We took a notebook with us to Tanzania and documented the whole trip on a day by day basis. I wrote my entries at the end of each and every day and I plan to just type those entries up to form the blog. Some of the entries will seem quite dull, others are quite personal so please bear with me. Sean wrote his own entries each day and I'm trying to convince him to get them up on to the blog too so you can experience the trip from two different view points. Anyway, that's enough explaining, here's the first entry, I hope you enjoy:
Day One – The Start of the Fairhurst-Chaffe Adventures
I am currently sat on the plane with one thought on my mind
– Sean is such a pain in the backside! He says that we both have to write
separate diary entries instead of us working together and creating one entry
for each day. That idea has backfired on him hugely as he doesn’t have a
notepad or pen. Unlucky Chaffe!
Our journey began at home with us trying to pack our bags
for a three week trip which would encompass a variety of activities and a whole
range of weather. We ended up with 5 hold bags, 2 hand luggage backpacks and a
suit carrier between us.
We had already pre-booked a taxi to take us to the airport
and after struggling to get all of our bags through the narrow corridors and
into the lift in our flat, we were soon settled into the taxi and on our way.
After months and months of planning and extensive list writing, I couldn’t
believe that it was finally here and we were off to explore Tanzania and climb
Kilimanjaro, the world’s highest free standing mountain. The journey to the
airport was fast and uneventful but it slowly began to sink in that we were
about to embark on the biggest adventure of our lives so far.
At the airport we managed to pile all of our bags onto one
trolley (mainly because they charge you £1 per trolley at Manchester airport
and, unlike at the supermarket, you don’t get that £1 back again at the end!).
I looked ridiculous as I could barely see over all the bags but I made Sean
take a photo of me which, of course, was uploaded to Facebook immediately with
the first of many posts from this trip. We had checked in online last night so
we just needed to drop our bags off at the check-in desk. We managed to be at
the front of the queue when the desks opened and somehow, even with 5 bags, we
were well under our baggage allowance of 60kg with a total of only 36kg between
us . The lady on the desk wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed and asked Sean
if the suit carrier was a laptop despite the bag being 105 x 58 cm which would
be a hell of a laptop. I subtly dropped in the fact that we were about to
get married but, unfortunately, we didn’t get a free upgrade to first class.
We had our first alcoholic beverage of the holiday and got
some average lunch and a large chain restaurant which was made less than
average by the chav version of the von Trapp family sat next to us – one of the
children felt it necessary to jump up and down on the bench that I was sharing
with them continually for the 45 minutes that we were there, another one was
warming up her vocal chords for a rendition of “The Hills are Alive” by
screaming as loud as possible.
Having just got on the plane, Sean has insisted that he is
going to use my notepad and my pen to also write his journal entries
and is adamant that he needs to write his first entry immediately…
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