We took a small plane to Arusha, did some last minute shopping and repaired to a day room for a few hours to freshen up and finalize packing. We met Severin's lovely wife at lunch and she brought us presents -- for the ladies, a scarf necklace with tube-shaped beading at the middle and ends, and for the men, a length of fabric used as a wrap on cold days.
Our trip to the airport was made more challenging when a key bridge outage created the need for a 45 minute detour. But the Kilimanjaro International Airport is small and the delay didn't hurt us. We headed south to Dar es Salaam to drop off some passengers and pick up more before flying to Amsterdam.
We had a couple hour layover and some more excitement after boarding. The captain told us there was a group of 11 trying to board but two of them had 'paperwork problems' and raised a ruckus when denied boarding. The other 9 refused to continue if their friends couldn't and apparently the situation got heated enough that the airline left them all behind, but then had to also find and remove their luggage before we could depart. This is a big reminder to flyers: KEEP CALM!
The two 11 hour flights were otherwise uneventful and we were home only 30 minutes later than planned. It feels really good to be in our own bed again! We had a fabulous time and saw more than we had ever hoped for and will probably go back to Africa to spend more time in places like South Africa and Namibia. We had originally thought of this as our last Africa trip (after Egypt and Morocco), but maybe not.
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