What a Difference a Day Makes

When we think that we missed the deadly suicide bombings at the Istanbul airport by just 24 hours, it is difficult to describe how we felt in getting out of Turkey and arriving somewhere in the world completely different. In Istanbul, we were very concerned for our safety, naturally, and having to fly out of the same airport just a day after the bombings. The old expression 'lightning doesn't hit twice' was now aligning with the likelihood that the organization that convinced three people to blow themselves up so they could kill 41 innocent people and hurt 239 more would not do it twice. The security was unbelievable getting through the airport terminal and boarding our flight to Kilimanjaro.

What a difference in just one day. In Turkey, we were experiencing extremely high summer temperatures of up to 50 degrees; we flew into Kilimanjaro at the end of their winter season and 16 degrees. We've been only hearing Turkish and Arabic for the last 2 weeks; today we're hearing Swahili and English. 

In Istanbul, the city prides themselves as being another European cosmopolitan city with a household income of $800/ month; here in Arusha,Tanzania, the city is poor with a household income of only $40/ month. Quite a difference.

Do you know what got me to thinking back to normal? There was a bouquet of flowers at reception when we reached our hotel:

With all the 'bad' in the world, you can still see goodness if you look for it.

So here's the question I'm sure you're asking as we're just 45 minutes from Mount Kilimanjaro: are we going to climb the mountain? Well- most unfortunately (for me)- the next 8 days is packed with visiting 3 of the best game reserves in the world on a safari. I would have loved to climb it, obviously, but it just wasn't in the cards this time around.