On 10 Jan 2016 we began our trip to Tanzania. Valerie and I started our trip from the Victoria Airport. We were soon joined by John and Patty.
From Victoria it was a short flight to Vancouver. In Vancouver we were joined by Denise. So far so good. We were also to be joined by Dan and Robin from Seattle. Much to our surprise, Ross and Dawn also showed up. They were traveling on a different flight and planning to spend a couple of days in Amsterdam, but as it happens their departure gate was just the next gate over. So briefly we had 9 of our group of 12 together.
Eventually Dan and Robin showed up with quite a tale to tell. When the went to board their flight to Vancouver passports were checked as is customary. “You don’t have a visa for Tanzania” the clerk pointed out. They, of course responded that they planned to get a visa at the airport in Zanzibar. Our hosts in Tanzania had advised us to follow this approach since it a lot easyier than sending your passport away and risk loosing it, and it is explicitly permitted by the Tanzanian government on the web site. Nonetheless it only take one clerk with a bad attitude to ruin your holiday. Fortunately after much begging, pleading and arguing someone with a cooler head decided that they could get on the plane after all.
As Dan and Robin were regailing us with their tale it began to become apparent that the next store was brewing. From Vancouver the 7 of us were to fly to Paris where we would meet Carole. In Paris we had a two hour layover before heading on to Nairobi. As we set in the Vancouver airport watching our flight be delayed first 10 minutes than 20 and so on, we began calculating just how quickly we could make it through the Paris airport. Once our delay expanded past two hours it was pretty clear today was not our day.
So after 9 hours or so with very little sleep we made it to Paris just in time to see that our flight to Nairobi was closed for boarding. So us – and a hundred or so other people who had missed their connection – got in line. New plan: spend the day in the Paris airport, fly to Amsterdam, catch a flight for Nairobi and finally onto Zanzibar by 9:15. Only 9 hours later than the original plan – not too bad we thought. All we hand to sacrifice was our comfy bed at the Garden Lodge in Zanzibar.
Off course Air France was late with our flight departing Paris as well, but only enough to scare us. We only had to run a little bit to make our connecting flight in Amsterdam. Than another 8 hour flight to Nairobi. In Nairobi it was my turn in the barrel. In our first of two passes thru security we encounter a very polite young man who wanted to confiscate our disk brakes. I remove the disk brakes and take them in carry-on so that they don’t get bent. Bent is bad, missing is a whole lot worse. If we gave those disks holiday over – you can’t stop a tandem by dragging your feet and the chance of replacing a place of big disks in Zanzibar was not a prospect I wanted to face. Fortunately after 10 minutes of begging and plead (and a request to talk to his supervisor) our young man finally agreed to take our lethal weapons and go.
Our 8:00 flight from Nairobi to Zanzibar was via Kilimanjaro airport. That was not something I had anticipate. Apparently it hadn’t been anticipated by the people writing the schedule either as our 9:15 arrival time turned into 11:00. So now we had to start worrying about our 2:00 flight to Pemba. How do we get all our big luggage into town and get back to the airport by 2:00. The airline did their part in reducing that problem by loosing half our luggage. Only 3 of 6 bikes made it. Plus various other pieces of luggage lost in action. The joys of flying. Hopefully everything will show up by the time we get back from Pemba.
Another half hour flight and our bleary eyed and sleep deprived travelers were finally in paradise. Pemba is truly a beautiful place. Our resort is very remote (1.5 hour drive from the airport) and a very lovely place.