Arusha

Arush isn't too far from Moshi luckily, so I was able to skip the long bus ride for a day. I met up with my good childhood friend Timo just outside of Arusha where he showed me the hotel he's working at, The Ngurdoto Mountain Lodge, an amazing place; an old coffee farm that has been converted into a hotel complete with seven presedential villas! A place I will have to come back on my way to climb Kili.

Tim and I spent the rest of the day hanging out in Arusha and catching up on travel, plans, and life in general. When night fell we met up with a few of Tim's friend at a local pub...a small cement slab next to a small shack, slightly covered with a tin roof. We hung out for a few hours, and our crowed grew from five to thirteen and our small white table filled with empty bottles: soda, coke, beer, whiskey. I sat listening to Swahili conversations and jokes sprikled with just enough english that I could figure out what was going on. When it finally started raining around 9pm we decided to go grab some dinner, and Tim took me to another local spot for some delicious chicken stew with ugali.

The next day Tim and I said our good-byes and he set me on a shuttle bus back to Nairobi to rest up for a few days before pressing on to Ethiopia.

Photos: Arusha

The Foot of Kilimonjaro

I caught another early bus to head towards Moshi, the town at the base of Mount Kilimonjaro (Africa's tallest mountain). Unfortunately we experienced a breakdown (radiator problem) about 3 hours outside of Moshi and ended up stranded for about 3 hours while the driver tried to fix the problem with some epoxy. I had my doubts but it eventually worked and we finally rolled in to Moshi after a 12hr day. Fortunately in the terminal before the ride I met a New Yorker, Anne, doing a few months of travel and we passed a lot of the time swapping travel stories; she had just come off of a horendous 48hr train ride from Lusaka, Zambia to Dar, packed in a 4x6 compartment with 5 other women!

Since I didn't have the money, gear or time to climb Kili this time around I did want to spend a day or two doing a bit of day hiking around the lower part of the mountain. My plans were foiled fairly quickly when it was pouring rain on day one, and then on day two all of the places I talked to wanted a minimum of $100 to take me on a day hike! I decided I'd save my money and come back in a few years to finish things. After two relatively placid, rainy days I decided to press on to Arusha before making the final push back to Nairobi.

Photos: Moshi

A Day in Dar

On the ferry back to Dar I met another Aussi traveler, Alison, that was on her last day of a 3 month trip in east africa that involved surviving a matatu crash (in which the matatu flipped several times), climbing kilimonjaro, spending a month living/teaching in a rural village and a couple weeks on Zanzibar. We disembarked at the port and found a place to stay, and she told me about her travels over spicy chicken dinner and kebab.

I stuck around Dar the next day doing a bit of walking around the city and sorting out my bus ticket to Moshi for the next day. I was surprised to see that in comparison to Nairobi Dar for a large part seemed to be relatively dead, especially at night...dark, quiet streets with occasional pockets of young guys milling around a broken car or on a street corner. Dar wasn't my favorite place, perhaps I missed something, but I was ready to move on after 1 day.

Zanzibar: Bweju

The next morning I caught my prearranged early bus ride across the island to the east side beach of Bweju, where Jen and John were staying. After considerable delay, due to another passenger wanting to stop at every hotel and guest house for a detailed inspection before picking one, I finally arrived at my destination: The Twisted Palm guest house, a small group of 6 huts located about 50 feet from the water, where for $15us a night I got a double bed with mosquito net, my own bathroom, and breakfast!

I hoofed it up the beach to the Breezes hotel and caught up with Jen and John just in time to join them for an afternoon of snorkeling, while they completed their PADI dive certification. When we got back we caught up over a spot of lunch before John retreived a kit-surfing training kite and we played with that for a while (loads of fun)...with me almost succeeding in getting it stuck in a palm tree! After dinner and saying good-bye I headed back to the Twisted Palm and fell asleep listening to gentle waves.

The Lonely Planet guide was pretty spot on when they said of Bweju, "nothing much more to do other than wander along the sand and listen to the breezes rustling the palm trees," and for the next 3 days I did little else than read a few books in a beach side hammock, a bit of swimming and beach wandering, away from the hassling touts and other tourists. It was a fantastic break, and turned Zanzibar into one of my favorite stops so far.

Because Zanzibar was originally a big exporter of spices, there are still several farms that give informational tours about the different spices followed by a lunch of food made with many of the spices you've just seen. It was a nice bit of touristing, but not quite worth the price.

I wrapped up my week on Zanzibar, where I could have easily stayed longer, and caught the ferry back to Dar.

Photos: Zanzibar

Zanzibar: Stonetown

When I asked at the reception at 7am about catching the ferry (a 2 min drive away) at 7:30, I was quickly whisked into a taxi and told that I was running extremely late and might miss it. At the port I was rushed around from one window to another to get a ticket, all the while being told the ferry was getting ready to leave. Ticket in hand I ran down the ramp, expecting to have to toss my bag and jump to the boat as it was pulling away...instead I ended up sitting for 30+mins before we took off.

I got to Zanzibar and quickly found myself being followed by a tout...who would prove his persistence by following me around for 5-6hours while I wandered around Stonetown, had lunch, found accomodation! He eventually did prove somewhat useful in arranging a bus to take me to the other side of the island early the next morning.

After dropping my stuff at the Vuga guest house I did a bit more exploring and bumped into a group of American students from Lewis and Clark doing study abroad in east africa. I had dinner with them and they told me about being on safari for several weeks and living with different local tribes. We also stumbled upon a big night market near the water packed with stalls, illuminated by small gas lamps, selling different curious, fresh sugar cane juice, all manner of fresh seafood, and tastey 'african pizza' (a kind of crepe with different savory or sweet stuffings).

Photos: Zanzibar

On to Dar

I caught a matatu from Malindi to Mombasa, and true to form had to transfer twice due to technical problems (a leaking tire, followed by a leaking radiator). I caught up withe Alexis and Caroline in mtwapa and spent the night in Mombasa before hoping a bus early the next morning across the border into Tanzania to Dar es Salaam

We hit the border at about 10am and it was the easiest border crossing I've had all trip; being the only white person around they quickly ushered me through each line. Thanks to a series of short naps and a brief lunch stop the day and ride passed quickly and we were actually on target to make it to Dar in just over 8hrs until we hit the last 30+km or so outside of Dar. Due to some accident on the 2 lane road it took us about 3hours to travel the remaining distance. When we finally arrived, after dark, the combination of fatigue and change in currency made me prey for shrewed taxi drivers and thanks to miscommunication I was ripped off for my short ride...$10us.

I checked into the Jambo Guest House, scarfed a quick chicken dinner, checked email and headed to bed for much needed rest, before catching the early morning ferry to Zanzibar the next morning.