After 30 grueling hours of travel, we arrived safely at Kilimanjaro Airport last night, a little bedraggled but so glad to be back in Tanzania. The flights were on time-even a little early into Amsterdam thanks to a frisky tailwind. Met up with Dr. Tyson-he’s hard to miss in the crowd and has now been nicknamed “Kevinmanjaro.” A short wait in Amsterdam and then we were wedged back into the steerage seats and set off south to East Africa. A beautiful view of snowcapped Alps then over Spain, across the Straits of Gibraltar and over the African continent. The Sahara stretches for miles and while we enjoyed another unidentifiable inflight snack,the sun set over the Nile. Landed in Arusha under a beautiful African moon and a sky filled with stars. Dr. Solomon was there to welcome us and help with the “customs Dance”. That went smoothly. The hitch was one suitcase was missing (Bag # 4 with all of our symposium supplies,if you see it) and Jody Casserly’s suitcase looked like it had been mauled by a pack of leopards (I believe it is actually a “leap” of leopards-anyway,rather solitary animals,so it doesn’t matter…but back to our story. Turns out the mechanized wonders of baggage handling either in LA or Amsterdam did a number on the suitcase. After a few bureaucratic details, we greeted our wonderful friends, Pascal and Lesikar and headed out for the comfortable beds of Moivaro Plantation. It’s breakfast time now. No sign of my team, but I’m sure they are waking up to this beautiful African morning and are ready to start work. Karibu all! It’s good to be back in Tanzania.

Kim Shriner
Moivaro Plantation
Arusha, Tanzania