Feb 5&6 - travels indeed

Not exactly a straight line ! We left the Ngorogoro Serena at 8 am and stopped at the Kibo Palace in Arusha to pick up our luggage on the way to the Arusha Serena for lunch. We were a few minutes early for lunch as that opens at 12:30. As with the other Serena Hotels, this did not disappoint, a wonderful buffet of African, Indian and English food that spoke to the Commonwealth heritage. I've been really spoiled with all the lamb on this trip.

Off to the airport a little after 2pm, we were there just after 3. Bob and Marian juggled stuff in their bags with the help of our luggage scale. We checked into our respective flights - them domestic to Zanzibar and us international to Doha, Qatar. We went through the immigration exit process made somewhat confusing as checkin wanted our US passports due to our destination while immigration wanted the Canuck passports with the TZ visa.

We said our farewells and we're soon on board for our slightly late flight. We did get into Doha on time and as we knew the drill were soon in our hotel. There was still a bit of drama as their checkin system wasn't working properly and we had to await our turn to get to our room.

Distances are amazing. Kili is at 2 degrees south latitude. From there to Doha is a 6 hour flight, almost as long as flying across Canada and yet we are were only at the south end of the Persian Gulf.

It's now 3:40 pm by my watch, TZ/Qatar time, and we've only just started to cross the Atlantic. The flight has taken a route from Doha north and east of the Baltic, into Russia then just south and west of Moscow then west to Scandinavia. We still have 9 hours to go on our 16 hour flight !

We were lucky this time, getting window and aisle with an empty middle seat on both flights. People have scored entire middle rows to stretch out and sleep.

I expect that we will be home, hopefully, before 11 pm EST, finishing up a 32 hour day. Ugh. It will be good to be home ! That includes the 4 hour drive from Miami.

5552 kms so far; 7075 kms to go. Yikes. Not including the drive !

Westward ho !

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