Arusha

April 12^th

The bus from Morogoro to Arusha takes about 9 hours. It is very bumpy and warm. Along the countryside we could see many cob houses, Yurts they call Bomas, and many houses put together with scrapes people find from wherever they can.

When we get into Arusha we get the rush of usual cabbies giving us...’special deal just for you’. It is always a little tricky trying to pick a cabbie, one can never be too sure who is going to rip you off. I saw a guy with nice eyes and picked him because he could speak English, but as it turned out he quickly handed us over to two other guys who could not speak English and then the wackiness ensued. We asked them how far to a hotel and they said 10 then they told us 8,000 for the ride and then we asked them how much for the hotel and they said 10, 10,000. So we thought we were going far away and getting a good deal on a hotel room. So here is what they were really saying. The hotel we are taking you to is $100 a night. It is only 2 km away and we are going to charge you 10,000 for the trip. In Morogoro a 2 km trip is 2,000 shillings, here they wanted 10,000 shillings. They had us pay half up front so they could get gas. Many of these people work from job to job so we have stopped a few times for people to fill up for gas. When we get to the hotel David throws a fit because it is not anything what we thought they were telling us. We bring the hotel manager over and he helps us sort it out with them. We give them another few thousand shillings and call it done.

The Impala hotel is $100 this is way more than the $20 we paid in Morogoro, but they said that this is the going rate in town unless you want to have a place that is sketchy. So we are tired and cranky and decide that it is now a great deal. They show us to our room. At this point David is close to exhaustion and really just wants to have a shower and go to bed. We run the water in the bathroom...no hot water. Rats....we call down and let them know and they say that something is wrong with the boiler and they will fix it. A half an hour later still no hot water and David is just getting more cranky, so I call down and just say that we would like another room.

They upgrade us to another room, which looks really nice. I run into have a quick shower because I figured that after I was done with my shower I would run a hot bath for David so he could relax. After I get out of the shower I notice that there is water all over the floor....I call down and let them know what happened and they upgrade us to an even more fancy room. An executive room with a round bed. What is the deal with round beds anyway? Most of the room is kind of lost on the round bits on the side, but it had mosquito netting, so I was happy. David is finally able to have his shower and we watch a movie on the computer before going to bed.