Last morning in Arusha.

Check out time is 11 AM, but we didn't need to go to the airport until 6 PM, so we figured we'd go to the bookstore before we had to check out, as it would obviously save us hauling around our luggage. We couldn't find Abdalah, but we did find Razak, our "old" driver so we asked him to take us to the bookstore...but for 3,000 TS, not the 6,000 we were paying him before! He was fine with that, but when we got to the bookstore it was closed and wasn't going to be opening for an hour or so, so the joke was on us as now Razak had us as passengers on a return trip to the hotel...a place that he would have gone anyhow, but it cost us another 3,000 TS so he got his 6,000 after all. (you don't want to hang around the bookstore and wait, there is nothing there but some creepy looking vacant lots and dicey looking stores.)

We took a walk to the supermarket and bought a few snacks and also stopped at the furniture/souviner place where I bought a couple of necklaces and then came back to check out. One of the bellboys informed us that the hotel had an excellent lock up for luggage even though we were not officially staying there anymore----yahoo! so we locked away our stuff, found Abdalah and headed off to the bookstore after all! We had a nice "browse", a coffee and some banana loaf...a HUGE warm slice, it was so tasty. Abdalah came to get us in an hour (man, I love this taxi system) and we went back to the hotel. We were just sitting in the lobby trying to decide what to do for the next few hours when I hear this jovial voice bellow out: "hello there!" and we looked up to see Anders, a doctor from Haydom and John, a carpenter from Haydom. They were heading back to Norway and just stopped at the Impala to lock up their luggage for a few hours as well. Anders announced that he would be pleased if he could buy us lunch. Look at us, having lunch dates in Arusha and our own driver as well. Cosmopolitan women!

We had a wonderful lunch and then after a rest and a read we decided to head out to the airport early since all the flights leave at pretty much the same time and we figured we'd beat the crowds. Lots of people were already lining up for the shuttle.

We had already arranged with Abdalh to pick us up and he was ready to go (although when we went around the corner to get him, one of his co-workers said: "Oh, he had to go to town, I'll take you." Ha! We know that old trick inside out by now!)

As we were driving down the highway (which is like a 2 lane country road here, "highway" in name only) we passed a small village where it was raining and there was a beautiful rainbow in the sky. Abdalah says it rains a lot in this little town, but not in Arusha which is only 15-20 km away. Odd.

It's a 40 km drive to the airport and it takes about 55 minutes, there is a lot of traffic as it's the only route from the airport to Arusha and there are also a few villages on the way so between vehicular traffic and people on foot, it's a slow journey. Cars have to stop and show some sort of ID before they are allowed ointo the airport grounds. We pulled into the curb, unloaded our luggage and got into the line up and what do we hear? "hello there!" Anders and John once again, and they are with our old driver Razak, no less! What asmall and funny little world it is. Handshakes and hugs all around and then we started the whole boarding procedure. It didn't take as long as we had thought and when we got into the waiting room we were sort of surprised not to see Anders as it's not a very large room and he does seem to pop up all over the place,

I bought a few things at the duty free, incredible prices, I wish I had more suitcase space, and before we knew it we were boarding the plane. We left on time, to the exact minute--those efficient Dutch. As we settled in we decided to try and have a sleep although it wasn't for long as we had to land in Dar es Salaam in an hour. (it was over 80 outside, and this is midnight!) It was an hour stop, but we weren't allowed off the plane so we were trying to decide what to do, should we read? sleep? go to the bathroom? and then we hear this voice: "Hello there!" and up pops Anders, looking jaunty in a red sweater and a purple scarf. Turns out he is sitting right behind us. Really, what are the chances of that, 2 sets of seats booked months apart, on different continents and we end up 24 inches apart? So we had a nice chat once again and then tried to sleep.

About 10 hours later we landed in Amsterdam and said our goodbye's to Anders who is taking a different flight to Norway.

We headed to our gate area and decided to find a bathroom first, there are a lot, but they all had huge line-ups so we eventually found one a little bit out of the way and just as Nicole was going in, who do you think was coming out? Yup, Anders! Too funny! However that really was the last time we saw him, but his life seems to be full of coincidences, as he was sitting behind us in the plane the fellow sitting beside him turned out to be someone from his home town. I wonder if I'll ever see him again, I really wouldn't be surprised.