Tanzania Travel Plans

Duquesne is working with a travel company, Classic Escapes, to plan our familiarization trip. They put together a brochure that not only includes our itinerary, but also a lot of helpful information like a packing list, expected tips, climate, how to dress, and travel advice. The owner is going on our trip to see first hand what it is like. 

I started laying out clothes and items on our guest bed several days ago. I made a trip to Wal-Mart Sunday. I am gathering items like convertible tropical pants, sunglasses, insert repellent, etc. 

We fly out of Pittsburgh on Sunday, December 3rd and arrive in Arusha in the evening of Monday, Dec. 4th. Arusha is in the northern part of Tanzania which is close to Kenya. It is close to the Serengeti plains which are classic African safari counrty and Mounts Kilimanjaro (over 19,000 feet) and Meru (almost 15,000 feet.) 

Duquesne University was founded by the Spiritan Catholic fathers. The Spiritans are not well known in the United states, but there are many Spiritan communities in Africa. We will spend two nights and a day in Arusha staying at the Spiritan Guset House.

We will leave Arusha on Dec. 6th and spend three days visiting the national parks Tarangire and Ngorongoro, and seeing wildlife and Masai villages. 

On Saturday, Dec. 9th, we fly to Dar es Salaam, the largest city in Tanzania. We will spend two days around Dar es Salaam and visit our sister college, Marian University College in Bagamoyo. At Marian we will see the facilities and meet people we will interact with during our May mini-semester. Next we will visit the Island of Zanzibar for two days and two nights. 

Finally on Wednesday, Dec. 13th, we will start back arriving in the late afternoon of Thursday, Dec. 15th.

It is certainly an exotic trip and the first time I will visit sub-Sarahan Africa. I am very excited. It still doesn't seem real to me that I will be there in less than a week.

Tanzania Trip - December 2017

Hello Tanzania!

I teach physics now at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, PA. Duquesne offers a mini "semester abroad" for their students where they travel overseas for four weeks and complete two 3-unit college courses. I will be teaching general education Astronomy (UCOR for us) for a "Maymester" in Tanzania next year (2018). I love world traveling, so I am very excited at the opportunity.
In December a group of us will be traveling to Tanzania for an orientation and familiarization trip for the Maymester. I will try to post to this blog as I travel.