We had a sleep in on Monday morning and after breakfast we walked to the Kilimanjaro Express bus company which was just a block away from the hostel and bought our bus tickets to Moshi for tomorrow. The great news was that we could catch the bus right there so we didn't have to go back to the bus station at Ubungo. Then we walked around looking at the street vendors and street markets. It was much busier today and there were mobile street vendors selling drinks, cigarettes or sweets who were jingling coins and making a kind of loud kissing/sucking sound with their lips to attract your attention. There were excellent fresh fruit and vegetables being sold on the street. We had lunch and then walked to the fish market. We could smell the fish market long before we reached it. The main market was in the centre with food stalls on one side and a couple of small auctions in progress on the other side. By the time we reached the market, a lot of the fish had been sold and most of the stallholders were either cleaning up or taking a nap on their benches. We walked back into the centre of town past the Askari Monument to African soldiers who died in the first world war.
On Tuesday, the alarm went off at 5.45 am and we dressed and walked to the offices of the Kilimanjaro Express where the bus was already waiting. Thankfully the bus looked exactly like the picture on the bus ticket – modern and with proper seats. There was no air conditioning but the windows next to our seats worked so we weren't worried. Twenty minutes later the bus drove to the main bus station at Ubungo where more people got on. The bus left Ubungo on time and miracle of miracles, it wasn't full, there were no people standing in the aisles and there were no livestock!! At the beginning of our journey the bus stopped and a man carrying a large bag got on. Then he started spruiking to all the passengers. We thought he was a preacher and his bag was full of bibles but his bag was full of aloe vera hand creams, body lotions, scrubs, and soaps – all manufactured in China! He was really slick and well spoken and managed to sell quite a few items! The landscape changed and we drove parallel to an impressive mountain range. There were fields of aloe vera and we could see green fields planted right up into the mountainsides in places. We finally arrived at Moshi at 4.00 pm and parted ways with Gustavo. We walked to the Bristol Cottages where we checked into a room with an ensuite bathroom. There was a TV in the room and free WiFi!! To our delight we found that the satellite TV had lots of channels including BBC World and the HBO movie channel!
We slept in until 8.30 am on Wednesday. After breakfast, we had a chat to the travel agent in our hotel to find out how much their safari packages would cost. They were really expensive so we decided to research our options and see if we could do it ourselves. Once we were in town we were accosted by Justice who offered us a day trip to Marangu Village at the base of Kilimanjaro. To check him out, we walked with him to his "office" which turned out to be a store selling local arts and crafts. We were approached by several touts after shaking off Justice – all of whom seemed to be offering variations on the same theme with different pricing. We walked along the streets checking out the stalls. We noticed a lot of shoe stalls – and even some ladies who were operating mobile shoe stalls by wearing shoe-festooned sandwich boards and carrying a single shoe upon their heads. We walked through the markets and then had lunch at the Kilimanjaro Coffee Shop. We met Noel and Dianne there and they were also investigating day trips to Marangu Village. After comparing notes, we decided that the deal offered by Justice was the best and we all headed back to the art and crafts store to organise the trip. Justice wasn't at the store but his brother "Am Jay" was so we arranged the trip with him. At our request he painstakingly wrote out all the details of the trip onto a piece of paper. Then we said goodbye to Noel and Dianne and headed back to Bristol Cottages.
We set the alarm for 6.30 am on Thursday and had an early breakfast at the hotel so that we could be ready in time for our trip. It was a forty minute drive to the Marangu Gate to the Kilimanjaro National Park. This was the start of the "Coca Cola Trail" up Mt Kilimanjaro. It was a hive of activity with climbers arriving and porters unloading back packs from jeeps. To our disappointment it was a really cloudy day so we couldn't get a view of the mountain. It was noticeably cooler up there and really lush and green. Our next stop was the forge at Marangu Village. The blacksmiths were working in an open shed. Three men were sitting in front of charcoal fires heating steel rods to make into Masai spear tips. They kept the coals glowing red hot by using bellows. Two men were periodically pulling the red hot rods out of the fire and hammering them on an anvil until sparks flew. All of them were barefoot and just wearing shorts and T-shirts – no protective clothing or equipment in sight! Keith was really thrilled because we saw a pair of chameleons around the corner – the male had horns.
From there we took a walk around Marangu village. We walked past women who were doing their washing and one lady who was sitting at the front of her house removing the husks from maize. The front of her house was almost obscured by husks. We walked back to the van through some small coffee and banana plantations and then we drove to the markets. The markets were really busy and vibrant – there were stalls selling second-hand clothing and shoes, large stems of green bananas, dried fish, tomatoes, okra, eggplant and maize. We got back in the car and were driven to another part of the village. Next to a house was the entrance to a "cave". This cave turned out to be a long narrow red earth tunnel where the locals used to hide when the Masai invaded. We were able to walk most of the way bent double but in some parts we had to crawl on our hands and knees. The tunnel was airless and dark so we were all very relieved when we emerged sweating and covered in red soil.
