By the time most of you read this, we will be well on our way through the first day of our 4 day, 3 night trek up Africa's 5th highest and Tanzania's 2nd highest mountain, Mt. Meru.
Our guide and our chef were over at the apartment on Sunday going over some things with us. They are very detailed, and want to make sure you are prepared. I get the impression that they have come across people who have definitely not been prepared.
We met one of our porters yesterday. Abdallah is 24 years old and wants to work his way up to being a guide. He has taken the guide courses at the local college and is now beginning actual training. He is also learning Chinese because there are a growing number of Chinese tourists coming to Tanzania and there are no guides who can speak Chinese.
Justin set things up so that Abdallah would spend the day with us doing a hike to a waterfall about 10 kms (6 miles) away from our apartment.
We hung around the apartment in the morning, and then at lunch time we had made plans to meet our new friends Ryan and Marti at an Indian curry restaurant in the central area.
It was about a 3 km (1.8 mile) walk from the apartment to the center of Arusha so we set off at 12 noon for our 12:30pm lunch.
I believe that every day here in Tanzania will be an interesting day. There is so much going on, everywhere we look!
We will be doing our four night Mt. Meru hike starting on Monday, and our seven night Mt. Kilimanjaro hike starting on February 2. So Justin said we had better get our gear set up for the two hikes. For that, we had to do the 80 km (50 mile) drive from Arusha to Moshi.
Writing this note from the boarding gate for our second flight of the day, going from Istanbul, Turkey to Doha, Qatar.
We were up at 5am this morning and by 6am we were on our way to the airport.
Our flight didn't leave until 10:25am, but we were told to get there early because of Covid etc, etc... then of course we sat around and waited for almost two hours for the bag drop to open!
And the airport wasn't at all busy. In fact, the exact opposite. There were four flights leaving all day!
We got there early, and had to sit around only to find out that the WiFi wasn't working. They only have one machine where you have to scan your boarding card to get access, and it was located outside the gate area. Ridiculous in this day and age.
Anyhow, the flight was almost full. I saw maybe six or eight empty seats. Everybody was really good about mask wearing, unlike our easyJet flight from the UK back in October. The only thing we both still find funny (odd? stupid?) are the people who want to rip off their seatbelt and jam themselves into the aisle as soon as the plan lands. Doesn't make any sense to us at all, but obviously we are in the minority.
Other than that, it was an uneventful one hour flight to Istanbul's SAW airport.
We had lots of time to waste before our 5:55pm flight to Doha, Qatar. But we couldn't go past passport control because the bag drop wouldn't open until almost 3:00pm! Oh well.
We finally got that done, and went to go through passport control. Of course our visas expired eight or nine days ago, and sure enough we got sent to immigration. We explained the story, and produced the letter from the doctor but that made no difference at all. He siad the only thing that would matter is if you were held up due to Covid!
Then he said "the fine will be 1,034 lira ($177 CAD, $139 USD) each". Yikes!
But he then explained we don't have to pay it now. In fact, we would only have to pay it if we come back within three months and then it would apply towards residency. Very strange, and we didn't quite get it. His English wasn't the best and he was trying to explain it through Google Translate.
But either way, it doesn't cost us anything right now, and if there are repercussions of any kind we will deal with them the next time we return to Turkey, possibly two years from now.
So we were cleared through passport control and on to the waiting area where we are now.
We were a little late leaving yesterday. Had the car all packed up and ready to go by 11:00am, but our Airbnb host was a little late coming to get the key, and then we stood and had a nice chat with him for a while before leaving. But, we knew there would be very little traffic, it was only a 200 km (124 mile) drive, and we couldn't check in to our apartment in Fethiye until after 4:00pm.
Again, weekends are on lockdown for the Turkish people, but foreign tourists are exempt. We figured being on the highway there might be stop checks.
Well, it's moving day today! And we definitely feel like it's time to move on. We've been in this apartment in Antalya for exactly one month! It was almost starting to feel like our apartment.
Yesterday was our final eye doctor appointment, and everything is the way it should be so we are cleared to travel. Of course we still have eye drops to take for the next month or so.
And we saw another one of them yesterday.
We had read about the constantly burning fires at Mount Chimaera. And they are located on the Lycian Way hiking route, so we made a plan to do the hour and a half drive down to that section of the trail where we could access the fires area from below.
In the morning, we went downtown to pick up our new glasses. Yes, we can do 90% of what we want to do without glasses. But we knew going into this eye surgery that the final results were not going to be perfect.
For me (Kevin), my left eye is pretty much perfect. But while my right eye has perfect near vision (it's actually amazing!), the distance vision is not yet. And it never will be, except that my brain hasn't quite caught on to that. And until it does, I am better to wear glasses for driving.
Most visitors to Antalya probably make it to Old Town on their very first day in the city. We've been here for almost a month, and we finally made it there yesterday! But we know, we're not normal.
It's hard to believe we've spent a full month here. Of course most of that is because of our eye surgery, but it's also because there's a lot to see, and it's a nice city... as far as cities go.
That's definitely the longest I've gone without a haircut for quite a while. The last time it was cut was the week before we left Canada, so over three months ago.
Ruth and I met when she cut my hair. And over the next 30 years, she was the only one who cut my hair! When we are traveling in a motorhome, she has her hair cutting gear with her. But otherwise, it's not so easy.
Yesterday was a bit of a dreary day, but it never did rain, and it most certainly didn't snow. The temperature went up to about 19C (66F), but there was no sunshine at all. There was also no wind at all.
We drove east through the city of Antalya and headed to the city of Side (pronounced See-deh).
There are two parts to Side... one is the beach resort area, and the other is the remains of the ancient city of Side.
An interesting thing happened the other day.
I looked in the mirror, and actually saw myself.
I didn't say anything to Ruth, but the funny thing was, a few hours later Ruth said she had the same experience!
Of course it was because we were no longer wearing glasses, and the person we saw in the mirror was actually in focus. Those of you who wear glasses may never experience seeing your face clearly without having those glasses on.
