Bye Kenya, Hello Tanzania!

Day one of our tour saw us leaving Kenya and going into Tanzania.  The border was a walk up one so everyone had to get off the bus and walk to the building to get everything stamped.  From there, we had about a two minute walk to another building to be granted admittance to Tanzania.  There were people all over trying to sell us stuff as we were walking.

Traffic in Nairobi.  Very few lights, lots of roundabouts.

Saw lots of this type of scenery.

Common

More typical scenery.  Many buildings weren't coloured.

Seatbelts everyone!

As it’s our first day, we are pulling over to make lunch.  Typically we will be making lunch before we head out in the morning.  We had been told that seatbelts aren’t a big deal and we didn’t need to worry about them.  But as luck would have it, we were pulled over and one of the people in the truck thought it was our lunch stop so she had gotten up.  We ended up being fined for a few seat belt infractions but our guide laughed it off and paid it.  I believe she said it ended up being around $200 US.  From what I have read, they build this type of situation into the tour fees so it doesn’t come out of anyone’s pocket.

Lunch time

Shortly after dealing with the seatbelt situation, we pulled over to make lunch.  As it was the first time, it was still novel but it became very tiring and boring quite quickly.  Lunch was sandwiches and fruit most days.  You can see there were a variety of items to be put in our sandwiches, eaten on their own or some made them into a salad.  Some days there were drinks as well but more often than not, we just had water available.

Typical lunch fare.  Cheese wasn't that common.  The guy in the background is KFC, our chef.

The Day Continues

After lunch and more driving, we stopped in Arusha for some paperwork to be done.  We were able to do a bit of shopping and relax while we waited.  I got a blanket as I had been warned that I would be cold at night (turns out, there were only two nights I used it for warmth; I used it for padding otherwise).  

When we got into camp, we were shown how to setup our tents as we would be the ones putting them up for the trip.  While simple, it definitely was a two person process, at least to get the poles into place.  We had access to one mat for under us but some people ended up taking two as we had extras available to us.   My travel pillow became my pillow for the trip as I hadn’t thought to bring one with me.

Three out of five tents.

After a quick shower before bed, was in bed by 10 pm.  Early morning tomorrow!