Adventures with Jeff, Part 1

So far, Tanzania’s been pulling out all the stops for Jeff and treating him to an utterly Tanzanian experience. And by that I mean, everything’s beautiful, everyone’s friendly and welcoming, and next to nothing’s running on time. He arrived in Dar early Monday afternoon, a little worried about clearing customs and finding/making his connecting flight, only to discover the flight had been delayed ... and was going to be delayed several more times before finally leaving much, much later that evening. With a little help from someone he met on the plane though, he found a place to stay in Mwanza and managed to find a helpful taxi driver early the next morning who brought him to the bus terminal. Several extremely bumpy hours later, he’d finally made it to Kibondo and – with the help of a couple more strangers – managed to track me down.

Two days later (and only a couple of hours behind schedule), he was on the road again – this time with me (and by car). We were heading to Kigoma ... or at least we were trying to head to Kigoma. The car, it turned out, had other plans ... plans that involved waiting until we were in an area with absolutely no cell phone signal to break down. As frustrating as that was, it did have the upside of providing me with the best visual of the trip so far: Jeff, surrounded by a gang of barefoot kids, all leaning into the front bumper of the car and framed by the open hood, trying to push the car backwards up a hill (in the hopes that the car would get enough forward momentum on the way back down to suddenly start). It wasn’t until quite a bit later that evening that our driver got the car working again, so we turned back around and spent the night in Kasulu.

Equipped with a different car, we finally made it to Kigoma the next morning. A lazy day at the beach followed by a nice dinner and drinks at the Mwaka Hill Hotel, and it started to really feel like vacation :-)

(Above: Jeff, at Jakobsen's Beach in Kigoma)

Next stop: Dar es Salaam!