Weary travellers return to Canada

Tanzania seems so far away now that I'm sitting at my kitchen table in Moncton, NB. And it IS far away. Jan & I had a safe and uneventful journey home, narrowly missing the chaos on the ground and the volcanic ash-clouds in the air. We were on the first BA flight out of Dar going to London last Fri (April 23). The flight was full which I guess is not the usual. We had wondered and stewed over whether to seek out other routes home via Australia or Madrid or Amsterdam . . . but in the end, we needn't have worried. We stayed over night at the Thistle Hotel just 2 miles from Heathrow. We had front-row seats while eating our supper at the hotel restaurant and were able to clock planes landing every 40 -60 seconds - one plane right after another. Then,the next morning, still functioning on Tanzanian time, we were up early enough to take a stroll around the neighborhood of Longford; quaint and ancient buildings, spring blooms, and several Londoners diligently polishing their cars - ready for the day. We couldn't help noticing the warp and weave of jets streams above us and imagined what the pervious six days in London must have looked (and sounded) like w/o thousands of jets passing overhead.
Joyce picked us up and some how we were able to stuff all our luggage into her car which included two of Sharmala's conticos which are good-sized tough plastic traveling cases. We had our own luggage inside them along with several large bamboo mats!
I was back a the airport by shortly after 8PM for my 9:40 flight to MOncton . . .. the "last leg" of a very long trip. Just 10 minutes before we were to board AC 8344, they announced we might have to make alternate plans because Moncton had too much fog to land there.... Fredriction??? What was I going to do in Fredricton at 12:00 AM?? Fortunately, the fog cleared and we landed 15 minutes early --- yahoo! This was the only flight with turbulence, I might add.
Glad to be home safely and would like to write two more blogs about this truly amazing African adventure, hopefully with pictures; one about Mikumi National Park and our safari drives there plus a brief description of our 4 days on Zanzibar.