Tuesday & Wednesday, January 21-22, 2014

Our Part I safari group consists of:

     Rada & Kent Brooks, San Francisco, California
     Beth & Leo Cyr, Gulf Breeze, Florida
     Marianne & Mike Kaufman, Long Island, New York
     Jeanne & Jory Kesten, Toronto, Canada  

Beth & I fly Delta from Pensacola to Atlanta . In Atlanta, we meet Jeanne & Jory Kesten and Marianne & Mike Kaufman. Jeanne & Jory were on our May 2012 Viking River Tour of Russia. They are from Toronto and live part of the year in Florida. The Kestens have been to Africa before and are anxious to return. Marianne and Mike Kaufman own a 'Bed & Breakfast' in the Hamptons of Long Island, New York. Part of the year, they are the Kesten’s neighbors in Ft. Lauderdale, FL.

Rada and Kent Brooks will meet us in Arusha, Tanzania. They are friends from our 2012 trip to Egypt and Israel. They are already enjoying the sun in Zanzibar.

The Delta flight to Amsterdam is on time and relatively uneventful. We arrive in Amsterdam at 8:15 A.M. on January 22^nd. Bill Given arrived a few hours before us from Denver. The seven of us board KLM for our eight hour flight to Mt Kilimanjaro, Tanzania.

As we board the KLM flight, Beth & I meet an old friend - Kori Northrup. Kori works for Tauck Tours. She was our tour director for our 2012 safari in Kenya and Tanzania. We share a nice reunion in the aisle of the aircraft.

Upon arrival in Arusha, we pass the through long lines at Tanzanian Immigrations paying $100 each for our visas. Mariam, from the local Wild Source office, drives us to the Arusha Hotel in downtown Arusha. The drive takes forty five minutes. The hotel restaurant is still open so all of us grab some dinner. It is 2 A.M. before we get to bed.