Tanzania: The day that never ended

So ever since 5th grade, the ONE place I have wanted to visit most was Tanzania.  At camp one summer, a counselor was telling us about how she grew up in Tanzania with monkeys in her backyard, so naturally, for me (the monkey lover), I was hooked.  A couple years later, Morgan wanted to go to language camp to learn German, and when my mom asked me if I wanted to join her, I said I would only go if they had Swahili (the language they speak in Tanzania)…. Well, they didn't, so I didn't go.  As I prepared for Kenya, I was so excited because I thought I would get the chance to FINALLY see Tanzania (Kenya's neighbor).  Last weekend I got my chance, but it was definitely nothing like I ever expected…

We had been talking about going to Tanzania the upcoming weekend, and Thursday rolls around, and we still have nothing planned.  Oops.  At this point there were now only 4 of us planning to go because of the lack of planning done ahead of time and the loads of homework we have yet to do (yes, we do have homework still while we're studying abroad).  But of course we chose to go on an adventure instead of staying here and writing papers, and boy, we sure didn't know the adventure we had in store for us.  We booked a bus ticket and a hostel for Friday night and were ready to set off.

Friday morning, our cab picked us up around 7 to drop us off at the hotel where the shuttle would be taking us to Arusha, Tanzania.  As we're driving, our car (and all the other cars) stop for this woman to cross the street.  Well everyone EXCEPT the motor bike.  He zooms past the other cars, and hits this woman right in front of us!  She flew in the air and her Bible and shoes went flying.  She got up so quickly, just scared that another car would hit her.  Pedestrians all circled around the motor bike, yelling at him for not looking, and he tried to drive away!  Our cab driver was not about to let that happen, so he got out, took the guy's helmet, keys and license plate, and gave them to the woman.  He told her to wait for him and that he'd be back for her.  She just kept repeating, "Please don't leave me alone with him!"  Our driver dropped us off, and by the time he went back to the scene, the cops had arrived.  This was event number one in our Friday adventures.

Our soon to be most dreaded sign.

We got on the bus and headed towards Tanzania.  We were now at the border, ready to get our visas.  For U.S. citizens, the visa costs 100 USD, and luckily for me, I had saved exactly that much before I exchanged my money for Kenyan shillings when we got here.  Jenna and Kaitlyn both had $50 and some shillings, and Leah just had some Kenyan shillings.  We were told there would be an ATM, but of course there wasn't, so we were getting super nervous about whether or not we'd have enough money to even get into Tanzania.  No one would take Jenna's stupid $50 bill because it was too old… WHAT?! How were we supposed to know that they only take USD made after like 2003.  I paid my money and sat down waiting for them to stamp my visa on my passport.  All of a sudden, I hear, "JENNIFER!"  I stood up, freaking out, and walked up to the counter.  The mean visa man pulled out one of my $20 bills and was like, "DO YOU SEE THIS?!" Me: "No?" "LOOK AT THIS RIP!" (Okay, seriously it was the TINIEST rip I've ever seen.)  He said they couldn't accept my money and that I would need to pay more or borrow from a friend.  The problem was that we didn't have anymore money!!!  Kaitlyn and I just start kind of freaking out at this guy telling him we've been in Kenya for 2 months, so 1. We don't have anymore USDs and 2. That money has been in our wallets for 2 months, how do you expect it to be completely rip free?!  Annoyed with us I'm sure, he finally took my stinking bill and gave me my visa.  We were still having this trouble with the old $50 bill.  We were running all over the place trying to figure out what to do because we were SURE we didn't have any more money… But then Kaitlyn looks in her wallet and finds an extra 1000 shillings, which was exactly what we needed to pool our money together and cover this $50 bill.  So basically, if we would've done that 25 minutes ago, we would've realized we were fine and our whole bus wouldn't hate us for taking for-freaking-ever at the visa line.  We got back on the bus, ate a couple cookies, and could finally breathe again after thinking we would have to go straight back to Kenya.  That was the end of the stress for the day…. (or so we thought).

We made it Arusha! Yay! The bus dropped us off at a super fancy hotel, where we met a nice man who worked there to take us to the ATM (because we had 0 money).  After the ATM, he showed us which dala dala (public transportation van thing) to get on and where to get off.  We were so excited we met someone so nice to show us what to do!  We got on the dala dala, and they dropped us off at the post office, where we would get on our next dala dala to head to the hostel.  We asked someone in the post office where to get on, so we walked to the station and waited and waited for the right dala dala to drive past.  Eventually, some guy came up and asked us if we needed help because we clearly looked out of place.  Apparently we were waiting at the wrong spot (thanks, post office man), and he took us to the right spot.  We got on one right away that was heading to Sambatini Road, which is where our hostel was located.  We get on, and Leah starts asking the guy next to her to tell her when we get to Sambatini Road, so we know when to get off.   Just our luck that he has absolutely NO IDEA what we're talking about. Awesome.  The directions said that it should take 10-15 minutes depending on traffic to get to the hostel.  I set my watch to check how long we'd been driving.  We're driving down this dirt road, literally in the middle of nowhere (so I don't know how on earth there could be "traffic").  But we keep driving along, and I look at my watch and it had been way more than 15 minutes… I don't know why this wasn't an indication that we needed to get off.

