Advertisement
Published: October 23rd 2006
Edit Blog Post
Magic rocks?
Glad he wasn't selling used cars as we would of ended up with one of them too! We'd had a great time in Arusha and made some good friends, so it was a little sad leaving, but alas the show must go on. Thankfully it was only a short journey of 70km to Moshi. We had expected Moshi to be in the same vein as Arusha and as far as getting swamped by touts flogging all the usuals, it was. But there was something about Moshi. It just didn't have the vibe or atmosphere that Arusha did and they certainly weren't as used to seeing mzungus. Maybe it was that they didn't understand the value of the tourist $ as much. We found a hotel, The New Coffee Tree, and after negotiating a price with the receptionist and signing in, the manager intervened and told us that the prices had increased as of that moment. He was unrelenting and in just a few short minutes he'd earnt himself the title of being the biggest wanker we'd so far come across in Africa. When we threatened to find another hotel he called our bluff and bid us farewell. Wanker! Unfortunately however, Dani seemed to be coming down with the flu so we decided just to stay put. The room
Bus station madness
If only we could capture the commotion! was actually quite nice, even if the new price was a little inflated. We went through our "first day, new place" routine of walking around, exploring, finding some cheap eats and buying supplies. We couldn't believe it when one of the touts who'd been haunting us in Arusha appeared and before too long we'd lost our anonimity. "Jambo Aussies! mambo vipi D & D!" The best thing about The New Coffee Tree was that it had a bar and a restaurant on the floor above ours, so when we needed reclusion, it was close at hand. Danis condition was getting worse so whilst she slept I patiently waited upstairs until it was time to cheer on the Socceroos against Croatia. After waiting for hours I was horrified to learn that nobody else was interested in the fate of The Socceroos and instead wanted to watch the Brazil Japan match, claiming that they were all Brazilian supporters from way back. I was willing to bet that when England played the next day that they'd all be wearing Beckham shirts! I couldn't sleep knowing that one of the biggest moments in Australian sport was taking place and I wasn't part of it.
The next morning I had to find out the result via the internet. Aussie! Aussie! Aussie!... We'd pretty much seen all of Moshi already and with Dani still crook we were happy just to hang out at the hotel. Thankfully the football gods looked favourably upon me and we were able to watch a replay of the match...Oi! Oi! Oi! And as if that wasn't enough we were then treated to a short viewing of the snow capped peak of Mt. Kilimanjaro. To date we hadn't had a single glimpse of Kili as the cloud was constantly too low and thick. We had just enough time to rattle off a few photos before she was covered again. The next morning we decided to take advantage of there being a medical clinic in the same complex as the hotel and for a total of 2000TSh and less than half an hour (less time and money required just to find a park at the doctors back home) the Doc announced to Dani that he was very sorry (pole sana), you have malaria. Thankfully we had bought some treatment from Austarlia so we didn't need to purchase anything else. We decided we would
escape Moshi for a few days to give Dani a chance to take her drugs and recuperate in more peaceful surroundings. We headed to Marangu at the base of Mt Kilimanjaro, but in hind sight should have stayed put. Marangu was more intense and annoying than Moshi and Arusha combined and when we returned to Moshi 48 hours later we were very tightly strung. Thankfully however Dani was improving and we now had definately the biggest moment in Australian sport to look forward to, and no turncoat African come Brazilian come wannabe Becks supporters were gonna stop us! Ofcourse it only took one person to stop us, two if you count penalty taker Totti after the referees ridiculous, ludicrous, hilarious decision. What game was he watching? We were absolutely heart broken! Dani retreated to bed but I had to go and drown my sorrows. I didn't get very far. Whilst walking around Moshi in the pitch black looking for a bar that was open (apparently Moshi ites dont share the same sentiments as I that a Monday night is as good a night for a drink as any) I fell down a mzungu trap. A mzungu trap is a big
hole in the road or pavement, sometimes 20 or 30 feet deep and going down to the sewer, with no markers or barriers to prevent an unsuspecting pedestrian from plummeting into it, meaning that walking in Africa can be as dangerous as taking public transport. The mzungu trap I ended up at the bottom of was only 4 foot deep, but I still managed to land pretty hard and smack my chin on the pavement and open myself up, giving me a dose of concussion. I came to after a few seconds and climbed out. Thankfully no broken legs and only a few cuts and soon to be bruises. I stumbled back to the hotel with my tail between my legs before realising that my flip flops were still at the bottom of the mzungu trap. I never saw them again. The next morning, although we were both now feeling crappy we decided to head for Dar es Salaam. As we walked across Moshi to the bus station everybody offered their commiserations about the Socceroos and agreed with us that the ref' had had a Barry Crocker! As we boarded another over embellished, over crowded Tanzanian death trap we said
Mt Kilimanjaro
Our ten miute viewing. a quick prayer to whichever Gods or African witch doctors that may be listening that we have another salama safari.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.126s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 20; qc: 90; dbt: 0.0756s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb