Cultural Tourism in Arusha

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Because I climbed Kili one day early, I had an extra day to spend. I tried hard to move my return a day early, but Ethiopian was fully booked. So 2nd was my day to rest and enjoy Arusha

I went to cyber-cafe, walked around the city, met a couple of interesting swedes at a cafe and talked about liberal politics. This person I met was more militant than green peace demonstrators, and was denied entry in US because she belonged to a socialist group in sweden. All through the trip, I met most interesting people with such diverse background! She was in her late 20s, worked for DHL in sweden, and had taken 3 months off to tour Africa from Cape Town to Khartoum (sudan). Before that, she had traveled more countries in Asia, Europe, S. America and Africa than I could count. I was soo envious of her!

In the evening, I met a japanese+s.korean couple in my hotel. Masakazu is japanese student, while Inji is Korean student. We had dinner together, and were joined by 2 more koreans - Lee and his riend (forgot his name). Lee's friend had a trumpet and played it for us in the restaurant .. he was a christian preacher too. They all were in mid twenties. We decided to head out to a local bar at night and listen to local music.

After a couple of hops, we reached "First Left Bar" - it was in the outskirts, played local band and only had local people. We were the only non-local people, but were very warmly greeted by everyone. Lee's friend joined the band and they played some popular english and swahili songs. I was pulled into the dancing crowd by Rose - a local girl. We all danced for sometime and then found a table to sit and chat. Rose thought I am a white boy, and wanted to take me home ... I had to decline her politely.

Such roadside bars seemed to be more of a family affair. There were lots of kids with parents - parents had alcohol, while kids had soda .. and everyone seemed to know everyne else. We talked with a few locals, and left the bar around midnight. It was a fun evening!

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