Holili to dar to uk 08-15 july ’20

I’ve decided to complete the blog for the last week of my boda boda safari, before I begin my next adventure. I finally managed to leave Tanzania…and it was certainly a mad rush.

On the 8th I caught the Kilimanjaro bus from Kilema to Dar. I had given myself plenty of time to make sure I didn’t miss it, but it meant a lot of sitting around. It didn’t help that the daladala from Holili to Kilema was not only on time but even a bit early !! I got off the bus before the main office and walked to the stage for Segerea. Bumped into Andrew who helped me , because I needed to change daladala twice to get to Segerea. Nice to see Emil and co again. Different bedroom this time, but still en suite.

The 9th I went into Dar city, and after quite a long walk I found the Ethiopian airlines office. The good news was that they were only going to charge me 49USD to switch my ticket from Nbi to Dar. The bad news was that I had to complete a passenger health locator form and submit it to the UK border agency to enable me to enter the UK. Went back to the hotel which I’ve used for wifi to find the relevant website. Found the form online…thanks to Judith back home and began filling it in. I could’ve booked my flight for Mon 13th but with a weekend coming up and not feeling confident about the form filling, I confirmed my flight for the 14th. Eventually, and after a stressful Monday of rushing around Dar…downloading the form onto my phone, finding a cyber café/ print shop to print the form, went with the proof to Ethiopian airlines and I was set to go the following day.

Told to have very little hand luggage so stuffed my rucksack….everyone else had hand luggage….didn’t matter as it was a night flight mainly. Got to the airport way too early….it was much closer than I expected and the walk from the main road to the terminal was much shorter than I was led to believe. And the flight was a bit later than planned. So, much sitting around. But handy that Emil’s place is only 25 mins or so from Julius Nyerere Intl airport. Good flight. Social distancing in place so all the passengers had a row of 3 seats to themselves.

Landed at Kilimanjaro airport briefly. Had used that airport 3 times before with Turkish but always landing around midnight, so this was first time seeing what it looked like in the daylight. Then a regret of mine. Had switched my phone off and put it away, only to find we flew right over Mt Kilimanjaro. It was jaw droppingly spectacular….I kept saying wow, wow…but no pictures unfortunately. Then on to Addis. Tried to buy a bottle of Amarula from Duty free for Alan’s birthday but told it wasn’t possible to buy alcohol !!! Somewhat odd but I couldn’t be bothered to get an explanation….

Landed at Heathrow at exactly the correct time…07:00 and just before 08:00 I was already through all the checks and sitting on the underground on my way to central London. From there it was a train to Eastbourne and the start of my regulation 2 weeks quarantine. So, that was the end of my 9.5 months adventure in East Africa.