Blogs from Arusha, North, Tanzania, Africa - page 2

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Africa » Tanzania » North » Arusha January 5th 2018

'Never get out of the truck; Never get out of the truck!' (A play on Chef's (Frederic Forrest) famous tiger scene in 'Apocalypse Now') Our final day Arusha was one of those 'hurry up and wait' days. We packed quickly in the morning as we had to be out of our flat by 11:00 but were not due to arrive at the Maasai Camp until 5:00. We moved our packs into a vacant flat and sat around and waited. Faraja had organized a final good-bye ceremony for us. All the kids paraded down from the orphanage and sat outside the entrance to our apartment. Faraja then made a speech in Swahili which one of the older boys translated into English. He was very gracious for all the work we (Monica) had done and presented us both ... read more
Good-bye speeches
Absolute Africa Truck
Roof up on the 4x4

Africa » Tanzania » North » Arusha January 2nd 2018

'What did the giraffe say when he entered the bar? "The highballs are on me!" (The Big Sick) Christmas was actually pretty festive here in Tanzania. It appeared somewhat comical to watch the bicycles and motor cycles bomb through the streets of Arusha, one hand steering and the other hand holding some kind of Christmas tree. All this occurring with the daily temperatures hovering in the mid thirties! Our meal turned out great all things considered. Our tiny little flat has a full kitchen, however we lack tables and chairs. A single small couch with a coffee table serves as our only area to sit, eat, write, read and watch the world news on Aljazeera. Sheddy gave us a wonderful card expressing his thanks and love for a pair of new found friends. Faraja gave Monica ... read more
Morning view of Mt Kilimanjaro
Moshi
Entrance sign

Africa » Tanzania » North » Arusha December 23rd 2017

Tanzanian Driver: "You are from Canada? Wonderful. Wonderful. I love your flag. You know, the red one with the Molson Leaf in the middle." We will be staying in Arusha for 25 days, leaving on our Safari on January 3rd. The temperature is rising a degree or two each day and the rains that usually cool and refresh the air, have chosen to stay in the mountains. It is ten in the morning on the Saturday before Christmas and the heat is building rapidly with no breeze in sight. Yesterday at this time, the government shut off the power and the wonderful stand up fan that Sheddy put in our apartment, sat useless and still. Today I have it blowing on me as I write. I have squashed my morning quota of mosquitos, all bright red ... read more
Chapati classes with Anna
Marty checking out the school work

Africa » Tanzania » North » Arusha December 16th 2017

We arrived in Arusha on the ninth of December, a Saturday, after another six hour African bus ride. We actually made our departure at the village of Shangarai, a few miles outside of Arusha. Our instructions stated that the apartment was located beside an orphanage - Faraja's Orphanage. The dirt road looked pretty bleak as we came upon the sign announcing the orphanage but, no apartments or flats in sight. A kind soul named Fernando helped us out by asking a security guard sitting in a roadside kiosk, the location of Rayan's apartments. He knew the place and pointed us in the appropriate direction. It turned out that we actually had to enter the orphanage itself, and the apartment was located a few hundred yards away at the backend of the alleyway. The structure was brand ... read more
Gate into our Apartment complex
Message on the Road outside of Orphanage
Group shot

Africa » Tanzania » North » Arusha November 14th 2016

We are so excited to be travelling back to Africa, this time to Tanzania in East Africa which we are sure we will enjoy as much as we did visiting Southern Africa. As there are no direct flights from the UK we had to stay overnight in Amsterdam before continuing our journey to Tanzania. It only took us just 44 minutes to get to Amsterdam from Heathrow - a really short hop, just time for a snack on the plane and we were descending over the intersecting canals crisscrossing the city. We stayed at the Citizen M hotel which has a self check in which went really smoothly, we were able to choose our room location and view and were issued with a card key without speaking to anyone and issued with a receipt telling us ... read more
Citizen M Hotel - Amsterdam
Paul at Heathrow
Tanzania/UK

Africa » Tanzania » North » Arusha September 20th 2016

Ai bien failli faire ma virée en afrique en petites culottes roses. Nous étions à remplir les formulaires d’entrée dans le pays,une conbinaison de vérification de passeports et visas,qu’incidemment on peut se procurer en débarquant,sans avoir à dépenser 90$ de frais de transport pour envoyer demandes et passeports à l’ambassade de Tanzanie,que Sonia me tape sur l’épaule pointant une valise fushia à côté du caroussel me disant : »une de nos valises est déjà là »ce qui à priori est rassurant puisqu’on s’imagine à tort, je le sais maintenant, que les valises voyageant à deux sont comme les deux flancs d’un même cheval et doivent conséquemment arriver en même temps.Que non,nous allames le découvrir quelques instants plus tard. Je dois vous dire que l’inquiétude ne nous gagna pas immédiatement mais presque puisque le temps de faire ... read more
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Tarmac Kilimandjaro
Mont Kilimandjaro

Africa » Tanzania » North » Arusha » Arusha City November 5th 2015

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
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Africa » Tanzania » North » Arusha July 7th 2015

So we climbed Africa's highest peak! And we both made it - a few headaches, some slight dizziness and a little stumbling - but we did it! The highest point, Uhuru Peak, is at 5895 Meters. That's really high. We camped on the sides of the mountain each night on our way up, we had an amazing group of porters, cook and guide to help us along the way. On the 5th night, the alarm went of at 12am and with the wind howling we dressed for our climb. After some porridge and coffee we started our climb. We started around 1am (our guide said we were fast so we started late relative to others) and walked by the light of the moon to the peak. Pole pole (slowly slowly in Swahili) we walked. It was ... read more
Machame camp
Into the Heather Zone
Day 2

Africa » Tanzania » North » Arusha April 5th 2015

Day (I'm not even sure.. they are blurring together) Firstly I’d like to apologize for the lack of posts over the past week. I suppose I could have posted little musings each day but I feel like taking one hard look at what I experienced over the past week has its own benefits. I met the Lighthouse missions group in the Nairobi airport and was pleasantly surprised to see that the group was largely of individuals close to my own age. That being said I was originally pretty timid due to the fact that the group seemed very close and were even wearing matching shirts making me awkwardly aware of how much of an outsider I was. They were also fairly curt when I attempted to converse with them which I’m sure was due to the ... read more
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Africa » Tanzania » North » Arusha February 20th 2015

As usual, I got up some time before breakfast to do a little birding. I had also been told by someone that he saw a “big black and white eagle” over the camp and then he pointed at the palm nut vulture in my book as that looking the closest “but not exactly the same”. With that in mind, I had a look around and didn’t managed to find it but around the pond I did see a few giant kingfishers flying over which were nice to see again after seeing them once a couple of days ago but I also saw a beautiful male Nubian woodpecker on a tree which was very nice to see because I had always wanted to see a woodpecker outside of Europe and this was my first one. To be ... read more




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