Places to Stay: Hotels

I've been looking over my itinerary and checking out where Kiliwarriors has booked me for the trip.

My first two nights in Arusha (pre-climb) are at the East African. The Stedman guide says this is primarily a businessman's hotel and said readers are unlikely to be put up there. Well, looks like I am.

Places looks comfy enough (and for what I'm paying, it damn well better be.) I'd rather be outside of town, since there's not much to do in Arusha, but oh well. After 20-plus hours in transit to get there, I probably won't care.

Coming off the mountain, I overnight in The Arusha Hotel, the only 5-star property in town. (I never said I was roughing it.) From the looks of it, I wish I was staying here first. If nothing else, it has a better website than the East African.

On Zanzibar, I'm racking out in the decidedly boutique-looking Z Hotel in Nungwi on the north end of the island. The Kiliwarrior folks like the place and it's a relative bargain compared to the other places. It's also where I'll be staying the longest.

Passport(s) Arrive

My new passport arrived last week. The inside pages are nicer than the old one (etchings of panoramas topped by quotes from famous Americans) but the first page is really slick.

Really. It's shiny and slippery. Instead of laminating the photo to the page, it's digitally printed on it. Nevertheless, I still look sunburned and unhappy.

The old passport arrived in the mail just a few days after that, with one of the passport photos I sent in stapled to the main page. They don't do much to invalidate the book for travel: just two holes punched in the machine-readable text. So fear not... all of your souvenir visa stamps are safe.

A Few Thousand (More) Reasons to Go...

I paid off the balance of my trip last night, right before Tax Day no less. The credit card is so warm now the numbers are starting to fade.

Renewing the Passport

My passport expires late this year, which was just on the edge of "must be valid for 6 months beyond your visit" most countries require. So, it was time to renew it.

The process seems a bit slower than it was in 2000. Back then I got it in 2 weeks, and that was standard service for a new passport. Now it took just a hair under 4 weeks for a renewal on "routine" service. The State Dept was estimating 4-6 weeks.

You can check the application status online, which is nice but not terribly informative. Anyone who has ever tracked a package through FedEx or UPS will find it lacking. All it told me was...

1. they received it (5-7 days after they physically get it ... and cash the check),
2. it's being processed, and
3. it's been mailed (with Priority Mail confirmation number)

I just saw the "it's in the mail" status this morning, so my snazzy new passport should be in my hands any day now. Now I've got to find a cover that will shield the RFID chip.

Seat Selection

by XKCD