…and I’m back from Africa. It was a long trip – we traveled to Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar, Tanzania, then to Nairobi, Kenya, and finally to Kampala and Soroti, Uganda. The work was tiring and stressful, but I’m glad I went. I’m not gonna do a travelogue, but I’ll throw out some some pics for all you aviation types.

First stop – Zanzibar. For those of you in the States who slept through geography in high school, Zanzibar is an island in the Indian Ocean off the cost of Tanzania. It’s a prime tourist destination, and there are lots of GA airplanes flying tourists from Dar to Zanzibar. We hopped a short (~20 minute) flight to the island in a Cessna Caravan – a neat airplane, and very popular in that part of Africa. Here’s our flight on the ramp at the Zanzibar International Airport.

Only someone with my juvenile sense of humor would appreciate the unintended wordplay in the shrubs at the Zanzibar airport.

The next stop was Nairobi. We visited both the main international airport (Jomo Kenyatta) and the largest GA airport (Nairobi Wilson). There are a lot of ex-Soviet aiframes flying around east Africa. Here’s an Antonov An-12 transport parked at JKIA. Some of these airplanes are barely airworthy and are used for running guns and other illegal stuff around the hotter spots in Africa. This one actually looks pretty reputable.

These Mi-8/Mi-17 helos were parked at Wilson. They had been used for UN relief work, but were no longer flying.

Last stop – Entebbe/Kampala, Uganda. This picture is of the old Entebbe terminal and the UN relief aircraft flying personnel and supplies to the Sudan and DR Congo. Those of you who were paying attention to the news in July 1976 will remember that this terminal was the scene of the famous “Raid on Entebbe” by Israeli special forces who freed passengers from a hijacked French airliner.