Not Kidnapped On Kilimanjaro

I groggily walked off the plane in Kilimanjaro at 8:30 last night, after 24 hours of traveling. I was told that a driver would be there to meet me. As I exited the airport, I saw many names on placards, none of them mine. I had several tour operators come up to me asking what outfit I was with, perhaps hoping to win another client, but they all walked away disappointed when I explained that I was staying with a friend. I was starting to wonder what to do when I saw her walk over. Relieved, we piled into a van and started to trek to her friend's house. She told me that she decided to come with the driver to the airport because she thought I would think I was kidnapped, considering our destination was in the forest on the flanks of Meru up a dark and dirty road complete with a river crossing. She thought I might get anxious.

Her friend's house was amazing. It helped that it came with two incredibly cute puppies that were thrilled to see us and busied themselves playing with each other and everyone and everything else they could get their paws on. After some dinner and conversation, I retired to bed, completely exhausted.
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The next morning started at 4am for me -- I could no longer sleep. That was fine because we had to be out of the house by 6am to make an 8am flight out of Arusha to Seronera in the Serengeti. On the way to the airport, we stopped to watch several black and white colobus monkeys with their luxurious long, fluffy tails hop around a tree in the forest. After some low clouds in the morning, we were treated to beautiful views of Kilimanjaro and Meru, set against the rising sun. We crawled inside a 10 seater plane and were informed by the very nice pilot that we will be making THREE stops on the way to Seronera. So, I get the tour of the Serengeti from the air for the price of one ticket. It was pretty fabulous, despite the rocking of the plane. I had views of flocks of pelicans flying below us in V formation, huge herds of wildebeests moving across the savannah, zebra, elephants -- at one point we landed in the middle of three elephant herds, one of which crossed the runway after we de-planed to stretch our legs. We flew over the Ngorongoro crater. There is a highly alkaline lake in the middle which had a smear of pink on one end -- flamingos. We crossed over the gorge where some of the earliest hominid skeletons were unearthed and where the oldest hominid footprints have been preserved in hardened ash from a volcanic eruption.

Finally, we arrived at my friend's house in the middle of the Serengeti. We relaxed on her deck with a cup of coffee and some biscuits and watched a couple warthogs scrounge around, lizards run along the wall of the house and birds flit by. She only lives here part time but, wow, what an amazing place to live.

I am excited to be traveling with these two, both of whom are veterinarians, have worked/lived out here for years, and know this place extremely well. I feel very lucky and I am looking forward to traveling out to meet the vaccination teams over the next couple of days.

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