New Year Travelling

Back in October we learnt that Auric Air, a Tanzanian airline, was adding Mpanda to its flight routes. So when Theo was due for some immunisations around December we decided to take advantage of this and fly to Dar for a New Year break.

It was so nice! We flew from Mpanda to Mwanza on this 12-seater aeroplane, hung out in Mwanza for a few hours and then took another internal flight to Dar, which arrived in the late evening. In other words : We got to Dar in less than 12 hours! This felt like nothing short of a miracle as every other time we've needed to travel between Dar and Mpanda the journey time has been counted in days, not hours. It makes a surprising amount of difference to how remote we feel living here as well as being very promising for having visitors!

We had a great break in Dar; catching up with friends (it was especially nice to see friends with children  close to Theo's age), relaxing in the pool at our guesthouse, eating food that isn't available in Mpanda (chorizo, bacon, pesto, cheese...)`and stocking up on light (sadly internal luggage allowances don't allow for massive amounts of shopping) supplies such as certain herbs and spices. It was a nice relaxing week and, thanks to the flights, we returned refreshed rather than exhausted by a long car journey!