Arusha, Tanzania
So here we are, in Arusha, Tanzania. At the foot of Mt. Meru, visible from the hotel room. We were picked up last night after a very, very long trip. Wow, 17 hours total flying time….. But we made it. I met Ginny in Amsterdam and introduced her to the best chocolate milk in the world, Chocomel. Very strange for me not to leave the airport!
When we landed in Arusha we had to get our visas at the airport, and this actually went very smoothly. However, I do hope they will not ever publish my picture since I know I probably looked very tired and defenitely not my best. They may use it in some sort of prevention commercial, would scare everybody off what they would like to prevent I would guess. I still felt kind of strange since it was dark when we landed and could not orient myself to my surroundings.
Our guide took us to a local restaurant, Nick’s pub, frequented by as he stated, ‘white people’ . I had a warm beer and he ordered us food, a whole fish on a plate surrounded by cabbage and onions. Now I have this aversion against food with bones in it…. must be some childhood trauma or something. But it was actually very tasty! So another expansion of my horizon!
The hotel is very nice, very luxurious. Slept like a log and woke up to noise from the street. Lots of cars, honking horns and people talking. Opened the curtains and had a view of the mountain and a tree with purple flowers. Amazing. Here I am, on another continent. Still a little overwhelming.
Today we were given the grand tour of Arusha. It is extremely pleasant to have someone here that knows the city, the people, the language and takes care of you. Makes me feel very safe. We went to the National Natural Museum, were I brushed up on history of menkind and evolution. Then to a large farmers market were we really stood out, being white.. Strange feeling. Luckily our guide brought his children and they took our hand and guided us through. Very colorful, lots of fruits and vegetables and dried fish and snakes.
Now unfortunately I lost my voice…since sunday I croak and whisper and cough. Not very handy when you go on the biggest adventure of your life! So I am going to try to take it easy and rest up. Tomorrow I will be driving down to Haydom, about six hours in a Landrover.
Then the internet connection. Right now it is very good but I am not sure how it will be once we get to Haydom. I will try to update this blog as much as I can. I have been trying to get my iPhone to work with a SIM card and load minutes but that has not worked so far. The only result I have gotten so far that I figured out where the SIM card is supposed to go and that the new card really got stuck in the slot but it will come out eventually if you just keep trying. So for now no phone or texting but hopefully I will figure that out too.
