7 Days in Arusha

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Well after our pleasant walk through the mountains surrounding Lushoto, we jumped on a small bus and headed further west to the town of Arusha. There's not many nice things to say about Arusha really, the town is totally unbearable, but in the following paragraphs I will attempt to explain.

Kris, Jord, Ry and I checked into a cheap hotel up from the bus stop. However before that, we had to fight our way through the local street touts upon exiting our bus. To explain further: as soon as a bus arrives people swarm and cram the exit point making it almost impossible to even get off the deathtrap without throwing elbows. And before that even, the tout network activates itself, and actually touts in Dar Es Salaam (or wherever your bus leaves from) phone the touts in Arusha to prepare them for how many tourists will disembark into their slimy grasp. We discovered that phenomenon after being here a few days.

Afterwards, taxi drivers try to push you into their cabs or even grab at you and pull you in the direction of their vehicle. It's all you can really do to make your way around to the far side of the bus and actually try to claim your luggage. Once you've done that, its important to come up with some sort of escape plan to circumvent all the touts who are trying to deliver you to a hotel offering them a commission. Asking them for any advice is entirely pointless as they will undoubtedly lie to you with outrageous claims that a certain hotel is closed, or full, or costs $10 to cab there etc. etc. One place bearing recommendation from someone you've met in the past, likely won't offer commissions to the street touts and thus they will do anything in their power to prevent you from going there. So we stayed strong and marched out of the "bus station" with several touts following us getting quite angry that we wouldn't accept their "help" and pretty much just ran into the first hotel we found. If you could actually rely on them to bring you to a decent place (even if they get a commission) I wouldn't mind following them, but they don't care where you end up so long as its the place offering them the most money for their efforts at delivering you. Touts in our hotel lobby immediately began (before we could even check in) to try and sell us Safari's, paintings, newspapers, knives, fake watches plus pretty much anything they can get their hands on however unlikely tourists would be to actually purchase them.

The hotel turned out to be a pretty good place, it seems we got lucky running there after all. Jord being still quite ill from his Malaria immediately jumped in bed while I went out to get him some water, eat lunch, and accompany Kris and Ryan on their search for a decent safari company. The walk from our hotel by the bus station downtown was fraught with irritation. More touts following us trying to sell safaris. Picture the most irritating door to door salesman following you from the moment you step outside your house to the moment you step inside elsewhere. Guys following you with two paintings trying to sell them and yabing behind you as you attempt to walk faster. No I don't want a &%$#ing painting!!!

Coming up on one street corner you'll find about a dozen newspaper salesmen, not one with a dozen newspapers, but a dozen salesmen holding one newspaper. It becomes quite clear to any foreigner that the entire town is really suffering from an over reliance in tourism. It's likely close to impossible to make a decent living without it somehow involving a tourist. I cringe just walking by a taxi driver knowing he'll be way too pushy about trying to get me in his cab. At first glance some of the people are almost friendly, but would literally follow you around for days on end if there's even an outside chance they can just get you into their friends safari office. Conversations are limited obviously, because they all speak Swahili but it certainly doesn't stop them from trying. Guidebooks and other sources of info all warn against the countless illegitimate safari companies and the importance of checking with the local tourist office.

Once Kris, Ryan and I ate lunch I couldn't even handle it anymore, I felt like crap and just headed back to the hotel room. I decided against a safari since I'd seen most of the animals on previous jaunts earlier in my Africa travels and the great migration was now in Kenya so I wouldn't get to see that like I previously expected.

Jord and I had plans for the four days while Ryan and Kris went off on their safari adventure, but Jords malaria kept us in the hotel awhile longer. We managed to rendezvous with Lucy who had been up here for a couple weeks and it was cool to catch up with her. On her last night in town we went for pizza and on the way home I received a shocking blow to realize that during the walk back my money belt had somehow been stolen. Basically a 7 minute window between leaving the restaurant (where I last saw it) and getting to the hotel to pay our bill was enough time for some shady character to lift it. The money belt was zipped up in the inner pouch of my backpack and how it was removed without my knowing is beyond me, yet does warrant praise for the unknown thiefs trickiness and creativity. The money belt should probably have been on my waste which sucks, I guess I've become careless after 10 months -or not. Travelling for this long you go through periods of being really careful (almost paranoid) to being less careful than you should be. I guess my luck had just run out! In any case, I had several hundred thousand shillings in there to change into USD for my planned adventure to northern Kenya, Ethiopia and Sudan, plus some reserve USD cash, VISA card, ATM card and worst of all -passport. I made my way to a crappy phone to cancel my stuff after retracing steps etc. etc. and then basically just went to bed angry.

Next day I spent an awful 3 hours in the local police station. They barely spoke English (although I expected that) which just prolonged things even more. I had to buy my police report... I guess that's not a complete surprise either, and like most of these situations I'm glad they didn't even humour me with the fact my passport might eventually show up. Then I had to phone the Canadian High Commission, they said I will wait 15 business days (basically until Mid August at the earliest) to get my passport.

