Day 4: Doha to Arusha

We had a really great time in Qatar, but it was only ever a stopover. Today it was time to move on to the main destination of this holiday: Tanzania. Our day started with the alarm going off at 04.45. Our flight to Tanzania was departing from Doha at 08.20 and I'd booked us a transfer from the hotel back to the airport. The voucher I'd received when I booked suggested that the driver would come to collect us three hours before the flight, so around 05.20. Luckily we were running a bit ahead of schedule this morning because we got a phone call to our room around 5am informing us that the driver was already in reception! We flung the final few things into our suitcases and were on our way.

There wasn't too much traffic on the roads at that time of the morning and we were at the airport almost 3 hours before the flight. We checked in at a booth, dropped off our baggage and passed through security and passport control without any difficulties. Doha Airport really is huge and so we then had quite a significant walk to get to our gate. Also, for reasons I don't understand, Doha Airport has this giant teddy bear in the middle of the main terminal!

We found a restaurant not far from the gate to get breakfast, which was good because we need to eat something before we take our malaria pills. We also met up with a friend there, another Esperanto-speaker who is travelling to the same event. Boarding seemed to take a long time but the flight took off on time and soon we were leaving Doha behind.

As we took off I realised I could actually see our hotel. It might be hard to make out on the picture below if you don't know what you're looking for, but on the far left-hand side you can see the two wonky towers we were staying next to and the hotel is the tall building next to the second tower.

After that we flew over sand for a very long time - I think we were passing over Saudi Arabia - and then a bit of sea before we hit the African coast. This was my first glimpse, I think of Somalia.

Unfortunately the line isn't clear on this photo at all, but this was the point a few hours later when we crossed the equator.

It was a very long flight, but around 6 hours we hit the coast of Tanzania.

The plane was coming down in Dar es Salaam, the largest city in Tanzania, for a short stop before carrying on to our destination, Kilimanjaro Airport.

We sat on the tarmac in Dar es Salaam for around an hour. Lots of people got off, staff got on to clean the plane and then a few more people got on. The remainder of the journey towards Arusha wasn't very long, and within around an hour we were coming in to land at Kilimanjaro Airport.

This was where the chaos began! We disembarked the aircraft and then had to join a queue on the tarmac to have our boarding passes checked. I guess they wanted to make sure we should definitely be getting off the plane here. Then we had to go inside and queue for passport control, but there were multiple different queues depending on whether you had already applied for a visa online (which we had) or whether you hadn't and it wasn't initially clear which was which. It felt like we'd ended up joining the slowest queue and we stood in line for ages, although when it was our turn it was relatively straightforward and we were stamped in without any difficulties.

The good news is that while we'd been queuing our bags had already come off the baggage carousel. We passed through the customs check and emerged into the arrivals hall of the airport, where we were expecting to see a couple of people holding an Esperanto flag. According to the communications we'd had in advance from the event organisers, there would be local Esperantists standing outside the airport waiting to welcome us and direct us towards organised transport to Arusha, for which we needed to pay them USD 20 per person. The instructions had been extremely clear, so it was a bit perplexing that there were no signs of any Esperantists at the airport at all. Especially as we'd communicated our flight number and arrival times in advance.

We stood outside in the hope that someone would turn up. I activated the Tanzanian e-Sim I'd bought in advance and asked in the conference Telegram group whether someone was coming to collect us. That didn't get a reply, so the friend we were with starting messaging everyone whose details she had. Eventually we got a reply saying that someone was on their way and we just needed to "wait for a bit".

We waited and waited and waited. Two more Esperantists got off a different flight and waited with us, equally perplexed. Our flight had landed at 16.25 and the sun was setting around 18.30 before someone turned up. And then he wasn't a local Esperantist at all, but seemingly a local taxi driver who spoke no Esperanto and not a great amount of English. He did, however, have our names in a text message on his phone, so it seemed like he had been sent to pick us up. Very confusing, but at least we were now on our way!

Not a very good photo because it was taken through the window of the taxi, but we did have some beautiful views before it turned completely dark.

The distance from Kilimanjaro Airport to the town of Arusha where we are spending the week is just over 30 miles. The journey ended up taking at least an hour and a half, which was significantly longer than I'd expected. The road itself was reasonable quality but for a long time it was just a single lane and we seemed to get stuck behind various lorries which were moving at a snail's pace. It was completely dark by this point, so we couldn't see much at all.

Eventually we arrived at the hotel in Arusha! It had been a long day and by this point I really wanted to check in, but first of all we had to pay for the taxi. For reasons which I don't understand at all, the man who had driven us said that we couldn't pay him but needed to pay his boss, who wasn't here. Confusion reigned for a while until the boss turned up and we succeeded in paying him. Phew! And when we got up to the room it turned out to be loads better than I'd expected. In addition to a really nice bedroom area...

...we've also got a spacious living room. This one of the official hotels for the conference, but I booked it myself rather than through the Esperanto event and got a better price

It had been a really long day and we were pretty exhausted by this point. Rather than venture out into Arusha in the dark, we made our way to the hotel restaurant where Tim had some pork chops and I had chicken kiev with rice. Tim also tried out the local beers.

Fingers crossed tomorrow will be a bit less chaotic