Home » Tanzania » November 20 – Arusha – Laura

Arusha has to be the armpit of Tanzania. It’s the jumping off point for tours to Kilimanjaro, the Serengeti, Lake Manyara, and Ngorongoro Crater. You would think the influx of tourists would bring an improvement in infrastructure, and maybe some money to brighten the place up a bit and add more police. The touts here are like crocodiles during the wildebeest migration. The bus station, full of touts, is a place where we have to get off the bus with elbows flying to avoid being pick-pocketed or grabbed or groped or pushed around. Travelling around is part of the package, the stage, the adventure that is Africa. Here is a typical journey:

November 20 – Arusha – Laura

Lasulo
2006-01-06 18:02:06

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Arusha has to be the armpit of Tanzania. It’s the jumping off point for tours to Kilimanjaro, the Serengeti, Lake Manyara, and Ngorongoro Crater. You would think the influx of tourists would bring an improvement in infrastructure, and maybe some money to brighten the place up a bit and add more police. The touts here are like crocodiles during the wildebeest migration. The bus station, full of touts, is a place where we have to get off the bus with elbows flying to avoid being pick-pocketed or grabbed or groped or pushed around. Travelling around is part of the package, the stage, the adventure that is Africa. Here is a typical journey:

Bus journeys in Africa are never fun but are the best street theatre around. As soon as we enter the station, we are accosted by touts trying to drag us to their bus.

“Mzungu, where are you going, mzungu!!”

Often, we are grabbed by many people. It is confusion and chaos; people milling about, seemingly aimlessly. Once we find the right minibus, it is just a matter of jamming our backpacks into the back and finding a seat that does not involve sitting in the middle. I try and sit near the window because no matter how stuffy and sweating hot it is on the bus, the Africans all keep the windows firmly closed, shutting in the steam, the heat, the smell, and the claustrophobic feelings. Therefore, if we are next to the window, then we have control. However, sitting next to the window has its downside. As soon as we are seated, we are barraged with a parade of sellers jamming their goods and food into the windows. Everything, and I mean everything, is for sale: boiled eggs (with salt to add), loaves of bread, milk and water in plastic bags, chewing gum, belts, razors, socks, plastic guns, popcorn, peanuts, hats, plastic bags, samosas, trunks of bananas (right off the tree – two or three hundred attached), ...