I spent enough time on the phone with the High Commission and eventually found myself talking to a woman named Asha. I'm not sure what her position is but she was quite helpful and gave me most of the instructions I needed to get things sorted out. Immediately I went to download all the forms and was happy to see that there's actually a section of the passport Canada website with specific forms for Canadians abroad. I quickly realized these forms weren't much different than the ones I previously filled out last August for my original passport, except for their instructions on how to send it in. In fact I found them quite pointless asking for signatures from my guarantor and other things that anyone abroad likely can't come up with. How often does one travel with a fellow Canadian citizen they've known for two years or more who just happens to be a Doctor or a Lawyer (or one of the other needed professions)? I found that pretty stupid, but I guess in the end they're just trying to prevent fraudulent applications. I had to fill out the lost, stolen, damaged passport form plus the other form for not "having" a guarantor and then get those to a Notary or Commissioner of Oaths. That last particular errand turned out to be quite time consuming and even entertaining. Nobody in this town knew what I was looking for but eventually I stumbled upon a sign over the sidewalk that said "Notary". I went into the building only to find a Safari office. Still I wasn't that surprised, likely the Commissioner of Oaths also sells safaris. The receptionist however had no idea what a Notary was. I tried to get her to leave her desk and observe the odd sign in front of her building she probably just didn't notice after working there for however many years, but she wouldn't budge. It turns out the Notary works in the alley behind the Safari office and was closed for the day. I saw the barred windows and peered through to note the empty room with nothing more than a wooden desk and a chair. He had gone home for the day (I think it was about 2pm) so it appears my 15 working day wait will be delayed by one more.

The next day I returned and found him there at his desk in his suit cleaning his nails, where I then proceeded to knock and him let me enter. I asked if he spoke English, he said he did so I figured we're off to a good start. Turns out his only flaw is he cannot read English. After reading and explaining to him the forms he nodded and signed where his name should have been. I said: "Oh, no actually that's where your name goes you sign down here..." and soon realized I would need to fill out all the forms for him. After doing that for the two forms and making the application look unbelievably suspect he signed and then blindly aimed his huge rubber stamp at each page and fired away.

I left there and went straight to DHL where they charged me $15,500 shillings to mail probably a 50 gram letter to the High Commission. I didn't really care since it had to be done but I found it amusing that shipping a human there via their dilapidated bus system costs roughly the same amount.

So, 3 days later as I write this the High Commission has yet to acknowledge the arrival of my application. It should have been there Friday morning but I suspect Asha didn't have time to process it and now the weekend is passing us by. I'm not sure how long I'll be waiting in this horrible, horrible town but hopefully I can find something to occupy my time. I can't honestly leave until I at least get my new ATM card. Jord left to fly to Egypt and Ryan to Uganda. Jord has an onward ticket booked to India, and I hope to meet him there as soon as my passport arrives. I'm not sure how that's going to work since apparently its against the law to ship credit cards into Tanzania from abroad, and I have no way of purchasing my flight. I do have an AMEX card which isn't accepted anyplace so that's good. At least I have no shortage of time to figure things out.

Tomorrow I get to exercise my reservation at the Lutheran Center Hostel closer to the downtown section of town where I can save a further $5 a night on accommodation which is good. I guess the town is starting to grow on me a little, touts find it odd I'm still here and I still haven't bought a safari or any of their rediculous souvenirs. I guess they suspect me to be some kind of do-gooder non-tourist at this point who they can't make money off of. It bothers me to no end knowing my passport is someplace in this town and completely useless to some local guy. I thought of hiring some touts to try and track it down in order to setup some sort of ransom payment for the coveted document but that doesn't seem likely. I went to the police station today to see if it had been turned in and nobody had any idea what I was talking about, even the guy who wrote my police report two days ago. I even showed this guys his own signature on the photocopy of the report I kept but apparently it didn't ring a bell and he just shrugged. Oh well, chalk up a horrible week in a horrible place as just another travel experience.

Other things I've noticed during my week in Arusha (in no particular order): a man crashing his BMW (probably the only BMW in Tanzania) into a concrete wall, two locals fight beside our dinner table (one with a piece of rebar the other with a wooden plank), a post office that has actually "run out" of stamps, a tire shop that transforms into a restaurant at night, a guy selling a 10 year old newspaper, a woman sleeping in a closet at the end of the hall in my hotel and a guy today outside the internet cafe today with a cow ...just hanging out.

In any case, since I have so much free time I could probably ramble at length about countless other things but I should probably be getting back to my hotel in anticipation of the inevitability a malarial parasite strikes me any day now.

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Photos

Arusha
The view of Arusha from our hotel rooms window. Easily the nicest view as well with the lovely mountain in the background. The city itself leaves much to be desired, and venturing outside your hotel is interesting enough so long as you don't mind being robbed.

Our Beds
I'm not sure how many hours were "logged" in these puppies but it was over the course of one malaria battle, a terrible robbery and other countless ailments that we stayed in the safety of our covers pretending the outside world was but a dream, and our books and nintendo were in fact reality.

Our Prison Washroom
In lieu of other pictures to post since I was far to fearful to leave my hotel with the camera, here is a photo of our hotel bathroom "area" (note: it isn't a seperate room).

My Diet
Thanks to some unknown gene from my father, I've found it quite easy to consume outrageous amounts of peanut butter and jam instead of actually leaving my hotel room to eat. Well not entirely, there are lots of good restaurants I've enjoyed but to help cut the losses of my stolen money peanut butter and jam quite help.

Another busy day...
Jord recovering from Malaria. It's a lot worse than it looks. Frankly it still amazes me I got out of bed to capture this ongoing scene.

Comments

[jen p]

shitty!
Hey Jason, I've been reading all of your entries and thoroughly enjoying the details of your adventure. It sucks so bad that you're going through this crap right now. You do seem to maintain a positive attitude somehow though, and that'll really help. I'm sending good thoughts your way, and I really hope that you start to see some progress really soon!! Just think, a month from now you'll look back at this and think 'Jesus, that was the worst damn thing ever but I have one hell of a story to tell', and if you can make it through this you can pretty much get through anything! I spent a couple months in India, you have so much to look forward to. I've never felt so alive as when I was there. Anyhoo, good luck. Take care and keep on sending your wicked stories, I always look forward to them=) J.