Todd Thille Blog

Got into Heathrow around 6 a.m. I was unable to check my bags all the way through to LAX, so I had to go through immigration and retrieve them in order to check them in again. The line at the immigration counter was incredibly long. I was glad to have some reading material with me. Most of the rest of the folks just had long faces and bored stares. I finally made it into England at 7:15 a.m. Glad I didn’t have a quick connection.

The baggage for the flight had not arrived at the carousel by the time I got there. Fortunately it was not long in coming and my bags were among the first few. Had a bit of a hike to get to the Heathrow Express. You can ride the train from terminal 4 where I was at to terminals 1-3 for free. Had another bit of a hike to get to the surface and into the correct terminal. United was at the other end of the terminal. My shoulder bag repeatedly seemed on the verge of falling off, I would stop every twenty paces of so to reposition it. Finally made it to the checkin counter where I was more than happy to turn in my bags.

I had several hours to kill before my 11:40 a.m. flight. I made a quick circuit of the airport and located a convenient power source for my computer. Spent the next two hours working and finishing up the last of the cashews I had. Finally got up and made another circuit before heading through the security check toward the boarding gates.

Ran another gauntlet of shops. Got sucked into the Virgin Megastore Express. Was surprised to see Goldfrapp’s “Black Cherry” in the New Release section. It had been out since early summer in the US. Popped into Dixon’s to look at some shortwave receivers. Managed to extricate myself from both establishments without opening my wallet.

At the final check-in counter I was able to get my seat changed to an aisle instead of a middle seat. Finally got on board and settled. It was beginning to look like I was going to have an empty seat next to me when the Captain came on to let us know that there was a problem with the hydraulics and that we would have to wait until the ground crew could figure out what was wrong. Half of the passengers were still waiting at the gate to be let on while the rest of us were on the plane. Seconds turned into minutes and the minutes dragged into hours. Three hours later, we were told that the problem could not be fixed in a timely manner and that our flight was rescheduled for 7:45 a.m. the following day. We would all be given a room in a nearby hotel along with transportation from and to the airport as well as meals.

Back through immigration I went. I was happy to find the line a bit shorter this go round. There was an incredibly long wait for the checked bags to be unloaded from the plane. While most of the rest of the passengers stood around looking wise, I was happy to have my book.

I was not looking forward to spending a great deal of out of doors in the 1 degree celsius temperature so was glad to find a bus was waiting when I got outside. Finally got to the Travel Inn a bit after 4 p.m. Got checked in and enjoyed the first hot shower in a couple of weeks. Headed over to the cafeteria for a ample serving of rice and vegetable chili with peas and carrots. Back in the room I attempted to get hooked up to the internet. My efforts were in vain, for although I had been provided with some time on a pre-paid phone card, I needed an ISP to actually make a dial-up connection to the Internet. My days of dial-up have been over for a couple of years and I am not thrilled with the idea of going back.

Fell asleep at the desk and awoke after midnight. Disappointed to find that my watch thought it should be New Years once again. Got it reset and an alarm set for 5 a.m.

Had another long day sequestered in the DTP office at work on the Pixel Corps website. Stepped out to the Royal Chef for a bite of lunch. Back at the keyboard for the rest of the afternoon and early evening. The internet connection died again around 8 p.m. The others headed out to what was billed as an all meat restaurant. I headed off to an Internet cafe to try and get some emails off. I had also hoped to get the revised website sent off to San Francisco. This did not come to pass as the Internet cafe was using a dial-up connection and the staff were unwilling to get my computer hooked up to it. I spent an hour there banging out emails on a keyboard with a sticky “F” key. As I was working with Macromedia Contribute to get the directions right for Dave Hurley, I noticed that all of the navigation disappeared from the pages I edited. This caused me a great deal of concern and drastically changed the nature of the emails I sent.

At the end of my hour I headed back to the office to collect the rest of my bags. I tried the connection there again and was pleasantly surprised to find it working. Spent the next few hours trying to get to the bottom of my errant navigation bar. Finally figured out that with the webserver on my computer the line breaks in the PHP part of the page were being deleted, causing the the PHP instructions to break. On my regular server the problem did not exist. It took a tremendous amount of time to get enough of the site uploaded to test it out.

Eventually folks in California came online and I was able to chat with Alex. Got it settled that I would update the pages for the time being and the training for the team leaders would be rescheduled for the end of January. By this point if was after 3 a.m. and the thought of hunting for a taxi did not seem very wise. I pulled up a few chairs and settled in for a bit of sleep.

We were up early to get some shots around the camp. The weather did not look like it would cooperate so we had breakfast first. As we were finishing up, the clouds gave way to the morning sun. We got more footage of the tents from the hill and then hiked out onto the plain to get a long shot of the camp. Walking along we noticed some rather interesting bright red furry insects that vaguely resembled velvet ants. Tim thought the insects were some type of giant spider mite.

Brought out by the rain, these spider mites covered the ground like little drops of blood.

After we had finished our filming, were we off on a morning game drive. The game was scarce again but we did see some fish eagles, mud and lung fish, elephants, giraffe, buffalo, wildebeest, long-tailed fiscals, golden orioles, and a green parrot.

  
A fish eagle from a distance. This wildebeest did a pose-a-thon for us, showing us all sides.

