guess where we are?

Hi all,

This is becoming a truly global MacNeil Travel Tales blog. It's actually the only way that our family communicates with each other nowadays!

I've arrived safely in Tanzania but not without incident.

After arriving in Dar yesterday afternoon, I headed out for a spot of shopping only to discover all the shops were closed. Heading back up to my room, I stopped to talk to the porter when I noticed out of the corner of my eye a man waiting at the lift. The lift had arrived, the doors had opened, yet he didn't get in. Instead he was looking at me. Anyway after finishing my conversation with the porter I wandered over to the lift and the waiting man. He immediately introduced himself to me. Quite a long confusing name, but he told me to call him Ambassador Terrence. Ambassador Terrence was about 60 and I actually couldn't tell you what country he's the Ambassador of!

Ambassador Terrence was very chatty in the lift going up to our rooms. So chatty in fact that he got out of the lift at my floor and continued his conversation with me while the lift disappeared. Unfortunately I can't actually tell you what the majority of this enthralling conversation was about as I couldn't understand a word he was saying. But my vacant look and occasional smiles were apparently encouraging enough for Ambassador Terrence.

Ambassador Terrence then told me that we really needed to catch up for a drink. While thinking "Not on your life Pal", I said to him I was very busy and already had plans for that evening but it was lovely to meet him and goodbye. However that wasn't enough for my Ambassador friend. He insisted on taking my number and giving me his and told me to call him when I returned from my night out and we could have our drink then. To get rid of him I told him I'd call.
An hour or so later I called him to "cancel" our plans however I couldn't get through and forgot all about him. That is until he started calling my room every half an hour or so between 8pm and 10:30pm. I ignored him until the 10:30 call at which point I realised I was going to get no sleep unless I did something about him. I explained to the Ambassador that I was very jet lagged and needed to go to sleep. He suggested we meet up in the morning. I explained that I was getting picked up at 6:15am and he suggested we meet at 5:30am. Still trying to be as polite as possible but with my patience wearing thin I said no to a 5:30am rendezvous. Upon realising that he was not going to get the chance to meet with me, the Ambassador got quite narky and told me that it was very, very important to him that we meet and that he'd been waiting up all night to meet with me! Honestly, how I manage to attract these odd men is beyond me. Anyway I was quite firm and managed to convince him that we were not going to meet up.

He left me alone after that and I made the long journey to the mine site this morning. The drive from Shinyanga airport to the mine site takes 2.5 hours, the vast majority of which is on very bumpy gravel roads. When I was over here in July last year, the Tanzanian government had started to construct a bitumen road the majority of the way to the mine site. They're still constructing the road and I couldn't actually see any advancement from last year. There's just no hurrying the Tanzanian people!

Hope all's well with everyone.