We're back in Africa and back in the Mog. It's good to be here - all the evocative sounds and smells.
We arrived in the early hours of Tuesday and we're met by Hamza, the taxi driver that Manfred & Maria had organised and stayed in their guest house for the first night.
We got the truck off its jacks yesterday after having organised stores and insurance (a whole 25000 Tanzanian Shillings - about £8 - for a month - which puts into perspective what the guys on the Malawian border tried to charge us last year!), it seems to have survived well and is running fine.
Sue has already spotted a shed-load of birds, including some never-seen-befores.
We met up with Ann & Clive who are out here with their Mercedes too, they had lots of good advice and addresses. They have suggested an itinerary through Amboseli and Tsavo West taking into account the problems of getting entry cards etc, we're currently thinking about it.
We are still in the Arusha area as our bags never arrived here....so far the support from Turkish Airlines has been nil, every time we ring (when we can get through)we are just told "ring back tomorrow". We took the decision today to head back to the airport to find out what has really happened - it seems that the bags were found the next day in Istanbul and put on the next flight to Kilimanjaro - but never arrived(?!). We have a lot of important spares and medicines in these bags, so we are keen to recover them as soon as possible, we are currently parked in the airport waiting for the next Turkish Airlines flight to arrive at 1am in the hope that they are on it!
If they don't arrive tonight then we it'll be back to Arusha to try to replace some of the items that are most critical (including half of our anti-malarials - eek!).
Various acronyms spring to mind - AWA, THY, TIT......
We arrived in the early hours of Tuesday and we're met by Hamza, the taxi driver that Manfred & Maria had organised and stayed in their guest house for the first night.
We got the truck off its jacks yesterday after having organised stores and insurance (a whole 25000 Tanzanian Shillings - about £8 - for a month - which puts into perspective what the guys on the Malawian border tried to charge us last year!), it seems to have survived well and is running fine.
Sue has already spotted a shed-load of birds, including some never-seen-befores.
We met up with Ann & Clive who are out here with their Mercedes too, they had lots of good advice and addresses. They have suggested an itinerary through Amboseli and Tsavo West taking into account the problems of getting entry cards etc, we're currently thinking about it.
We are still in the Arusha area as our bags never arrived here....so far the support from Turkish Airlines has been nil, every time we ring (when we can get through)we are just told "ring back tomorrow". We took the decision today to head back to the airport to find out what has really happened - it seems that the bags were found the next day in Istanbul and put on the next flight to Kilimanjaro - but never arrived(?!). We have a lot of important spares and medicines in these bags, so we are keen to recover them as soon as possible, we are currently parked in the airport waiting for the next Turkish Airlines flight to arrive at 1am in the hope that they are on it!
If they don't arrive tonight then we it'll be back to Arusha to try to replace some of the items that are most critical (including half of our anti-malarials - eek!).
Various acronyms spring to mind - AWA, THY, TIT......