We are off to the big city

We are up early this Monday morning because our taxi guy is picking us up at 7:00am!

On Sunday, we walked into town to what we thought was where we could buy tickets for today's bus ride. But it turns out that sometime in the last four months that particular bus company moved, and I could not find any current information online. But, we asked some questions and found that we had to head another kilometer to a different bus line.

Once we get into our new motorhome, what's the plan?

Of course it's too soon to make any firm plans, and whatever we end up doing will depend totally on what time of year it is. We know that we will have maximum three months in Albania, so that brings us up to June 15th or so. With any luck at all, hopefully we will be allowed into Germany by then so that we can pick up our new motorhome.

If that happens at that time, our plan is to head north!

The highlights of Tanga

Despite the heat, we figured we had better get out and see the highlights of the city. We thought about riding the bikes over to the beach area, but while it's a slight downhill the whole way there, it would be a slight uphill the whole way back! 

So we decided to walk the 7 kms (4.3 miles) one way, find somewhere to have a meal, and then take a taxi back.

Biding our time

We came to Tanzania specifically to hike Kilimanjaro, and we honestly figured we could take up the balance of two months here without much problem. And that is certainly doable... if you have lots of money to spend.

But doing Tanzania on a tight budget is not that enjoyable. Now that we have our flights to Albania booked for March 14th, we feel like we are just biding our time until we can get out of here.

Paying for our new motorhome

Sometimes the logistics of making a big purchase in a far away country can be a little overwhelming. 

I remember when we bought our truck and camper in Australia how we jumped through hoops trying to follow all the right procedures. After all, we were physically in Mexico at the time... and we were buying an Australian vehicle by paying a Swiss bank from our Canadian bank. 

And, we didn't want to get taken advantage of by the big banks in Canada. 

Well, there's that mess sorted out... for now...

Unimpressed with KLM. 

I was double checking our flight times and I went into "manage bookings" on the KLM website yesterday morning. I happened to notice that the first leg of our flights from Dar es Salaam to Amsterdam was showing as "Cancelled". 

Hmph. I hadn't received any email from KLM telling me they had cancelled my flights. I wonder when I would have found out if I hadn't been checking for something else.

Travel days are always interesting

We were up at 6:30am Monday morning.

There are no "scheduled" buses that run between Lushoto and Tanga. We had asked around a few days earlier, and it seems that beginning at 7:00am or so, they depart every ten minutes "or so". Considering it's a distance of 168 kms (104 miles), we thought that was an awfully lot of buses, but it turned out to be accurate based on our experience.

February Expenses

Well, February was another expensive month, but we knew that it would be. And, it's all related to our Kilimanjaro climb at the beginning of the month. Otherwise, it was actually not bad!

Ruth's "bucket list item" has now been completed, and until we go see the polar bears in Churchill, Manitoba (one of my bucket list items) we are done with that kind of extravagant discretionary spending. 

Beautiful views in all directions

Before we get into our beautiful hike yesterday, we need to tell you some good news!

I had mentioned a few days ago that Ruth's laptop wouldn't start up. Other than hearing the fan run, there was no screen, no nothing. She's been trying to start it up every couple of days just in the hopes that something might happen, but with no luck. 

Until yesterday morning.

A guy died on Kilimanjaro this week

Just happened to notice this come up in my news feed. 

A bit of an odd story. This guy was a fairly famous adventurer in his home country of Poland. He kayaked across the Atlantic Ocean three different times, the last one when he was 71 years old.

So now, here he was at 74 years old climbing Kilimanjaro. 

Getting our new motorhome ready

Of course we have resigned ourselves to the fact that we won't actually get to use our new motorhome for another couple of months (or more!), but that doesn't mean there aren't things going on in the background getting it ready for us.

While it's been sitting on the lot in Germany waiting for us since it arrived there in late November, we are now close enough to being able to use it that we don't want to leave things to the last minute. So we have authorized the dealership to go ahead with getting it ready for us.

The children are hilarious

Wednesday morning, we set out towards another viewpoint. The rain they had been calling for was now just clouds with the odd sunny break. Not the best conditions to go to an overlook, but we needed some exercise!

It's so easy to walk in this area. The dirt roads hardly have any vehicles on them, and when there is a vehicle, it's a motorcycle. Motorcycles are used as basic public transportation in Tanzania... you just hop on the back, and the driver takes you where ever you want to go.

Organizing our next stop

While we've thoroughly enjoyed the scenery and the hiking here in Lushoto area, two weeks is enough.

Our accommodation had been overall good, although a bit quirky. It's a very old house, and it needs a lot of work. There are quite a few critters living in the house along with us! And the "staff", while very friendly and helpful when we have questions, don't really seem to actually do very much. 

Usambara Mountains - Do you need a guide?

We normally like to travel and explore on our own. But that's just us, and we realize that it seems like many (most?) people prefer to hire a guide. Here in Tanzania, it is definitely more common for visitors to hire a guide where ever they go. 

When I was doing research regarding hiking in the Usambara Mountains area where we are right now, most references were regarding guided trips. And sure, if you're going to do 3 to 5 day excursions, then it's probably best to have someone organize it for you.

Official change of plans

In December, we had booked our flight out of Tanzania for March 21st, with a destination of Dusseldorf, Germany. We had some faint hope of possibly being able to pick up our new motorhome at that time. Now, with only four weeks to go before our scheduled flight, we highly doubt that the entrance restrictions to Germany will be lifted by that time.

Our flight with KLM was fully flexible, with no change fees. So the only extra would be whatever the fare difference was to fly somewhere else.