Travel days are always eventful. Something memorable is certainly bound to occur!
For example, while traveling from Haiti to Thailand, we had a short layover in Miami. Our flight arrived late, which required us to RUN through the airport, with American Airlines personnel yelling at us to drop our checked bags and run to a priority security line then continue running to our gate. We did as instructed and made our connecting flight to LA. Praise God!
Well, this last travel day from Cambodia to Tanzania was no exception!
We bused from Siem Reap to the Cambodia / Thailand border, a short 3 hour ride.
Once we arrived at the border, we unloaded the bus, walked to the Cambodia immigration line then walked a half mile or so through “no man’s land” to the Thailand immigration line, where we waited for 5 hours – in the heat, with all our gear.
We could have decreased our wait time significantly had we decided to pay someone off to bump us to the front of the line – but we continued to wait. Luckily, we had enough time build into our schedule to allow for 5 hours at the border without missing our departing flight.
Once through immigration, we continued by bus to Bangkok, where we have to wait a few hours in the airport before we were allowed to check our bags.
We check our bags, went through customs/immigration and security, ate a quick dinner, then headed to our gate.
The flight from Bangkok to Nairobi, Kenya was 9 hours, most of which was spend sleeping!
Once we landed in Nairobi, the squad divided into two groups because we couldn’t all fit on the same flight into Dar es Salaam – the squad was divided alphabetically, which meant I was on the second flight and had a 6-hour layover in Nairobi. I spent that time reading, sleeping, and eating breakfast.
We boarded our one-hour flight to Dar es Salaam around 11:30am.
We arrived in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania in a blink of an eye. We quickly passed through immigration, with everyone obtaining their visas, collected our bags and met up with the rest of the squad.
We waited for direction, and finally were instructed that the team leaders, treasurers, two logistics leaders, and one squad leader would go ahead to the hotel to finalize arrangements. We waited for a while longer, when finally, further instruction was given that the people on the first flight were now leaving for the hotel.
Since I was on the second flight, I continued to wait. And wait. And wait. And wait!
Four hours had past without us hearing from the rest of the squad … and without the van returning to pick us up, as we had to be transported from the airport to hotel in shifts.
Finally, we heard that the earlier group had run into complications at the hotel – the hotel wanted to increase the rate astronomically because we needed to add a few extra rooms – finally they hashed it out and the van returned to the airport to pick us up.
We quickly crammed into a small van, when it arrived nearly one hour later – people and luggage together and set off on the traffic filled, bumpy, African roads. I was so tired, I couldn’t help but fall asleep – I was sitting next to an open window – when I awoke a few moments later as the van came to a stop, I was startled to find an African man standing outside my window soliciting the sale of some random items! What a way to wake up! Needless-to-say, I stayed away the remainder of the ride!
We soon arrived at the hotel, unloaded, and walked up 3 flights of stairs to my room – WITH ALL MY GEAR!
I showered and crashed, exhausted after two days of travel, with another full day soon approaching!
We headed to the bus station early the next morning, 6:15am to be exact. Ashlee asked a man from the hotel to walk the three blocks to the bus station with us in order to show us which bus was ours. Thank God he was with us – we never would have found our bus without his assistance! He led us through a maze of people and buses. At one point, he led us in front of a parked bus that began to pull out – it literally grazed my arm as it pulled forward! Several locals pulled two other girls out of the path of the moving bus – literally saving them from injury!
We quickly found our seats and settled in for what we expected to be a six-hour ride from Dar es Salaam to Arusha, but turned about being 10 hours!
TIA – This Is Africa!
The bus stopped on the side of the road in Arusha to les us off – our contacts were there waiting for us. Our bags were efficiently loaded into two vans and we loaded in ourselves and drove to our ministry site, a bumpy 30-minute ride.
Once we reached our destination, Ashlee and Andrea met with the pastor to discuss the month’s schedule – we soon discovered their intention to split our two teams for the first two weeks. We were all disappointed not to be working together for the entire month, but enjoyed dinner together before saying our goodbyes.
Team “Just Love” loaded back up into a van and set off once again – another 30 minutes of insanely bumpy roads to our next ministry site.
After nearly 72 hours of travel, we had arrived to where we’d be spending the next two weeks!