Eventually we headed back to camp to gather the rest of our things, settle our accounts and have a spot of tea and cake. The time to meet the Scandinavian bus back to Dar es Salaam was fast approaching so we headed for the main road. The bus was not forthcoming, so our haste was rewarded with a long wait at the side of the highway. Chantal and Sandrine napped while I talked with Tim and photographed a burnt out bus that was on the shoulder just opposite the entrance to the Safari Camp.

The carcass of a burnt out bus just across the road from the entrance to the Safari Camp.

  
Tim on the lookout for the Scandinavian bus. Chantal and Sandrine having a little nap in the truck.

An hour passed its usual 1 p.m. flyby, the bus arrived. We found one of the members from the Voigt group aboard. She was on her way back to Dar to attend a conference on Developing Nations. Our assigned seats were all filled. After some shuffling we were all seated. Things turned out not to be quite alright. The seat that Sandrine ended up with was soaked with urine. Unfortunately, she realized this only after she had initially put her knee on the seat and then sat on it for a bit. She managed to get a different one, but by then she was soaked.

I read while we hurtled toward Dar at breakneck speed. The underlying theme to the trip seemed to be bodily fluids. In addition to the urine, I observed a young girl that was making a pained full-cheeked chipmunk face that turned out to be a mouthful of vomit. Crashed out in the back was another very ill girl who was drenched in sweat.

Hundreds of mashed insects adorned the front of the bus.

We were all happy to come to a stop in Dar without major mishap. Miriam’s brother was at the station to greet us, or more correctly the paying guest that happened to be on the bus with us. We all piled into a cab and headed toward Micocheni. Maina was not at home so we headed over to Hanif’s to find that Alex and Jeannie Fox had returned. We chatted with them for a bit before Maina arrived up. Back at Maina’s, we freshened up and all went out for a farewell dinner for Sandrine at a nice Italian restaurant. During the entire meal we were serenaded by a Koran thumping Moslem revival blaring out over load speakers in the empty lot in front of the restaurant.

We saw Julia out of the house at 7 a.m. Basta and Julius had worked on the food for the train trip until 3 a.m. We moved our gear over to Maina’s house in anticipation of Hanif arriving back in Tanzania before we returned from Mikumi. As we were coming back by the house, Fadhil arrived with Alex’s Land Cruiser and a taxi in tow. The Land Cruiser was left at Hanif’s and we all piled into the taxi. We were the second group to arrive at the station. Two photographers from Conde Nast had arrived before us. Along with two other guests and the Marketing Manager for A Tent with a View, they were to depart the train in the Selous.

We waited another half hour for the larger group of 13 people to arrive. The larger group was a last pilgrimage to Tanzania by Helga Voigt, the 95 year old widow of Werner Voigt, a German settler who had come to Bagamoyo in 1926 and stayed in East Africa for the next 60 years. The family still holds the lease to Ras Roale, the peninsula that the Foxes’ Lazy Lagoon camp is situated on. Along with Helga were her two daughters, Evelyn and Veronika, along with their husbands and assorted family friends.

A pair of Maasai had been arranged to provide some extra local color. Their put on dance on the platform was well received by the others, but seemed a little contrived and hollow to us. We have been spoiled by seeing the real thing in a more natural setting.

Julia talking with Helga Voigt, who at 95 is making a last pilgrimage to Tanzania where she lived for 56 years.

  
The Maasai warriors were quite a spectacle.

We got aboard the train and were off on our 10 hour journey to Mikumi. This trip was far more pleasant than our last experience on the locomotive with Else. We flitted amongst the other guests. I spent a while chatting with John, an audio engineer form Ottawa. He was very curious about what we were doing and vice versa. Soon I had my Titanium hooked up to his iBook and files were flying back and forth. I also chatted with Gordon, the gentleman who had arranged the trip for the group. He had been a travel agent before retiring and was currently working as a conflict resolution consultant. He has worked at all sorts of levels, from couple to small and large businesses and was interested in working with countries in the future. Sandrine was particularly interested in the work he had done in Kosovo.

I also enjoyed listening to a chemical engineer who lived outside Basel, Germany. He was in charge of safety procedures for a large producer of pigments and anti-bacterial agents. He had travelled widely in South America, the Far East and India to help implement safety programs in all of the companies plants around the world.

Had a delicious vegetable curry for lunch. Basta brought out an extra plate which I enjoyed a great deal. We hit a spot of rain in the early afternoon. Chantal was not pleased, but I am sure all of the living things in the parched Selous were quite happy.

  
Enjoying the ride on the Foxes Safari Express.

As we neared the Udzungwa Mountains we passed through mile after mile of sugar cane fields. It was a welcome change to see so much green. We pulled into the station, such as it was, just before sunset. Metta from Vuma Hills was there to greet us with a mini bus and truck.

Most of the hour-long drive to Vuma was completed in the dark. The three of us were in the truck with an excellent driver. We arrived just after the mini bus. I got settled in the same room I had had when we came through with Julie and Gabriel in October. We had a delicious dinner of vegetable curry and tucked in soon thereafter.

The voracious termites eating the grasses in the camp. The sounds of their nocturnal munching had intrigued me in July. This time I was prepared with a flashlight.