Adventures in Africa: Arusha, Tanzania

The bus took me across the border from Nairobi to Arusha, Tanzania. 

The trip lasted about five hours including the border crossing procedures which all took place in this building. 

I think the shuttle bus I was on is a premium way to travel by African standards. It is one of the buses in the photo below. 

Everyone on the bus had their own seat, for example, and generally the bus is in good shape. But, it was completely full (which included the fold down seats in the aisle), and I ended up on top of a wheel well which meant what was already not a lot of leg room was virtually no leg room. Worst of all for me, though, was the lack of air conditioning. Plus, I had not brought enough water. So, I ended up with heat stroke for the last hour of the drive and was totally miserable. It was so bad, in fact, that I asked a fellow passenger to donate some water to my empty water bottle.

Finally when we got to Arusha I went next door the bus station to what must be one of the most expensive hotels in Arusha (The African Tulip), and sat in their dining room and proceeded to ordered over 2 litres of water, a coffee, and a sandwich (which in the end I could barely eat). I spent $28 Canadian on the lunch, which is a crazy amount of money by Tanzania standards, but I was grateful to sit in the cool dining room with leg room and be able to rehydrate. By the way, the weather outside was 34 degrees C at this point. 

I took a taxi from the restaurant to my hotel, which is in the outskirts of Arusha in what I would describe as a very "legit" neighbourhood. My taxi could not even find my guesthouse or at least not without getting stuck, so he dropped me off here.

A nice local lady needed to direct me, but eventually I found the Arusha Giraffe Lodge, which I found to be a real gem of a place, and all for a very affordable $25 USD, including air conditioning and hot water (neither of which are certainties in these parts). 

I checked in, handed over some dirty laundry for washing, started up the a/c, and took a shower.

Then, once the afternoon cooled off a little and I was feeling much better, I went out to explore the neighbourhood.

I passed by a lady preparing and selling fish, and I asked if I could take a photo. I have seen a lot of street food in my travels, but this was a unique one for me!

Although I was curious about her food, I opted to eat dinner at the guesthouse. A Serengeti lager . . .

. . . and an absolutely delicious fish with rice.