Lutheran Uhuru Hostel Moshi

Well all I can say is WOW! We have arrived in a crazy, super cool, tiny bit frightening, city. I can describe it as nothing I have ever seen before. We began in Nairobi and were welcomed with the most impressive smiles I have ever encountered. After locating our backpacks we ran across the runway in Kenya to our little plane headed to Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania. We were accosted by a wealth of taxi drivers all desperately wanting our business. We bartered for a while only to get them down to twi...

On one of first days touring Tanzania we stopped at Lake Manyara, which was not too far from our hostel in Moshi. It was a great taste of what to expect from some of our larger outings that were going to come later in the month. On our way into the park we saw monkeys just a few feet from our van. One of the more exciting things we saw, was a lion hunting it's prey...yummy, anyone want giraffe for dinner?

Our college had been here as a group for the past several years, and on a previous trip the teachers had formed a friendship with a student at the Agape school. He was very kind to us and was our "guide" for the day as he took us to tour his village.

We saw the horrible living conditions that they had - it was very sad. There was one small run down building that was the doctors & one that sold meat. For everything else they would have to walk miles to another city. Children who we...

It took a grand total of 24 hours door-to-door to get from New Jersey to Moshi, Tanzania by way of Washington, DC and Amsterdam. It was a long trip, the longest I had ever done via plane and I was exhausted by the time we arrived.

Fortunately, we arrived at night, so it was bedtime and I couldn't have been happier about that! The hostel that we were staying at opened their kitchen so we could eat - which was very much appreciated! They said they would cook us some grilled cheese - Boy...

Bukoba was a nice break for me. After the long journey to get there I spent a couple of days blogging, reading, and -- most importantly -- resting my sore posterior. The atmosphere in Bukoba was pleasant enough with my hotel being right on the lakeside beach. One late afternoon while sitting at the hotel beach bar and enjoying the breeze I saw several young African girls playing in the sand and got an idea. I went up to my room and pulled out my Frisbee that had been taking up space in my pac...

March 4, 2008 Dar es Salam, Tanzania We went to the Zambian High Commission this morning. That's just a fancy name for the Zambian Embassy. Our visas for Zambia cost $100 each or 250,000 Tanzanian shillings for both of us. We have to move out of the Luther House this morning because they are booked solid and have no room for us. On the map the Luther House looked like a good spot because it was closer to the port, but there isn't much around here, particularly we could find no good restaurant...