Day 23. Sunday, July 29. Dar es Salaam, TZ, to Nairobi, Kenya, to London, England.

Day 16 in Tanzania. Qua heir Tanzania! (in Swahili: Good bye Tanzania) It's been fun, and I look forward to coming back.

A long day of travel. We departed the motel about 11:00 AM, departed Dar es Salaam at 2:30 PM for a 1-1/4 hr. flight to Nairobi, Kenya. We are laying over in Nairobi 7 hours and will depart Nairobi at 11:15 PM for a 9-hr flight to London, England.

Link to trip map.

The day dawned with high-thin clouds and quiet streets. I guess people are sleeping off the big football game (soccer to us Yanks) last night in Dar which the local team won. We got up late, enjoyed a long breakfast downstairs (coffee with hot milk, pasta noodles, baked beans, a hot dog, a hard-boiled egg, two scrambled eggs, thin watermelon slices, and a bit of mango), and are now making final preparations to depart the hotel.

We took a taxi to the airport (30,000 Tzs), arrived early, navigated check-in and security (everything did not go smoothly, but we got through), and waited for our flight. We departed Dar es Salaam a bit late (about 2:30 PM) on Kenya Airways for 1-1/4 hour flight to Nairobi, Kenya.

Most of the flight was cloudy, but I got nice views of Dar, a few glimpses of Zanzibar, and views of Kenya when we got back below the clouds. On the other side of the plane, Cathy got nice views of Kilimanjaro from 36,000 feet.

The Nairobi Airport, lying at the hub of international crossroads, reminds me of the bar scene in the movie Star Wars. We are all humans here, but there is every kind of human being: big, small, new, old, colors that range from near albino to the blackest black, dress that ranges from western to eastern and everything in between including endless religious symbolism, and languages that span the corners of the earth. If we weren't all humans, this really could be the Star Wars bar. I guess the only commonality we have here, other than all being the same species, is that everyone here is affluent enough to travel; the same I suppose for the Star Wars bar.

We expect to layover in Nairobi 7 hours, then depart Nairobi in the middle of the night on British Airways for a 9-hr flight to London Heathrow Airport, England. All of this flight will be in the dark.