stopover in Karatu

Before I can continue my KFFS re-cap, I have to write a quick note. My buddy Andrew and I, who are traveling to Olduvai together, are in Karatu, Tanzania about 2 hours outside of Olduvai Gorge. We are waiting for a car to come and pick us up. We were hoping to be there by now...in fact we were supposed to have gotten in last night, but things often don't work out as planned here. Our bus from Nairobi had something wrong with the axle (I think) and so we and two other people got our bags from the top of the bus and hired a matatu (minibus) to take us to the border. From there our bus company actually managed to find us and put us in minivans for the rest of the journey to Arusha. So a 5 hour trip turned into 7 hours pretty quickly. Then we had to get Tanzanian shillings in Arusha so that took some time. And there were many miscommunications along the way. We finally got on the express bus to Karatu at about 5pm. Sadly, the trip is 2 hours and since the gate to Ngorongoro crater national park closes at 6pm we had to stay in Karatu for the night. However, we stayed at a lovely placed called Msimbisi Inn. Had a hot shower and everything. Very nice. Oh and we ate dinner at a place called Paradise last night. I had chicken and fed the leftovers to the resident mouser cats. Then Andrew and I looked at the toothmarks on the bones. Yes, we are dorks. But it's such fun. So now we're emailing and such for a few minutes before we sit down and wait for the guy to come from Olduvai.

I still probably won't email again for a couple of weeks, but then again you never know!

Tutaonana.
Pammer