20 hours on a bus

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  Arusha, Tanzania
Friday, October 19, 2007

We are in Arusha, Tanzania.  To get here by bus it was 20 hours, two border crossings, 15 police stops (9 of those within the first 3 hours in Kenya), two very sketchy money changes (to Kenya shillings and Tanzanian shillings), three of the worst toilets on our trip so far (one that I had to pay for), a near miss with a giraffe, and a temperature change of about 15 degrees overnight (Chris couldn't sleep because he was so cold on the bus).  Considering the route between Kampala to Nairobi is a major one, the roads are terrible from Kampala to about 1 hour out of Nairobi.  I was a bit worried the bus would shake apart due to all the bumps but it survived and so did we.  

We left green Uganda (crossing into Kenya at nightfall) and the sun rose in dry, brown Tanzania.  Arusha is much more tourist savy than Uganda - a lot of touts looking for business, lots of people trying to hassle you out of your money

Boda-boda

.  So far I miss Uganda, but I'm sure that once start on our tours the enjoyment level will go way up.

The last day in Kampala was fun.  Chris and I split up to do errands in Kampala.  He thinks he drew the short straw, and he may have, there was no way I was riding around on a boda-boda (I wouldn't get on the back of Chris's motorcycle fully suited up, let alone helmet-less behind a guy I don't know, in Africa).  I quite enjoy the matatu's (shared taxis that hold around 17 people) - they are cheap (between $0.25 and $0.50) and relatively comfortable.  I didn't have to wait more than a few minutes to catch one either.   The only problem is it would take a month or so in the city to actually figure out all the signals and route names - there are no maps that explain the system.  I basically had to tell them where I wanted to go and they would tell me if they could get me there. 

We are here for a few days, then start our trip up Kilimanjaro on Monday morning.  Can't wait!  Kurt has been complaining that there aren't enough pictures so I splurged and spent about $2 worth of internet time uploading some pictures (the value of $$ starts to get a bit warped after a while).  Check back through old entries.

Take care everyone.

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