We were dropped off at the airport and taken by a Tanzania Air official straight through without checking in. Our luggage was whisked off through the x-ray machine and we were taken out to a little 8 seater single-engined Cessna. The pilots apparently asked Chris where we wanted to go and fortunately he said Dar es Salaam International (there's more than one airport then?). We hopped over the Indian Ocean between Zanzibar and the mainland and landed 25 minutes later.
Thereafter the journey home was a drag. An hour's wait before we could even check in for our next flight onward to Kilimanjaro. Fortunately, we were able to check the luggage straight through to Heathrow. Short stop-over in Kili before taking off (with great views of the mountain) to Addis Ababa.
Another long wait in Addis, where it turned out it was their new year as Ethiopia is on the Julian rather than the Gregorian calendar. In fact, it was their Millennium. So we saw in the New Year in a restaurant with the staff (who closed it after serving us) and a German missionary, drinking freshly roasted coffee, sharing chocolates I'd bought in the Duty Free next door, and watching the firework displays on their television.
The missionary informed us that she was on our flight and was returning to Rome. This was the first we knew that we weren't flying direct to Heathrow. So we took off at 2am and stopped over for an hour in Rome while the passengers were disembarked and staff came on to clean the plane around us. Finally made it to Heathrow at about 9.20am on Thursday morning. Five flights in 25 hours - exhausting. Definitely called for sharing the drive back to Bristol.
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