I wish I was invisible

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I take the most expensive bus option to Arusha, but it's a far cry from Argentinian standards. However the aircon (!) works and the ride is comfortable, with my seat occupied only by myself.

Having read that Arusha is tout heaven, I've taken the precaution of booking a hotel room in advance. There's nothing more irritating than being trailed to a hotel by a tout and finding the price inflated because of their unwarranted commission. However there is little hassle at the bus stop and my bigger problem is actually finding the hotel. Once again, no-one can tell me any street names nor the location of my hotel. I swear now that, if anyone in the future ever asks me for directions in the place where I'm living, I will not rest until I have found their destination for them. God strike me down if I ever subscribe to this "Oh I've lived and worked here for decades but don't know where anything is" BS that's been dogging me in East Africa.

Climatewise, Arusha is much more to my liking, with no humidity and temperatures crisp enough to require a fleece in the morning and evening. My room's shower even has genuine hot water, a luxury I've not experienced since Uganda. Given how many tourists come through, it's surprisingly bare of restaurants and bars. There's a clutch of mosques near the hotel, the closest of which has the most melodious muezzin I've ever heard.

The town's roads are a testament to what brings tourists here, with many safari 4x4s cruising around between trips to the various nearby national parks. Public transport is the usual daladalas and I see one with "Escape from Sobibor" plastered ominously across the top of its windscreen. There are some amusing pirate DVD compilations on offer from sidewalk vendors, ranging from "Sean Connery vs The Rock" (a self-explanatory collection of films starring one or the other actor) to "Irritable Gunplay Commits A Crime" (featuring movies starring, among others, Wesley Snipes and Pierce Brosnan).

I read in the paper that Tanzania is a popular destination for professional footballers in East Africa, as pay can reach up to $1000 per month - a figure that Cristiano Ronaldo earns each day in the time he spends preening in front of the mirror. The NBA draft has also resulted in the first Tanzanian hoopster in NBA history - Hasheem Thabeet. He'll be getting by on nearly $4 million per year for his first two years in Memphis.

The town has a reputation for nighttime crime, but my enquiries about this are as successful as they were in Bujumbura - the reception lady says it's very dangerous at night, whereas a safari operator I speak to declares it's perfectly safe. With little to do in the town anyway, I err on the side of caution by retreating to my hotel after sunset.

Arusha has seen some important moments in regional history, including the Arusha Declaration in 1967, which outlined the misguided notion of Tanzania's first president, Julius Nyerere, that collective villagisation of rural areas would boost Tanzania's economy. This villagisation, which was highly unpopular and often carried out at gunpoint, was to cripple the country over the next ten years.

More recently, the Arusha Accords were signed in 1993 by the various factions in the Rwandan civil war, leading to a power-sharing government. Less than a year later, the Rwandan genocide erupted. Arusha was also chosen as the venue for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), created to prosecute suspects in the genocide. Its 15 years of existence have seen around 30 convictions.

My aim in Arusha is to get on a decent safari ASAP, which means doing the rounds of a few companies. It's a tedious process, going over the same questions again and again, but some degree of due diligence is required to avoid ending up with a dodgy firm. It turns out that most companies are in the area of town near the clock tower, which is not coincidentally the stamping ground for Arusha's hardcore touts. Their persistence is as impressive as it is annoying, and I can only groan whenever I hear a "Jambo!". It astounds me just how many tourists I see actually engaging in business conversations with them.

My own safari hunting starts well when I meet a German guy, M, in my hotel. He has just climbed Kilimanjaro with a friend, using the same company that the friend had previously used for a safari. Both experiences had been good, and he is waiting for his girlfriend to arrive before they embark on their own safari with the same outfit. A recommendation is always a good thing so I visit the firm. There's certainly nothing wrong with their sales pitch - they're welcoming but not pushy, happy to discuss minutiae, and reasonably priced. The owner says that a couple of groups are returning that evening and suggests I come to the office then to get a first-hand comment or two. The other companies I visit differ little in the details so I plump for this firm.

The evening before the departure, there is a knocking at my hotel door and I know it can't be good when I see the tour operator's face through the security peephole. He tells me that he has just received a phone call from the other customers who were supposed to be joining me on my safari - one of them (a Kiwi, "but she speaks good English") has hurt her knee while climbing Kilimanjaro so they want to postpone the safari for a day. Though my schedule is entirely flexible so waiting a day isn't a big deal in itself, the fact that I'm going to have to spend it in Arusha - a hole of a town - is less appealing, but I can't really refuse this request.

I wonder if this good deed will go unpunished, and figure the answer is "No" when I realise the following day that I've caught a cold.

After the safari (blogged separately), I return to Arusha for a couple of days of admin (including a massive laundry session due to everything being permeated by dust). I don't like the town but it's cheaper and cooler than Dar so doing my admin here seems preferable to returning to the coast, which I'm not particularly fond of either.

Laundry done, it's time for a quick hit and run on Dar again before I head south.

Dull but possibly useful info
i. A taxi to Ubungo from the city centre cost me TSh15,000. I think you should be able to get it for TSh12,000.
ii. I took a Dar Express bus from Dar es Salaam to Arusha, departing from Ubungo at 8AM, taking 9.5 hours (including a 30 minute lunch break half way through), and costing TSh28,000. The bus was a 2-aisle-2 configuration and had aircon.
iii. I stayed at the Hotel Flamingo, paying TSh20,000 for a clean single ensuite room (including towel, soap, bog roll, genuine hot water, and a decent breakfast) Doubles are TSh25,000. The only downer is the proximity to a loud mosque.
iv. McMoody's do decent cheeseburgers. The soft drinks here are also cheaper than in a supermarket.
v. The Tourist Information place's list of accredited safari firms is out of date and they have such a short list of dodgy firms that that must be incomplete.
vi. I ended up choosing Tanzania Private Select Safaris, on Joel Maeda Street, about two doors down from the Post Office and on the first floor. Details of the package can be found in my next blog entry (Tarangire). Ask for Mike when you go there. If one of the staff is out of the office, you can usually use their computer for webbage.
vii. My research showed that most of the firms offering camping safaris are priced about the same - anything less and you'll probably have to put up with restricted kilometres and dodgy food.
viii. Probably the best webbage in town is at the New Safari Hotel at the top end of Boma Road, at TSh1,000 per hour. Note that speed seems to rapidly tail off after midday in all the cafes.

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Photos

Buses
Lunchbreak on the way from Dar to Arusha