On Our Way to a Safariganza

Author’s note: Though I write this as though to you, the audience, it is for me and the good of my memory keeping, and therefore it will be laboriously long and detail oriented.  Prepare yourself.
It all started with a lot of shots in the upper arm.  Although, it wasn’t until my charming parents had been roped into watching the kids while we left the country that it became a possibility.  Thanks, Mom and Dad.
Speaking of Thanks-to-Moms-and-Dads, I should really say that it all started with some extremely generous and family oriented Empey parents.  We owe this entire Safariganza experience to them.  Thanks, Mom and Dad.  They brought all their immediate children and their spouses out for a Tanzanian Safari.

Today’s lesson: Thanks be to Mom and Dad.

ON Our Way

On Saturday morning we said goodbye to the kids and my Dad, Bill, dropped us off at RDU around 9:00am.  We left on a flight to Atlanta at 11am.  We wondered around Atlanta for 5 hours, (tried out massage machines, walked across the entire airport and back again, watched planes take off, had some lunch, watched some TV and people) and took an 8 hour flight at 5:30pm to Amsterdam where we met Nick’s siblings.  We had 2 hours to spend in Amsterdam and then took an almost 9 hour flight to Nairobi. 
This was our itinerary (like I said, detail oriented)

I really, really love airports. When I was a kid and we would visit Stapleton and DIA to drop my Dad off on business trips I decided that working in an airport would be an ideal job.  People look so much cooler in an airport, have you noticed that?  Walking around seems so much more important in an airport.  Standing around seems so much more purposeful in an airport. 
Needless to say, I was excited about our long layovers.  Don’t believe me about how exciting airports are?  Well, take a look at this from the Amsterdam airport, please:

Apparently you can stick your feet in a fish tank in the Amsterdam Airport.  They charge you 50 bucks to do this.
So here are some pictures from our airport travels:

Amsterdam to Nairobi:

In Amsterdam I was amazed by how much English we saw.  Everything was labeled in English and people spoke in English.  There were also a lot of random free standing walls with doors that didn’t lead anywhere. You could walk around the wall or you could go thru the doors and get to the same place.  Except – the doors were locked.  I tried.

  Janette and Martin.  He’s a Dane. She’s an American.  They both speak Danish.  And English.

The Swiss Alps

It was a European Plane.  Nick and Angie.  I got the window.

When we arrived in Nairobi, we were in Africa. 

It looked like this and we were tired.

Once we were out of baggage claim, there was totally a lady there with our names on a sign.  Yeah man, it’s happened to me.  My name on a sign at the airport in Africa.  Check off the list.  I hear that someone got a picture of this lady and her sign, but I got behind the group and didn’t have time to get one myself. 

We were taken to the Sarova Stanley Hotel in downtown Nairobi.  A World Luxury 5 star hotel, I might add.  Famous people like Clark Gable, Ava Gardner, Frank Sinatra, Grace Kelly, Michael Caine, Barbra Streisand and Sean Connery have stayed there.  We didn’t see them, however.  It was worth its five stars I quickly decided when they gave us fancy mango juice while we checked in at about 11pm.  Here are some pictures from our short stay:

We decided to look around before we went to bed(remember it’s about 11:30pm) since we had to leave early in the morning.  Angie, Nick and I had heard that the pool was on the fifth floor so we were taking the staircase up the middle of the hotel and discovered each floor had its own night guard.  Each one greeted us “Jambo! Hakuna Matata!”  The floors weren’t too far apart, the staircase was open, and we’re pretty sure the guards could hear each other, so when Nick asked to confirm that there were guards on every floor, the 4th floor guard said “Yes. On every floor.  Hakuna Matata on every floor.”  (It really does mean ‘No worries.’)

Nairobi to Kilimanjaro

The next morning I was wearing pearls, since we were at a five star hotel.  We passed the porter in his top hat, piled in a taxi, and took a wild ride back to the Kenya airport.  There we finally met up with Nick’s generous folks.  We re-checked the bags we had claimed only hours ago and waited for our trip to Tanzania.

A view from the drive thru Nairobi.

To my utter and complete delight I discovered that we got to walk out onto the tarmac to board our plane.  That very well may be one of my most favorite things to do.  I tried to control myself though, and not run around like a crazy woman, because that’s not good to do in airports.  I was successful at maintaining control, and was not chased down by the authorities. 

Here we are hanging out on the tarmac waiting to get on the plane to Tanzania.  I really enjoy hanging out on the tarmac.  Tarmac tarmac tarmac.

LaDawn, Janette, Phil, Ken, Martin (he’s a married-in, like me).

Mark, Me, Ken, Nick, Angie, LaDawn, Jeanette, Phil

Oh how I love it.  Do you see me there loving it?  Notice how you got a nice front and back of Ken there too?  Uh huh.  Nice.
The flight to Kilimanjaro, looked like this:
And when we got to Kilimanjaro I looked like this.
So here we all are in Tanzania.  In a few moments (well, actually after some long lines and a lot of paperwork and gesturing) our Safari drivers were there to pick us up.  That’s for next time though.
Mark, Angie, Me, Nick, Ken, Phil, LaDawn, Janette, Martin