Always keep plans simple, that's why we opted for a six leg journey from our
bush camp in Mana Pools, Zimbabwe to Dakar, Senegal. The flight itinerary:
Mana Pools - Kariba, Kariba - Victoria Falls, Victoria Falls - Harare,
Harare - London, London - Paris, Paris - Dakar. There's no easy way to
fly from one end of Africa to the other. Of course plans ran
afoul; Air Zimbabwe canceled our Vic Falls to Harare flight, so we
scrambled on the last flight out of there and ended up in Johannesburg.
From there we flew to London and resumed our original flight path. The
hardest part of our journey came in Senegal: making it from the airport
to our hotel. The first cabbie drove us to a dark parking lot and shut off
the engine. We grabbed our bags and ran. The next
cabbie drove down dark alleys, a backstreet route that kept us searching
the shadows for attackers. We almost kissed the cabdriver in relief when
he pulled up to our hotel.
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