The following is an excerpt from my Kilimanjaro travel journal, written June 4, 2010
We are 5 1/2 hours into the eight-hour flight from Amsterdam to Tanzania, and the past 3 1/2 have been spent flying above the African continent. This is the first time I’ve glimpsed the continent with my own eyes instead of through the filter of a television, and it feels like we’re stuck on a freeze frame because the picture has remained the same: a whole lotta nuthin’.
It’s daytime and there have been mostly clear skies, so my face has been plastered to the airplane window staring at the ground about 36,000 feet below. The view has been sand, sand and more sand. Nothing else. It’s not at all like flying over the United States or Europe where you see open spaces with cities popped up here and there. There has been no sign of civilization below, not in Libya, not in Sudan.
The sand runs out and turns into greenery near southern Sudan and northern Uganda, but civilization still seems nonexistent unless it’s hidden by the trees below.
I suppose Kenya will be the same way unless we venture close to Nairobi.
Chris Wristen 