Day 212 - Flight Ethiopia- Tanzania.
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 brunch of chicken and rice and before we knew it, we were landing. The kids were bummed that it was a 2-hour flight, they wanted to watch more movies. When we got out of the plane, we were melting! The temperature was 90 degrees F (32 C) and there was no air conditioning!
They had us make a line and use hand sanitizer before we even entered the airport. They had us wait out of line because we didn’t have the yellow vaccine card for the kids! We had the vaccine paper that my cousin gave us in Mexico but we never had a doctor actually recorded in the kid's yellow vaccine card. Gregory and I had ours done in France. We were sent to another room with an officer and our papers. I was very nervous and trying to explain to the officer where we had our vaccines and explained to him that in Mexico, they don’t give you a yellow card. Gregory kept telling me “mordida” which in Spanish means “bribe”. I thought he wanted me to bribe the officer but I couldn’t. The officer was offering to sell us international vaccine cards for $25. I was ready to pay when Gregory told the officer that we would go to a doctor so he could record in the yellow cards. The officer let us go and we didn’t pay him a cent! I still wasn’t sure what had happened but was happy to be out.
My happiness didn’t last long because we had to wait in line for 2 hours to get an expensive visa. We paid $100 per person and after that, we had to wait another hour in the meeting room to go through immigration. And of course, when it was our turn to go next, Daniel was in the bathroom throwing up for the third time in 12 hours. I was worried that he would dehydrate but luckily I had an extra bottle of water! Finally, we went through immigration and then, surprise, we had to go to another line to get all our fingerprints recorded!!! I wanted to die it was so hot.
We finished the whole process around 4:00pm and we still had to find a taxi to the hotel, which I knew was far and expensive. Luckily, Gregory saw the official sign and didn’t even try to negotiate. He found an ATM and got some money. Time to learn a new language and get used to the new currency which is the TZS or Tanzanian Shilling. One dollar is 2,300 shillings. Everything will seem expensive!
We drove for half an hour to our hotel. They drive on the left side here! Poor Daniel fell asleep and the rest of us watched how the road changed from an arid landscape to a lush green. I was a little worried when the taxi drove from the road to a very bumpy dirt road. The hotel is in the middle of nowhere and is a safari style. They welcomed us and we got to settle in our very nice family cabin!
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 brunch of chicken and rice and before we knew it, we were landing. The kids were bummed that it was a 2-hour flight, they wanted to watch more movies. When we got out of the plane, we were melting! The temperature was 90 degrees F (32 C) and there was no air conditioning!
They had us make a line and use hand sanitizer before we even entered the airport. They had us wait out of line because we didn’t have the yellow vaccine card for the kids! We had the vaccine paper that my cousin gave us in Mexico but we never had a doctor actually recorded in the kid's yellow vaccine card. Gregory and I had ours done in France. We were sent to another room with an officer and our papers. I was very nervous and trying to explain to the officer where we had our vaccines and explained to him that in Mexico, they don’t give you a yellow card. Gregory kept telling me “mordida” which in Spanish means “bribe”. I thought he wanted me to bribe the officer but I couldn’t. The officer was offering to sell us international vaccine cards for $25. I was ready to pay when Gregory told the officer that we would go to a doctor so he could record in the yellow cards. The officer let us go and we didn’t pay him a cent! I still wasn’t sure what had happened but was happy to be out.
My happiness didn’t last long because we had to wait in line for 2 hours to get an expensive visa. We paid $100 per person and after that, we had to wait another hour in the meeting room to go through immigration. And of course, when it was our turn to go next, Daniel was in the bathroom throwing up for the third time in 12 hours. I was worried that he would dehydrate but luckily I had an extra bottle of water! Finally, we went through immigration and then, surprise, we had to go to another line to get all our fingerprints recorded!!! I wanted to die it was so hot.
We finished the whole process around 4:00pm and we still had to find a taxi to the hotel, which I knew was far and expensive. Luckily, Gregory saw the official sign and didn’t even try to negotiate. He found an ATM and got some money. Time to learn a new language and get used to the new currency which is the TZS or Tanzanian Shilling. One dollar is 2,300 shillings. Everything will seem expensive!
We drove for half an hour to our hotel. They drive on the left side here! Poor Daniel fell asleep and the rest of us watched how the road changed from an arid landscape to a lush green. I was a little worried when the taxi drove from the road to a very bumpy dirt road. The hotel is in the middle of nowhere and is a safari style. They welcomed us and we got to settle in our very nice family cabin!
For pictures please click here
https://photos.app.goo.gl/2PaBtENL1Mok6Qfk6
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