Harris World Tour

Sunday, February 17, 2019. I was looking forward to sleeping in today but guess what? The workers across our home came to work today and started to make noise at 6:30am! I was ready to kill them but instead, I told myself: it only takes one positive thought and then another… I fell asleep again and woke up at 8:00am. I did sleep in. We were supposed to go hiking today but we decided not to after our long day yesterday. We were happy to stay home today. I remembered my Sundays back in the day when I was single and I stayed home, I only read, napped and ate, sigh… My Sunday turned out a little bit frustrating, first because we didn’t have internet and I really wanted to finish planning our itinerary for India. We couldn’t do any of that. At least I was happy to be able to read, well that didn’t happen either. We hired Honorina to come to cook for us, which is a good thing, don’t get me wrong, but I kind of had to be there with her because she didn’t know where things were. I also spe...

Saturday, February 16, 2019. Today we were awoken by the workers outside. They started to make noise at 6:30am! I wanted to kill them but instead got up and got ready for our big day. I prepared PB&J for our hike to the waterfalls. We agreed to meet at Mama's shop across from the Ilboru Lodge at 10:00am but no one was on time. I was frustrated because I planned so we all could be on time. I think what bothers me is that I’m the only one who cares. Everybody else kept telling me that it was African time and that I needed to relax. [ Gregory's note:  Lili, are you sure you're Mexican? This should feel normal to you.] Sunshine and I went inside the lodge to use the restroom and we stayed in the lobby for a while. Around 11:00, people started to show up but we were still waiting for Daniel’s sister, Catherine. By then, I finally agreed to ride a pikipiki (motorbike) to get closer to the mountain that we needed to hike to get to the waterfalls. I was nervous to do it ...

Friday, February 15, 2019. Today we walked to the Arusha Coffee Lodge, next to where we are staying. Arnaud, a Rotarian, came to pick us up to take us to visit some of his club's projects. First we visited the St. Magdalene Women's Training Center, which is a trade school for girls who didn't have a chance to go to school. They learn to sew, to cook, to make soap and to make batik. When we first arrived, they were waiting for us and they welcomed us with a song. They also introduced themselves in English. The girls were between the ages of 15 and 20. Some of them were Maasai and we were told that they live away from their families so they can go to school. The nun also told us that some of them drop out and have to get married (arranged by their parents). After that, Arnold drove us to a public secondary school. The Rotary club helps them with funding and computers. This school had around 600 students and it looked in bad shape. [But it wasn't.] The classrooms could...

February 14th, 2019.  I decided to make plans late in the afternoon, mostly because the kids should do some homework and the big kid, Gregory, is definitely not a morning person. [ Gregory's note: what?] I have learned to enjoy a leisurely morning and then plan for the afternoon. Very much the contrary of what I like to do. Today we spent all morning planning and researching our upcoming trip to India. It can be very exhausting and frustrating. Luckily, I think Gregory enjoys research. He wants me to help but I think he mostly wants my support [ Gregory's note: you do know I'm reading this, right?] because when I did some research and asked if I should buy the train tickets, he told me to wait to see what he can find. He normally does this so I also have learned to let him do it, which honestly, I don't mind. I'm the planner with the dates. This time I helped choose the destinations by distance and the amount of time we should stay in each place -- we were war...

Wednesday, February 13th, 2019. Today we went to Ilboru Lodge, in the neighborhood where we first stayed. Sunshine and I were excited to use the pool and spend a relaxing day like we did in Arba Minch. Well, we couldn't use the pool. I even called the owner and told her that we were staying with Fred, the Airbnb host but that was the wrong thing to say. The owner told us that the pool was only available for hotel guests. I asked if we could stay and have lunch and of course, she said yes to that. We were so disappointed because it was a hot day and the pool was empty. I was also upset that we couldn't invite our local friends into the lodge. Sunshine was excited to invite Daniel and Catherine, the kids from a small shop across the lodge. I didn't even bother asking because when I spoke to the owner she said, "let me talk to the gate person so they can let you in, they are very strict." I explained to her that we were already in. I felt very uncomfortable and u...

Tuesday, February 12th, 2019. Today we got up earlier thanks to birds tapping on our window. We think they see their reflection and they think it's another bird. We had breakfast and started deciding what to do for the day. Our host sent us a big list of things to do around Arusha and I don't want to leave everything for the last minute. We did laundry and homework and arranged with our previous driver, Freddy, to take us to the Snake Park! We didn't know it would cost to get in, but we ended up paying $20 for adults and $10 for children. Ouch! It does include a guide and a visit to the Maasai museum as well. The snake park is small but nice. It's not just snakes, they also have reptiles and birds. We started by seeing the crocodiles. The best part is that our guide asked us if we wanted to see them eat and we all said yes, except Daniel. The guide brought a bucket of dead chickens. He tapped the fence with the bucket and the crocodile moved surprisingly fast from...