We drove back to the market area to have lunch at Mama Lishe's. It started raining over lunch and we had to dash back to the car in the rain. We went to the "Chagga Museum" – which was really a house which had been converted into a museum by an enterprising old man. There the friendly proprietor proudly showed us around his display of traditional household items which he had labelled in capital letters. In the grounds of the "museum" he had built a traditional Chagga house – a dome shaped dwelling thatched with banana leaves. The house was partitioned inside with a small cow living on one side of the partition. After our museum visit we drove to Ndoro Waterfalls where we had to walk down some muddy slippery steps to the bottom of a lush green gorge to view the waterfall from the bottom. Then we headed back towards Moshi, stopping at a bar on the way to taste some banana beer – served in plastic buckets. The banana beer was quite sour with a bitter aftertaste and on top of the froth layer were millet seeds. Suzie didn't like it but Keith drank the whole bucket.
On Friday morning we caught an early bus for the short trip to Arusha. As soon as we got off the bus we were surrounded by touts eager to sell us a safari, find us a hotel room or take us for a taxi ride. We managed to shake most of them off and we walked to a hotel opposite the mosque where we looked at a room. It wasn't as nice as the room that we had stayed in in Moshi so we decided to go and check out some other options. Suzie stayed with the bags while Keith went to look at the McElly's Hotel (the so-called sister hotel). It was a new hotel so the room was modern so we decided to stay there. After getting a quote on some safari options and car hire from the hotel, we went for a walk around town. We went to the Hotel Naaz to get some information about car rental pricing and then we went to the Tourist Information Office where we found some information on the national park fees. We did the numbers and worked out that even if we did a self-drive safari it would only be marginally cheaper than doing a packaged safari with the hotel – and we could still be disappointed. We decided that we would skip the East African safari thing and head on to Kenya. We walked to shops and bought a bottle of KWV Shiraz 2008, a bottle opener, biltong, asparagus, Kalamata olives, Dutch Gouda cheese and Ryvita crackers. We ate half of the food and drank half of the wine while watching a movie on TV and we really enjoyed our picnic in our room.
We slept in on Saturday morning. After showering, we went to the hotel restaurant where a buffet breakfast had been set up. To our relief, there were no eggs in sight! After breakfast we wandered into town where we bought our bus tickets to Nairobi for tomorrow. We were really pleased because they were going to pick us up from our hotel and drop us off at the Wildebeest Camp in Nairobi which saved us from haggling with taxi drivers! Then we walked to the central markets where there were the usual stalls selling second hand clothing and shoes and vegetables. As we walked through the markets and town we saw lots of Masai men wearing their distinctive red, purple and tartan Shukas (blankets) and simple sandals made from tyres. The Masai women had accessorised their Shukas with beaded collars, bracelets, anklets and earrings. Some of the older men had stretched earlobes with large holes in them. For lunch we went to the Everest Hotel & Chinese Restaurant – none of the food was really authentic however it tasted pretty good and we enjoyed it. We went back to the hotel after that. Suzie found out that she had booked the accommodation in Edinburgh for the wrong date and spent the rest of the afternoon frantically searching online for some alternative accommodation. At sunset we went up on to the roof of the hotel to look at the view of Mt Meru which was clearly visible for the first time. We enjoyed the rest of our wine with cheese, olives, asparagus and crackers for dinner.
On Sunday, we got up and had breakfast early because the bus company was collecting us from the hotel at 7.30 am for the trip to Nairobi. After a few hours of bad roads we reached Namanga town on the border. There was some spectacular scenery of wheat fields and maize fields and a large mountain. There was a lot of deforestation and overgrazing leading to erosion and dust storms. One area was like a moonscape – completely devoid of all vegetation. Everywhere were groups of cattle and sheep herded by Masai in their Shukas carrying wooden staffs.
We got our Kenyan visa from a grumpy Kenyan customs officer and while waiting at the bus Suzie bought a bead bracelet from some Masaai women who were being harassed by a policeman to move on. After a brief toilet stop at Paradise Gallery curio shop we continued on to Nairobi where the Riverside Bus Company eventually delivered us to Wildebeest Camp after some persuasion. We had bought the bus tickets on the understanding that we would be dropped off at Wildebeest Camp but the bus driver refused and we had to talk to some miserable sod who called himself a manager before they relented. Wildebeest camp had a lovely garden area and we were staying in a permanent safari tent reminiscent of Flatdogs camp at South Luangwa.
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