30. A life of luxury

 

Merry X’Mas from SantAfrica and us : )

Entering Tanzania we are welcomed by the beautiful Mount Meru. We are driving up to Arusha where the brother of a good friend of Kosta has a little piece of paradise on earth called Meru View Lodge. After we have been send the wrong way by people who were 100 % sure where it was, we finally arrive at 7 pm. We are welcomed by Horst, Debbie and the kids. They live in a gorgeous house overlooking the mountain. Deb, btw, is the female world record holder of the fastest ascent and descent of Kilimanjaro! If we remember correctly she got to the top and back down in about 13 hours. To say that I am already proud when I take the stairs to the third floor or so at work…. (I don’t want to hear any comments now on ‘stairs at work’ LOL). And then the unexpected happens: all of a sudden Deb says “I have asked them to prepare a room for you”. I can not tell you how that sounded like the most beautiful music to my ears. We were thinking of parking the car maybe in their garden for the night but no, we are invited to sleep in a real room with a real mattress and a real shower! For us this is like winning the travel lottery! And as you can imagine, the thought of staying two nights turns into a stay of 5 nights. This my friends was a time of luxury and pure relaxation! And the food! I tell you, we could get used to this LOL! (I have to admit, I might be a backpacker, I might be an overlander sleeping in the car, but deep down inside I am a princess LOL).

But all good things come to an end and so on Christmas day we take of to our next destination. This is an ideal day for driving as there are not so many cars and trucks. Only the busses still drive like crazy to get their passengers to their destination. Sometimes you are almost driving next to the tarmac as they pass you by in the middle of the road. Yes speeding is surely a habit here… and that is probably why they have police officers checking the speed you are doing and giving you a ticket for speeding ;) Yes, once again we are pulled over. No point in discussing this time, we were doing 50 where we were only allowed 30. As Kosta is driving (and I don’t say this to make me look innocent LOL) I did not see the 30 km per hour sign. “You can drive 50 here”, I tell the officer and I add that there was no sign for 30. But then Kosta smiles at me and says “Babe, no getting out of this one, I saw the sign”.  Damn LOL

As we arrive in Lushoto we have already forgotten about the fine. The beauty of nature here just makes you smile. We spend a couple of days walking and doing a good hike, enjoying the cooler air of the mountains. And then it is time to make our way to the beach and sweat a little ; ).

Pangani is our beach stop and this is where we stay for about five days. Together with ‘our’ family Kamp we enter the year 2012. When we say goodbye on the 2nd we know we will have to miss them for a while.  We’ve been bumping into each other loads of times but now we have totally different routes. Maybe we will meet again on our way to Cape Town, who knows…