Back to Moshi pt 2

Getting back to Moshi from the Pare Mountains, I settled in with a group of locals/expats/foreign students.  One of the Americans in this group had been working and living in Tanzania for nearly 5 years.  I mentioned something about Netflix, and she responds "I don't like watching movies on the computer, I prefer to just rent them from the video store."

I had to break it to her.  But things change when you're gone, and I'm sure a few surprises await me.

Back to Moshi

A lot of Tanzanians pretend to speak english, when really they're just saying "yes" and "no" at random.  It's really annoying, because instead of finding someone else, or using simpler english, or pantomining, or whatever, you just get some idiot saying "yes" to all your questions.

How far is it?  "yes"
Where's a good place to eat?  "Yes."
and so on.

Here's the conversation I had with the hotel manager as I tried to find the bus stop that would take me back to Moshi:

Scott: "Where is the bus stop?"
Manager: "yes."
Scott: "That wasn't a yes or no question."
Manager: "yes."
Scott: "I need to go to Moshi.  How do I get to Moshi?"
Manager: "yes"
Scott: "Moshi, dalla dalla (minibus)"
Manager: "yes"
Scott: "You have no idea what I'm saying, do you?"
Manager: "yes"
Scott: "dalla dalla kwenda Moshi iko wapi?"
Manager: "oh, over there."
Scott: "thank you" (in swahili)

Get out of town

Wake up, pack everything, hop on the bus.  I make it to a place called Usangi, in the Pare Mountains, a village and a mountain chain that no one has ever heard of.  But the guidebook says it's a decent place for a self-guided (read: cheap) hike, and it's only an hour or two from Moshi.  Random, but hilly, green, and beautiful.

I make it in, and once again am the only foreigner in the entire village.  No one knew where any hiking trails were (or, more accurately, because they are Tanzanian, they merely pretend to speak English, and just say "yes" or "no" randomly until you stop trying to ask them anything).  But I finally found one, and was able to summit the hill on the same day.  From the top, I could see all the way to Kenya.  Mountain ranges in the distance, and a massive lake filled out the landscape. 

So I finally got my hike in. 

67: not every day can be exciting

sometimes you mostly just sit.  I came north so early, in part, to beat the rainy season.  Were I still in Zambia when the rains came, it would be a miserable slog back to Nairobi.  But now that I'm in this area, trapped between the Serengeti, the emptiness of central Tanzania, the ocean, and a restive Kenya- and also broke- some days are more about internet cafe and just soaking up daily life than any specific adventure. 

Tanzania strikes again

Set up a phone interview with some people in DC, Skyping from the internet cafe.  It was going so well  until, of course, the power went out.

A Day in Moshi

You can only travel for so long; eventually you're just unemployed in a foreign country.  Going to Rwanda Genocide Tribunal hearings the previous week, and seeing all those lawyers, reminded me that I'm supposed to be a lawyer myself in a few weeks.  So I've been sending out emails and trying to figure something out.  To that end, I'd arranged a phone interview with DC, and now had to figure out how to make a phone call.

Since today makes for a boring blog entry, I'm going to make a list of the things I miss most: burritos, chocolate chip cookies, moving anonymously through a crowd, Anchor Steam, Sam Adams Oktoberfest, burritos, decent coffee, football, salad, and burritos. 

Basecamp at dawn

Woke up with the sunrise, and hiked out to the main road to get a view of Kili.  Beautiful, and massive.  Although it looked shorter than I expected- mostly because I was high up, and my view was blocked by another ridgeline- I got a sense of just how massive the volcanic cone is.  That part is, from below, visible as the flat top of Kilimanjaro's peak.  The weather was perfectly clear, and the mountain was beautifully snowcapped.  I just stared at the thing while passing Tanzanian schoolchildren probably thought I was crazy. 

Then pack everything, and hit the bus back to Moshi.