Day 21

This was set to be a traveling day. We left the lodge at 7 am. We got Donald for a driver again, and while we rode he told us about the four ethnic groups of Tanzania. He was Bantu, of the Chaga tribe (I think that's what he said). There were also the Nile peoples, the Khoizin and one other I can't remember. The bushmen were part of the Khoizin group. I wish I could remember more details, but it was loud in the jeep and I didn't even hear all of it. We saw some lions crossing the road, actually they had just crossed the road and were walking away when we got there, but I think I got some decent pictures of them. We saw the hippos in their pond again, but they wouldn't come out for us. One of the later jeeps said they saw one walking along the road. Bad timing, I guess. We got to the air strip at Seronera early, so we waited for the planes to arrive. As expected, a group of people ran to the smaller planes. The same people that ran to the larger plane the first time, no doubt. We didn't have any problem with it being too hot on the plane, though, and we didn't waste a lot of time on the ground so there was no issue with the plane being uncomfortable on the ride back to Arusha. We saw a couple of mountains, but Kilimanjaro was right in front of us and when we finally turned so we could see it, it was obscured by clouds.

When we landed in Arusha it was a shopping frenzy. They had some great stuff there in the shops, and most of it was very reasonably priced. Even the tee shirts were only ten dollars. Jan bought several beaded baskets, including one that was being used in a shop to display some other wares. Jan offered her ten dollars for it and the lady said "No, five". Jan didn't argue and paid the five dollars.

On the plane, Cathy asked if anyone else still had their departure cards and Jan and I answered that no, they took them when they stamped our passports. She hadn't had her passport stamped either, so I guess officially my brother Lonnie and his wife are still in Tanzania.

The rest of the day was traveling. It took almost fifteen hours altogether to get to Marrakesh. We touched down about seven pm local time (three hours behind Arusha). We processed through immigration and boarded our buses to the Sofitel Hotel. The dinner buffet was more interesting than most, but the food wasn't very good, at least to my taste. We were exhausted from our day of travel, so we turned in early.