Have you ever spent 17 hours on a bus? Have you ever spent 17 hours on a bus traveling on a treacherous 2 lane blacktop with blaring unintelligible music playing and driven by a manic person who spent less time than advisable watching the road? That was our day today. At 4:45 am this morning our host at the Golden City, Kissa, escorted us out to a dark, scary bus stop to wait. It was cold, very coild and as we stood there waiting to start the journey to our safari Ara remarked, "We better see King %^#&$ Kong." The good news was that we had seats right in front so we could see through the windshield. The bad news was that the seat was barely wide enough for the two of us and by the time the front of the bus was packed with people sitting on the floor we could hardly move. No reading, too jiggly for that. All we could do was be alone with our thoughts or listen to somethng on Ipods that would drown our the cacacophony around us. People here are beautiful but their one not-so-endearing trait is to shout their conversations witout regrard for others' personal space. The only real food stop was at the Al Jazeehra bus stop where I got stuck last year. We bought some stuff to eat there but mainly we survived on Attain bars, potato chips, Snickers bars and water. All things do end and now we sit at a beautiful hotel in Arusha at nearly 2am having just finished Ara's birthday dinner.
Off to bed now. Since I have a good connection there will be more tomorrow.
I have enjoyed reading your blog, thank you for sharing. Dave and I miss Ara (he is our daughters Godfather) and we enjoyed living so close to him in Miami. Thank you for the work you are doing over there as I am sure the sacrifice is great. This time last year my husband, David, was in Iraq and although I missed him, knew that he too was using his skills for the better good. Take care and God speed home. Anne
Posted by: Anne King | July 26, 2009 at 07:08 PM