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Articles Tagged ‘Arusha’

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Planes, trains, and automobiles (but no trains, actually)

Saturday, July 28th, 2007

Looking back I can see I’ve left out some bits and pieces of my story thus far, so I’m going to try to go back and fill them in now.

To begin, my trip from Arusha to Kampala was fairly uneventful, but interesting none-the-less. I had been told by Precision Air to get to the airport 2 hours in advance. When I got to the airport the security staff couldn’t for the life of them figure out why I’d come to the airport 2 hours in advance. [read on]

Review: Impala Hotel

Tuesday, July 24th, 2007

I’ve given myself some time before posting this review, as I’ve been churning it over on how to write it.

The question is not did I enjoy my time at the Impala Hotel in Arusha, that answer is easy — I did not. The real question for the review is, was it a good value and on this I am torn. I’ve waited some time before posting the review because I feel it important to balance the issues of ‘expectations’ — you can’t expect the same as if this were a hotel in Europe. I also didn’t want to write with “fresh off the plane” prejudice. I wanted to take into account the resources available in Arusha and the ‘frame of reference’ that needs to provide. This is not a well off area and so a ‘luxury’ hotel (as it bills itself) here needs that taken into account.

Now that I’ve been in Africa for 2 weeks and seen a variety of other places, I feel more solid in my critique.

[read on]

On the road to Tarangire

Sunday, July 22nd, 2007

7/15/07

To begin with a brief update, I met my safari-mates shortly before we left on our trip. Overall, things went very well, we were three low-key single women who got along amazingly well, given our crammed together conditions for 7 days. My roomate was “M,” who works for a newspaper in Arizona. This safari is her 30th birthday present to herself. For my 30th birthday, I went out for fondue, so she is clearly the cooler of the two of us. Our trip-mate “N” is from West Virginia and works in a manufacturing plant for a certain large car maker, for which several of my classmates from school also work (you know who you are). N is a hoot. This trip is a life’s dream for her, and she has been working toward saving for this trip for a long time, and everyone at her plant helped her saved coke bottle-tops so she could get frequent flyer miles for half her trip (smart cookie!). Her exuberance at everything she saw and did was positively infectious! We were all very lucky, as three strangers meeting for a week-long trip could be a recipie for disaster, yet worked out dandy.
[read on]

Arusha-day 2, revised

Saturday, July 14th, 2007

7/14/07 7:30pm Hotel internet

Have great internet connection right now, want to take advantage of it.

This is a revision for my last post because I learned a lesson today — write about days events after they happen, not before.

I was unexpectedly driven to my tour company’s local office so I got to see a bit of the area outside of Arusha. I was expecting to just get driven into town but instead we went the other way. The paved road ended only a couple of minutes from the hotel and it was then I realize my previous post joking about Arusha being ‘1st world adjacent’ was dead wrong. It’s pure 3rd world. Kendall, as you noted, the poverty really just slaps you in the face. [read on]

Arusha, day 2 – yawn

Saturday, July 14th, 2007

7/14/07 10am Hotel internet cafe

Nothing earth-shattering to report, so some details people have been asking: Weather is in the 70s, overcast both mornings I’ve been here, it heats up when the sun comes out in the afternoon.

The hotel is/was hosting an Interpol conference so there are people from all over the world, which is quite nice. A little weird to be eating breakfast the next table of people in various arab-army, flight-suit military uniforms much like one sees on TV if one can stomach the current news. Most of the other tourists seem to be Americans, Dutch, and Japanese, with some Aussies and Brits thrown in. [read on]

The charms of Arusha

Friday, July 13th, 2007

7/13/07 Arusha. Internet Café

Spent about an hour today wandering around Arusha which was more than enough time to see its ample …charms for lack of a better word. Actually, no that’s a rotten word to describe it. It doesn’t really have much in the way of charms.

On the one hand it’s definitely interesting. On the other, only so much. [read on]