taxi to town.

The taxi was a Toyota Hiace, a seatbelt for the driver, but none for us. If I had known what the ride was going to be like I never would have gotten in a vehicle without a seat belt, yikes! We negotiated a pretty good price, there was a sign inside that said the average price from the airport to Arusha was about $50 US and we got him to take us for $30 Canadian. We are becoming pretty good at this!

But I was just informed that the time on this computer is just about up, so the taxi drive will have to wait until latr. Gee, it seems that half of my good stories revolve around a taxi, one would think we do nothing but hang out with the taxi crowd.