Greetings from the I-TECH Addis Ababa guest house - I arrived in Addis late last night after a long but uneventful journey - actually it’s a really nice direct connection from Seattle on NWA/KLM, with just 2.5 hours between flights in Amsterdam, and then a brief refueling stop in Khartoum, Sudan (I wonder if jet fuel is significantly cheaper in Sudan than in Ethiopia? I bet it is!). So less than 24 hours total travel, which is not bad for west coast to Africa.

Slept remarkably well and woke up to the good news about Obama, which is thrilling even half a world away, and to a flurry of last-minute e-mails about various aspects of trip preparation. I’m imagining Lyanda is home in a frenzy of final cleaning, packing, organizing, and logistics, though I doubt she’ll actually post to the blog till she hits African soil. It sure is going to be bizarre to be standing at the Nairobi airport on Sunday and see my wife and daughter come walking off the plane into the warm East African night. Can’t wait!

Departure is getting VERY close - in about 36 hours I get on a plane to Ethiopia to work this week. Then at the end of the week Lyanda and Claire fly via London, and we meet up in Nairobi next weekend. After a couple of days in Nairobi feeding giraffes and having a lunch seminar on post-colonial theory, we’re flying to Mombasa on the coast, and spending ten days as volunteers at the Colobus Trust, then a week in the coastal village of Takaungu, and then a weekend in Watamu at A Rocha checking out the Assets ecotourism project, centered on the Arabuko-Sokoke forest.

Then we fly back to Nairobi and bus to Arusha, Tanzania. After many late night e-mail exchanges with various outfitters, we have just about finalized our safari plans at last, choosing Active Tanzania as the outfitter we’ll be using for a five day camping trip from Arusha to Lake Manyara, Ngorongoro Crater, and Arusha National Park.

Then we head east, spending three or more nights at Muller’s Mountain Lodge in the Usambara Mountains of Tanzania, then on from Tanga to Zanzibar for four nights at Maruhubi Beach Villas during the Zanzibar International Film Festival, and then three nights on the other side of the island at Casa Del Mar.

The last week of the trip (July 20-27) is completely unprogrammed. Maybe we’ll be into island life on Zanzibar and extend by a week, maybe we’ll squeeze in a last safari to the southern parks in Tanzania… who knows!?