Day 16 - Arusha

I woke up nice on time and decided to snooze for a few more minutes before getting up, taking a shower, take my time for breakfast and then pack some final things … and then our tour guide knocked on my door. Given that her voice is like mine, this is not how I wanted to start my day. She told me that everybody had finished breakfast and was ready to leave, but that they were wondering where I was. Sure, I was being missed, and that’s a good thing, but all I thought is that if they all wanted to leave early that’s fine, but they cannot expect me to be there when nobody informs me. But then I was informed that it was 1 hour later than my phone indicated, giving me about 15 minutes to get ready. Given that nobody during this trip had ever been late, and since I greatly value being on time, I did not want to be first. So thanks to the help of others, getting my laundry from the reception and saving me some breakfast, I made it to the bus right on time, but it wasn’t until later that day that I realized my phone was off, because the clock was set back to winter time in Holland / Sweden and since the settings in my phone indicated that I was still there, the time on my phone was set back accordingly.

Anyway, since we were not going on a game-drives anymore, we took to the road in an African bus. When I arrived, the driver was still tying our luggage on the roof, while all tall Dutch people (and the one Belgian guy) had folded themselves in the bus, leaving the most comfortable seat (i.e. the one requiring most folding) for me. Good thing I can put my feet in my neck if need be.

We stopped in a small town called Mto wa Mbu were we made a bicycle tour. Given the quality of the bikes that we had seen locals ride on the street in the past 2 weeks, we were not expecting anything good, but I have to say that the mountain bikes were actually quite decent. In the truck or bus we would always drive through towns on the one paved road that runs through them, but this time we got off the beaten path and really experienced this town and instead of waving, we were high-fiving the kids in the streets. First we passed the market place and small shops and houses, after which we drove past banana plantations and through an acacia forest, ending at the shore of Lake Manyara. On our way back we got a small tour on the banana plantation and we visited a woodcarving shop. Our lunch was prepared by local women, who would take turn preparing meals for tourist groups. In short, it was delicious and it was plenty. When our stomachs were full, we went to a paint shop, where they did have some very nice paintings and then it was time for the pub. The drunk guy that was already there in the early afternoon, warmly welcomed us. The pub itself was quite dark with a Spartan interior, so we decided to sit out on the terrace, which the same quality furniture. We were introduced to the concept of banana beer, which is called a social beer, because everybody drinks it from the same small bucket. After the first member of our group kindly declined, I was the lucky first to be handed the bucket. It did not look or smell appetizing and I was not completely sure how social the local drunk had already been with the bucket, so I was about to politely decline as well, but since I did not want to disappoint our kind guides I did not and I can say that the taste of this stuff did not surprise me at all.

After a promenade on the local market we got on the bus again and continued our way to Arusha. Arusha is one of the largest cities in Tanzania, but even here, the road to our lodge looked like an obscure going-nowhere dirt path. By now I’d come to realize that this is just how most streets are. Nevertheless, the lodge was lovely again, with woodcarvings in the doors, drawings on the walls, and a warm shower. That evening we had a lovely diner, served by an extremely nice but nervous trainee and we were visited by a ‘schijtlijster’ that confirmed its name almost the second I revealed it.