Blogs from Arusha City, Arusha, North, Tanzania, Africa

The Tengeru Cultural Tourism Programme is an organisation for tourists to experience local communities of the locals and culture of the Meru people of Tanzania, this is where we spent most of today. 65% of their profit goes into local schools, orphanages, women's projects and tree planting projects, so it is all good. Glyn found this place when researching coffee tours, as it also does this plus a village tour. The guys at Hekima House had no idea where it was situated, but sorted us out a lift there and as always, it was down a very long and bumpy dirt track including such a steep part that I didn't think the car could make it back up! The building itself was home to Mama Gladness, who owns the business and it was very beautiful with ... read more

A huge thunderstorm awoke me at around 5am, the room was intermittently lit by bright lightening and the curtains were blowing in like a horror movie. The window was open but we were protected by a veranda, mosquito net and wrought iron bars. I got up to watch it over the lake. I've never seen so much lightening in one storm, it was sheet lightening that lit up the entire sky turning the palm trees into black silhouettes. It flickered like a faulty light at varying intensities as the wind attacked the trees and the lake was totally mad. The thunder too was intense and frequent, being particularly loud at times. This went on for around 40 minutes and what baffled me further was that Glyn didn't wake up. Afterwards, the sky was a dingy grey ... read more

Day 1-3 (Oct 31-Nov 2) Travel - Probably the most grueling flying experience of my life. Due to the airline screw up we had to change our flight from LAX to SF and buy a one way ticket for our San Fran departure. So we left LA at 1:30pm for our short jump up north, where we had a 4hr layover to recheck our bag and have a couple beers. We took our seats in the very last row of the plane for the 13hr journey. Plenty of movies to watch and free beer although we only had a couple. Half way through we had a medical scare. I fell asleep on my arm so my hand fell asleep. Normally not a problem, but I couldn't move my wrist one bit and this lasted for hours. ... read more

Gleich nach dem Frühstück brechen wir zu unserer letzten Wanderung auf. Es geht durch das Dorf in den Wald in welchen wir wieder die verschiedenen Affen bewundern können. Diesmal sind wir schnell und kommen früher als geplant am Treffpunkt an. Somit müssen wir auf den geplanten Tanz warten. Dies stört die Afrikaner aber mehr als uns. Zunächst bekommen wir eine Führung über die frühere Lebensweise und eines traditionellen Hauses wie sie früher gebaut wurden. Dann folgt der Tanz. Dies ist uns und den Tänzern unangenehm. Versprochen wurde und nämlich ein Besuch eines Dorfes welches nicht touristisch ist. Nun finden wir uns in einer künstlichen Veranstaltung wieder. Danach dürfen wir noch das typische Essen der Region probieren. Dieses bestehe aus Kochbananen, Fleisch, Toma... read more

19 juin 2014 : Nous nous levons à 08h00. Pas d'eau chaude car tout est en énergie solaire dans le camp et hier le ciel était couvert. Nous prenons notre petit déjeuner à 08h30, puis à 10h00, nous partons pour Arusha. Nous enregistrons et avons nos tickets à 14h15 pour un vol prévu à 15h25. Nous arrivons à Zanzibar à 16h30 avec 5 minutes d'avance, L'hôtel Al Minar a envoyé un taxi pour nous récupérer. Nous sommes à l'hôtel à 17h00 et retournons manger au 6south. Nous rentrons à l'hôtel et allons nous coucher. Nous regardons le match Uruguay-Angleterre. 20 juin 2014 : Nous nous levons à 07h00 et prenons une bonne douche chaude puis petit déjeuner. Le taxi arrive à 09h45 afin d'être à l'aéroport 2 heures avant le décollage. Nous décollons pour Dar Es ... read more