 Welcome to Blue Ocean Studios  Around the World
At 9:30am, I went down to the lobby to wait for our special visitors - my parents (Tom and Jackie)! They are joining us for a 6 day safari in the Tanzania National Parks. They traveled all the way from Florida through the night to London, and then on to Nairobi, where they caught a few hours sleep at the Hilton hotel. This morning, they had a short flight into the Kilimanjaro airport and were due to arrive at the hotel around 10am. Just as I was starting to wonder if their flight was on time or not, they walked into the lobby! They didn't see me at first and I surprised them from behind. It was great to see them again after being away from everyone we know for the past 2 1/2 months. They had to check into a temporary room while they waited for a room to be available on our floor. Good thing they didn't need to stay in that first room because it was right next to a major construction zone. We had to walk over some bare concrete floors with wires all over the place to get to their room and then we found it to be a cramped small room with the construction next door pounding on the wall.
We had lunch at the Chinese/Italian restaurant and then went back to our rooms to rest up for a few hours. They were exhausted from their long journey here, and we were still recovering from Kilimanjaro.
By the way, we want to revise our earlier statement about the Impala Hotel. I guess we must have caught them on an extra bad day. Since our bad impression, everyone has been much more friendly and welcoming to us. It is a nice hotel, in the middle of a 3rd world country, and you can't expect it to be without problems (for example, the electricity has been blinking off and on several times each night). (The lights went off 3 times during dinner!) Tomorrow afternoon we'll be departing for our exciting safari adventure! View Mt. Kilimanjaro Photo Gallery Day 70 - Mt Kilimanjaro < | Index | Photo Galleries | > Day 72 - Lake Manyara © 2007 Blue Ocean Studios, LTD. All rights Reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms of Use | Services | About | Contact Prints | Return Policy | View Cart World Travel Galleries | World Travel Blog | Links |
Mario woke up this morning very sick from last night's meal. Even though he had eaten the same meal before, I guess this time something was not right. It was my turn to nurse him back to health: several gingerales and some tylenol seemed to help out. He spent the morning resting up.
Once they got to their new room, Mario was feeling a little better, and we spent some time catching up. They already got a taste of what it is like here in a 3rd world country on their drive from the airport to the hotel - lots of people out busy on the roads doing all sorts of various activities (ploughing with oxen/burros, picking rocks from fields, hoeing fields, carrying water, carrying wood, carrying bananas or vegetables,carrying/selling clothes). Also there were many 1/2 finished buildings, tiny shack homes and dirt everywhere. 
For dinner, we decided to try out the Indian restaurant at our hotel. Mario and I had been scared of it in the past stay since we were both feeling sick - my stomach was not ready for spices or curry after how sick I got in South Africa. We were finally ready to try it, and after dinner, we had wished we had gone there for every meal! It turned out to be one of the best Indian meals we have ever had. We enjoyed one of our bottles of South African wine during dinner (we are planning on drinking all of 5 of the bottles this week so we don't have to carry them around anymore) :) 