The guy next to Leah tells us this is Sambatini Road and that we should get off there, so we did. Okay. Now, we're seriously in the MIDDLE OF NOWHERE.  We're standing there with our big bags with our clothes, passports, money, phones, etc.  The people were definitely not used to visitors, let alone white visitors.  We all surrounded Kaitlyn so no one could see and she pulled out her iPhone to look at her screenshotted directions.  We asked some guy if he knew of The Greenhouse Hostel, but he said no.  No one knew where this hostel was, and the people in this village just kept staring at us.  A group of kids kept yelling "MZUNGU!"  Kaitlyn saw this random orange building in the village and was convinced that that must be the hostel.  Leah, Jenna, and I looked at each other like "this is the end…" All three of us just wanted to get back on the dala dala to head back to the city part because it was almost 5 pm and would be getting dark soon.  Kaitlyn insisted we check out this building, so we walk over there with 17 kids holding on to each of our arms, and Kaitlyn asks someone next to the building what it is.  All they say is, "Yes."  Okay, no.  Time to get out of there.  Jenna and I start trying to call the one person our program director knows in Tanzania.  His phone was out of service. Great.  So we got back on the dala dala to head to town.  We try the hostel and the guy again and both are out of service.  We're sitting in the dala dala trying to figure out what  in the heck to do.  We were sitting in the back seat; I was next to the window and Jenna was next to me.  I had to lean forward and sit at the front of the seat because my booty was too big to fit.  All of a sudden, some guy runs up to the vehicle, reaches into the window, OVER my back, and grabs Jenna's phone.  Nothing was going our way today.  We could hear the word migrating to the front of the dala dala about the stolen phone, and everyone was super upset; they were ready to turn around and go get him, but we said it was okay and to just keep going.  We were going to go to the Impala Hotel, where we got dropped off because we knew that was safe, and it was the only landmark we really had.  

We got into Arusha again, and our very nice dala dala driver walked us all the way to the other dala dala we needed to get on to go back to the Impala Hotel.  He looked like a pretty sketchy wannabe rapper, but he was our new favorite person.  We made it to the hotel and finally felt safe again!  We found the man who had taken us to the ATM, and he was probably wondering what in the heck happened that we made it back here.  We were also starving because besides a candy bar, we hadn't eaten since 6 am.  We decided to eat at the hotel's restaurant and calm down a little bit before we made any new decisions.  As we ate, we decided to try and stay at Arusha Backpacker' Hostel because it's right in town.  We got a cab, and he drove us to the hostel, but they were full.  We had the taxi wait for us, and we booked a room for the next night and set up a tour of Moshi for the next day.  Our taxi driver said he knew where The Greenhouse was so we asked him to take us and thought we'd try to get there just one more time.  However, we were totally driving a completely opposite way then we were going before.  We said we need Sambatini Road.  Apparently, we knew different "Greenhouses," so we read him the directions and he took us down Sambatini.  We asked him if this road was safe and he goes, "Well it used to be really unsafe.  I don't know if it is now." ….. Comforting. The directions had 2 bars as landmarks, and our driver pulled over to ask multiple people if they knew of the bars or the hostel, and no one had ever heard of any of them.  It was dark, the road was closed, and we just wanted to be safe somewhere.  We asked him to take us to whatever Greenhouse he knew to stay for the night.  As we drove there, he just kept telling us how unsafe that road was and how we shouldn't have gone down there.  So again, comforting… We got to this new hostel, and he helped us book a room.  He was so nice, and we were finally safe.  After hours of stress, all we wanted to do was lay in our beds and go to sleep.

Saturday we were able to climb the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro and see the waterfalls! On Saturday, we werent't able to see the tip of the mountain because it was so cloudy.  BUT on Sunday, on the drive back, we were able to slightly see the actual mountain part!  It was GORGEOUS.  It's hard to see with the pictures, but it's there I swear!  We also went to a coffee plantation, where they made us freshly brewed dark roast coffee, and it was the most delicious coffee I have ever tasted!

At the Waterfalls with our fearless leader, Joshua

Just making some coffee like a pro

We stayed at Arusha Backpackers that night and tried to call all the numbers of The Greenhouse to make sure they weren't charging us for our stay since we didn't show up.  Their numbers didn't work, so we thought we'd call the hostel booking website.  Jenna's phone was gone, Kaitlyn's was out of money, so we thought we'd try mine.  Kaitlyn got it all figured out with the hostel company, but now I had .2 shillings on my phone ….. That's less than 1 penny.  So now Leah was the only one with a phone that was usable.  I went to text my family on the way home on Sunday to let them know I'd be back soon, but just was I was putting in my mom's phone number into Leah's phone, mine died. JUST MY LUCK.  So then I had to go to buy minutes, then go a friend's to charge my phone to be able to call my family just to get into my house.  GOODNESS.  

The greatness of Saturday offset the badness of Friday, and although Tanzania was nothing like I had wanted it to be, it was an adventure that I'll hold with me for the rest of my life.  We made it home safe and sound with a pretty great story.

Mount Meru 

Our little chameleon friend we met

Mt. Kilimanjaro is to the left mixed in with the clouds! 

Oh!  And to finish off the trip: as we drove the bus back to Kenya, we heard a big CABLUNK.  I thought it was a suitcase falling off the top of the roof, but no… I looked behind me to see why we weren't turning around for someone's luggage, and it was a sad little goat we hit and ran over with our giant bus. WAHHH :( Sorry little guy, it was probably our fault and our bad luck for the weekend that did that to you.

Sorry for the novel again. Tanzania was just too much for such few words.

Love,

Jenni

Coffee with our dreamboat, Jacob.