Monday, February 11th, 2019. Today we got up at 9:00 because that's when the construction workers get here. We had lunch and went to Shopper's Market, the nice supermarket for wazungu . Francis, our "house" driver, took us but as we were leaving, he accidentally hit the curb and caused a flat tire. Sunshine and I went for a walk while the guys changed the tire. The house where we are staying is next to the very upscale Arusha Coffee Lodge and surrounded by many kinds of trees. We took a pleasant walk away from the main road and saw the van go by. They didn't see us so we had to run to catch them. [ Gregory's note: when you go on a walk, walk towards where you're going, not away. It doesn't take an hour to change a tire! I texted Lili saying we were leaving and asking where she was. Her response was: look behind you. We actually had to circle back to pick them up.] When we got to the market, it was lunchtime (just as I had predicted) and we were ...

Thursday, February 7th to Sunday, February 10th, 2019. I don't even know how to even start writing about all the wonderful animals and parks we visited. I was nervous and anxious about going on a safari. Mostly because of all the reviews that Gregory read to me about how close the animals are around the campsite. I didn't take my laptop for obvious reasons but here I'm trying to catch up on what has been the 4 best days of our trip! Why? Mostly for how I felt around nature: it is a feeling that I can not describe but made me feel very much in tune with myself and God. Shabani, our guide and driver, came to pick us up Thursday morning at 9:00am -- half an hour late but again, this is Africa [ Gregory's note: wow, she got it! I didn't even have to say it. Actually, I did have to remind her.] and they just take their time. When we got in the car, we met the two people on safari with us. Tanaka was a shy and quiet Japanese boy who didn't speak much English. Kri...

Wednesday. February 6th, 2019. Today we are leaving this place which I have grown fond of. I feel safe with the Maasai guard and spoiled with Honorina. Yesterday she told me, "I like you a lot." Awwww. Anyway, we had breakfast and finished packing. Our new host came to pick us up in the new big safari truck that we are driving tomorrow. Before taking us home, we stopped at the market to buy lemons and ginger for Sunshine, who now has diarrhea. I really hope she feels better by tomorrow! The market was very colorful and I wanted to take pictures but Helen, our host, was walking fast and I needed to keep up with her. I saw many stands with all sorts of food. Some stands were really small with little piles of potatoes, tomatoes, and onions. Other were bigger with watermelons, bananas, pineapples, cucumber and more. Many stands were selling woven baskets and small braziers for cooking. After that, they drove us to our new place. Daniel was happy. It is a very nice and luxur...

Tuesday, February 7th, 2019. Today we spent most of the day just relaxing at home, well sort of relaxing -- we had to fill out long visa applications for India. It took a good chunk of our morning. [ Gregory's note: The English may have introduced bureaucracy to India, but the Indians took it to a new level. What's worse, they may use English words, but not in traditional English sentence structure, so some of the questions didn't make any sense. To make things worse, the 10-page application was horrendously designed, so it was very hard to complete.] Around 2:00pm, I asked Honorina to make some french fries just to use the potatoes that we had bought. We didn't have any meat or anything to go with but we had cabbage salad and I made a tomato and feta cheese. We had lunch, read, and I took a nap. Around 5:00pm, Gregory and I decided to go for a walk. Sunshine has been sick all day and I'm just hoping that she will get better for the safari on Thursday. Daniel p...

Monday, February 4th, 2019. Today we met our next Airbnb host at the Arusha Coffee Lodge, which is up the street. Her name is Helen and she got us a good deal on a safari. She arrived in a fancy new safari truck [ Gregory's note: these are customized Toyota LandCruisers, with 6 raised rear seats on either side of an aisle and a pop-top roof] and asked us if we would like to use it, instead of the safari company's. Gregory and I happily agreed -- I was expecting an old Jeep. They drove us to the company's office where they explained to us the itinerary. We are visiting 3 safari parks and spending 4 days and 3 nights. Everything looks great, except for the fact that we are camping in the open in the Serengeti. Gregory showed me some reviews about how close you the animals come to the tents and of course, I'm freaking out. I prayed last night that we don't get sick or bitten by any animal. We paid with a credit card, miraculously it worked, but wehad to pay a dep...

