Spent a night back in Jambo hotel and bought a ticket for Moshi before going to bed. The bus office was just a short walk from the hotel and we were able to get on the 6.00am bus to the main bus station outside town and transfer to an 8.00am air conditioned bus there. The streets are so congested that no buses run from downtown after 7am. At the Ubongo bus station the touts wanted us to pay extra for our bags but we had asked at the office and they said bags were included in the price so we got rid of the touts.
We can't work out how they get paid other than trying to fleece money from backpackers, and there are not so many of them compared with the locals who take the buses. They work as a pack and try to intimidate you into paying, all yelling and screaming the same thing one after another at you. Aggressive advertising to the max.
It was a pretty comfortable ride to Moshi. Not far outside Dar we saw lots of Masai men herding their cattle. They are recognisable as they are very dark, tall, and wear red and or purple shawls. It seems lions don't like red so this protects them from lions. None of them were wearing their jewelery like you see them in the travel magazine photos. They all wear sandals, made either from plastic or handmade from car tyre casing. They wear a knife in a sheath tied to their waist and carry a stick with a large knot on the top. Their villages have mud and thatch rondavels with pens for their long-horned cows to go into at night.
This city boy is so noticeable amongst the western dressed locals.We were told that the city Masai are often employed as security guards as they are very strong.
We met several Masai at the Moshi market and they were all selling herbs and potions. One guy took us by the arm and told us all about the herbs in his language and then wrapped some dry bark and powders up in a piece of newspaper and popped it into John's shirt pocket. He was so funny. I showed him John's bald patch on his head and asked if he had anything for that. He laughed as I don't think the Masai men go bald at all!
On the road to Moshi were acres and acres of fields of sisal and several factories for processing it into rope.
Moshi is popular for tourists as it is where they can fly into and get guides to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. As the rains have begun the number of tourists wanting to walk are down so we were escorted to our hotel by two touts who wanted to guide us. We thought we would have had a lot more than two. I had a head cold and John had had diarrhoea so there was no way we would be fit enough to walk. We only saw a brief view of Mt Kilimanjaro as it was covered in fog or rain most of our stay and it would have been like walking in the mountains in NZ in winter and not at all enjoyable.
Many places in Moshi were closed for the Eid Mubarak, a Muslim festival. We saw families walking in the streets in the evening in the new clothes they had got for the festival.
From Moshi we caught a small local bus to Arusha. We were able to find a spotlessly clean hotel not far from the bus depot. Our room was cleaned everyday and we got fresh sheets and towels as well as new boxes of soap and rolls of toilet paper. This has never happened in a budget hotel before. The rate also included a breakfast of local fruit, an egg and toast, and hot drinks. The only down side was that the large local mosque was across the street and the first call to prayer at 4.30 sounded like it was broadcast from the balcony outside our room.
It is common in Africa to build large buildings but only complete the ones that you have leased or are using, so the rest of the building stays open to the elements like this one. We saw lots of partly constructed buildings in Arusha and some didn't have any levels completed at all and the concrete was going black with mould and plants were growing where the birds had dropped seeds.
When I travelled in Egypt, Sudan, and Kenya 34 years ago I saw many street machinists like these. This was the first time that we had seen tailors on the streets in Southern Africa. The treadle machines are made in China and the fabrics are usually tradition patterns made in Tanzania. Many of the womens' colourful outfits have words on them and we were told that if you translated them they would be local proverbs.
At a roundabout with an Independence monument were groups of gospel singers dressed in matching outfits singing and dancing. They spent the whole day repeating their moves as a local guy videoed different groups doing different routines. Although it was a Muslim holiday there seemed to be lots of Christian groups celebrating too. For several days we could hear singing and trumpeters cruising the streets playing gospel music.
Arusha was not a very nice city. It was dirty, dusty/muddy with smelly drains and loads of touts (flycatchers as they are locally known). There were many beggars lining the streets and we could identify those with leprosy as they had no toes and stump fingers. The electricity was off for most of the day and sometimes many hours at night so we always had to take a torch with us where ever we went. It was not a good place to eat meat with so little chance to refrigerate food. We both ended up with tummy bugs as a result although we tried to eat vegetarian meals or eat at places with generators.
It rained a lot each day and luckily we had a nice room with tables and chairs where we could sit and read or do online research.
We met a Belgian guy staying at the hotel who was a chef. He had contracts to teach staff in new hotels how to cook French and Italian food. He spent 3 months working with the kitchen staff. He had learnt that he had to get paid 70% of his contract before he commenced work or else he would not see any money at all. Sometimes he returned to the kitchen a few months later and always found that they didn't do the things he had taught them and they had become lazy once they had to do things on their own.
From our hotel window we were able to see Mt Meru but we never got to see it without clouds or rain. We wanted to only stay one night in Arusha but found the bus we wanted to take to was booked up for 3 days. We decided to do a cultural tour and visit a Masai market but there were none happening at the time we were in town so we walked about the city and when it was raining spent time checking out places further ahead online. We had planned to go to Burundi from Tanzania but after checking some of the government advisory web sites we found that there had been murders along the route we wanted to take so abandoned the idea of going there. The only safe place was in the capital and then not at night. All countries bordering The Congo are not safe and especially those towns near the border. We read a newspaper article about a 9 year old albino boy who had been murdered and his genitals cut off as they believe they have magical powers. The article said the murderers came across the border from Tanzania to get the boy.
It is popular to go from Arusha to the Serengeti National Park and Ngorogoro Crater, but as we have seen many parks and animals we have decided not to go. The parks here in Tanzania are also very expensive as the government tries to get as much foreign currency as it can. We have decided that we will save our money and try to see the gorillas in Rwanda instead which costs $500us per day per person in park fees alone!
