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Published: October 30th 2006
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Local banana beer...
doing well for someone with malaria! We decided to escape Moshi for a few days to give Dani a chance to recuperate in some semblance of peace and quiet, not from the malaria, but instead the large quantity of Larium she had to take in the space of 12 hours. Right from the outset though we were convinced we had made the wrong choice. Even after explaining to the mini bus tout where we wanted him to drop us we ended up way past our stop. We had to wait for the mini bus to fill up again for the return journey and when we did manage to alight at the right spot the cheeky bastard had the hide to try and charge us again. Marangu is at the base of kilimanjaro and is the start point for many of the routes that ascend to the summit, so when two mzungus arrive with packs on their back the whole town presumes, naturally enough, that you are there to climb Kili and that you need them to guide you. After coming from both Arusha and Moshi we were fairly well conditioned to the hassling of commision seeking touts, but these guys were relentless. They were more annoying than
the touts of Arusha and Moshi combined. They were the best of the best! After stating at least half a dozen times to the mob that we weren't there to climb Kili, but instead wanted to find our campsite for some peace and quiet I came very close to flipping out. I must have shown enough neck veins and nostril flares as the touts let us be. All but one that is. Sami changed tactics and asked us where we were camping. When we told him we were headed for the Coffee Tree campsite he said that it was very far and that we should take a taxi. We showed him our lonely planet which said it was only 700m away, but the way he said "the book lies!" was enough to convince us that perhaps he was right. It wouldn't be the first time that we'd been led astray by the good book! Again he suggested a taxi but all we heard was chi-ching! (cash register ching). Being the suspicious minded, stubborn mzungu mules that we are we insisted on walking. Sami asked if he could walk with us which is more than we can say for any of
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Coffee tree the other "hitch hikers" that we've picked up along our travels. "Whatever Sami, if you want". The lonely Planets 700m was closer to 6 km. Did I mention already that Marangu is at the base of kilimanjaro? Good. So you'll have no problem picturing us walking up a bloody great hill. We should have taken a taxi. As soon as Sami found out why Dani was labouring so badly he insisted on taking her bag. When we reached the campsite Dani and I fell in a heap, but Sami, now with a little extra money in his pocket, tottered off fresh as a daisy! The campsite was ok, but aimed more towards campers that were fully self sufficient. Not only did they want $10 each to camp, we then had to rent fridge space and pay to use the kitchen facilities. We showed them how small our tent was in the hope that they may take pity on us and reduce the rate, but they weren't interested in negotiating. All they heard was chi ching! We set up camp anyway and believe it or not walked all the way back to town. At least this time it was down hill!
Over a lunch of kuku na chipsi and chipsi mayai (chicken and chips + chip omelette) we discussed our options. Sami managed to find us again and even though he put his lunch and drink on our tab - we even had to pay mzungu price for his portion - we let it slide as he told us that his Uncle had a guest house and if we wanted he'd be happy to show us. De ja vu. Samis "Uncles" guesti was called Flamingo Guest House and for just 10000TSh we got a self contained double room that was only metres from the guesti bar. Perfect. I could keep one eye on Dani sleeping whilst the other was on the kombe la Dunia. So far in Tanzania most of the Tusker, Safari and or kilimanjaro Lagers that we'd enjoyed had been served at room temperature. This was again the case at the Flamingo Bar, even though there was a massive fridge in the bar dedicated solely to Coke and Sprite. After a few beers I asked the barman to put half a dozen Tuskers in the fridge for me in preparation for tomorrows Argentina Mexico, Holland Portugal double header. So
far Sami had made two commissions from us, (we took a cab to retrieve our gear from the campsite) we'd paid for his lunch, a couple of beers and tipped him after he carried Danis bag initially. Needless to say that for the next 36 hours he stuck to us like super glue, which wasn't all bad as his English was sound and it meant that none of the other touts would come near us, or if they did they'd just say "you belong to Sami!" When Dani was feeling up to it Sami took us on a short walk through coffee and banana plantations, to a secluded waterfall, back through the local village (opposed to the tourist village) where we were even charged local price for our lunch instead of the mzungu price and then to a small bar where we got to try locally brewed banana beer. Another commission for Sami plus his guiding fee and lunch. He told us that in his experience with malaria we should stay another day so that Dani could make a full recovery. When we returned to Flamingo the barman took great pride in presenting me with a frosty beer. I bought
hide and seek
in search of the waterfall him one so that he could enjoy the magic with me. It must have hit the spot as when I returned an hour or so later the fridge had been emptied of the coke and sprite and filled with beer and the barman was half pissed! After saying our goodbyes the next morning we were again fair game and all of the touts of Marangu had one more crack at convincing us that we really did want to climb Kili afterall. Thankfully Jimmy, the local shopkeeper who only charged us local price for lunch came out and gave them their marching orders. He then stopped traffic, literally, to make sure that we got on the right mini bus. Sami and Jimmy had certainly made up for the poor start we got off to in Marangu. We now only had one problem. So intent was Jimmy on making sure we were comfortable, we were ushered into the the front seat of the mini bus. As I've said before, this is the worst place to sit, as even though you are spared the discomfort and overcrowding of the rear seats, you can see what is happening on the road in front of you. Thankfully we only had to endure this for forty km.
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