Sunday, February 3rd, 2019. We woke up at 8:30am with the screech of big birds! We had breakfast and sat all morning researching for safaris. Of course, Gregory found much better deals than the girl gave us yesterday. Now we need to decide how many days and figure out where are we going to leave our big suitcases and where are we going to stay next. As the morning passed, I was worried about Sunshine who was tired and had a temperature. Gregory and I decided to take her to the Medical Clinic because we were worried that it was malaria. I was so nervous that I even cried. Gregory, with his usual calmness (thank God) contacted our host who sent a driver to take us to the hospital. I was expecting the worst, but the Old Arusha Clinic was a clean, simple building. Thankfully, it wasn’t crowded, either. We walked in to ask where to go for a blood test, they directed us to the laboratory area where we waited for 15 minutes for the doctor. When it was our turn, he poked Sunshine’s finger, tol...

Saturday, February 2nd, 2019. We spent part of the morning in our hotel and by 11:30am, our driver, Freddy, came to pick us up to take us to our apartment in Arusha. First, Gregory stopped at the bar in the village to return the beer bottle. The next stop was at an ATM to withdraw money to pay the hotel manager for our two-day stay. It is hard to believe that they don’t take credit cards at this place! When we asked if they had another method of payment besides cash, she told us that we could have done a bank transfer! Well, she should have said that before. We paid her cash and left her several KM from the hotel with a handful of cash. Hopefully, she made it back. Our driver’s name is Freddy. He works for our host and he is available to us, although we still have to pay. We asked him to stop at a supermarket before we got to the house to get food for the four days that we are staying.  He took us to a very nice supermarket. [ Gregory's note: nice doesn't descibe it. It was ...

Friday, February 1st, 2019. We were going to wake up early to go to the viewpoint and try to see some animals. We didn’t -- we slept in until 8:00. We then got ready for breakfast at 9:00. We had a big breakfast of fresh fruit, juice, eggs, and coffee. Afterward, we walked to the viewpoint to look for animals, but we didn’t see anything. The main reason we chose to stay in this lodge was that it's on the edge of the Arusha National Park and we read that from there you could see a lot of animals. Well, we haven’t seen much yet. The park is so big and the grass so tall that who knows when we will see something. In any case, we will see animals when we go on a safari. We chose not to jump at the offers we got when we first arrived at the hotel. We have three weeks here and that's plenty of time to do research. We spent hours in the lobby, which is a large, beautiful palapa with comfortable chairs and tables under the thatch roof, no windows. All around you is a lovely view of plan...

Thursday, January 31st, 2019. Got up at 6:30am and still NO water. How can people live like this! The bummer is that we didn’t save any water in a container like we had done in the past! Daniel who still wasn’t feeling well, went to buy a bottle of water across the street. We got dressed and had breakfast. Henok, our host came to pick us up and told us that there was a shortage of water. “We could tell” I wanted to yell at him but instead, I apologize for not being able to clean the bathroom and told him about Daniel’s upset stomach. He drove us to the airport and we got there on time. Things went smoothly and fast. We tried to spend our last birr at the airport but we couldn’t even afford gum, because it was five dollars! I bought expensive gummy bears for the kids and two postcards! I tipped the bathroom lady and saved a crisp new ten birr bill. The flight was awesome! I wanted to sleep but chose to watch a movie that I have been wanting to watch: Incredibles 2. They served yummy bru...

Wednesday, January 30th, 2018. Today was a lazy morning at home. Very frustrating for Sunshine, who actually had time to do some homework but couldn't get on the Wifi. She had two options: either go to the Hilton with Gregory (the Rotary club meets there) or walk with me to the Best Western where we had been before. She chose the second one. In the morning, we just hung out in the apartment. Gregory had our taxi friend drive him to his Rotary meeting and we just relaxed at home. Around 2:00pm, the kiddos and I walked to a pizza and juice restaurant at the corner. We had a nice lunch and afterward, Daniel walked home while Sunshine and I walked to the hotel. We ordered a drink, even if we just had lunch but we needed the internet. The waiter told us that we needed to pay for internet. We told him that we had been here before and that we just had ordered a drink for the internet. He said, “no problem” and asked us where we were from. We said Mexico and then we told him Sunshine’s nam...

Tuesday, January 29th, 2019. We stayed home all day. I slept all morning and all afternoon. I only woke up to eat, do the laundry and write a little bit. Sunshine and Daniel are very frustrated because the Internet connection is awful. Here we are at home, with all the time in the world to do homework, to catch up on the blog, to plan our next country and no Internet to do it. Gregory made an appointment to see a dermatologist. He called this morning and in the afternoon he had an appointment.  [Gregory's POV:] I had a heat rash and needed something for it. I also wanted to make sure it wasn't anything worse, so I asked a Rotarian doctor for a referral. He gave me the name of a clinic nearby. I called in the late morning and had an appointment for 4pm. I used Ride to call a car and a short time later I was at the building. I found the office upstairs, just past the 2-1/2th floor (for those of you who get that reference).  I walked in, the receptionist handed me a form a...