First Night in Town

It was 10:05 in Amsterdam on the 23rd when I began writing this piece. I still had another 9hr flight to Kilimanjaro. The first leg of the trip was brutal. I was in airplane hell, stuffed like a sardine next to a gassy lassy and her sick sister. Couple this with the fact, I had already been up for a total of 20hrs with a growing likelihood of sleep evading me under such circumstances.

I had a short layover in Amsterdam and quickly boarded the plane to Kilimanjaro. Fortunately, this time I had an aisle seat near the rear airplane exit offering a bit more room to stretch my leg. Unfortunately, sleeping was still not on my cards, as I had the unique experience of sitting next to a rather chatty, adolescent behaving 20year old smitten with the guy seated to her right. Her infatuation with her love object was not what I took issue with. Instead, it was her incessant, loud chatter and the sleep-deprived state that made me somewhat testy. I remember being 20 once. And so, with a polite and sweet tone, I asked her if she would lower her voice a bit so that I could sleep. I think I had a total of 3 hours of sleep after that.

It was 7:35 pm when my plane arrived at JRO.  Upon disembarking the plane, I inhaled my first aroma of remote land. The night was still warm and balmy, and the air was filled with a sharp, pungent odor of salty, ferrous equatorial heat. I followed the herd of travelers through customs and immigration and out the front door. I was greeted by a swarm of eager taxi drivers and tour operators. My airport pickup transportation was previously arranged in LA. I scanned a row of handmade signs searching for my name or the name of my hotel, but neither caught my eye.

"Which hotel are you going to?" asked an eager young cabbie.

 "Springslands Hotel," I replied promptly.

"Ok, I take you. Come with me." as he took a step closer.

 "Do you work for Springslands Hotel?" I asked authoritatively

"No, I'm a taxi, but I take you to Springslands," he replied

"No, thank you," I answered, and just in time as another young lad stepped forward with a sign of my tour company and a list of guest airport pickup names. I pointed to my name on the list.

"Please stand with the others over there. We go in 15 minutes," he motioned to a group of 5 other wide-eyed, jet-lagged trekkers.

I made my way to the others, and in a few minutes, we boarded the van and set out for a 40minute drive under the starry Tanzanian night to the hotel. It was the first time; I let a sigh of relief as I knew I was on the right track. I neither like nor recommend any solo woman to travel at night for obvious reasons. But, I took a chance this time as I had secured transportation arrangements with the tour operator before my departure.