Flycatchers
Okay, I had no idea about this whole concept until we got to Arusha. This is the place where most safaris start from. We took a 9 hour bus ride (should have taken quite a bit less time but we stopped EVERYWHERE).
So we land at the bus station. We were followed, at one point, by 10 “Flycatchers” – guys that are trying to get you to go to their safari company/hotel/whatever the heck else they’re trying to sell. And we were really stupid. We should have just grabbed a cab, but everywhere else we just walked from the bus stations. So we walked to this one hostel – but they were full – so we were walking to this one hotel and these 2 guys in mini-vans from Victoria Expeditions (it was so funny because the guide from the safari company we actually went with when we were telling him about these two guys goes “I bet it was Victoria Expeditions” – apparently they camp out on top of this hill near Arusha looking for Mzungu’s (white people – oh by the way, did I mention that I’m white here! – so funny!) on the bus. And then they try to “catch them”. They were trying to convince us that no hotels were going in the direction we were headed – this well-to-do older woman asked us where we were going – and we told her L’Oasis – and she totally got rid of the minivans and told them in Swahili – something that made them go away – and had a man from in front of the President’s compound (which apparently we were passing at the time) walk us there! Kindness of strangers!
L’Oasis Lodge – kind of out of the way but it has literally become our oasis – we’re staying in the backpackers annex – smaller rooms with shared bathroom – but they have a bar and pool we can have access to – and the coolest people working there – considering we had to stay here long enough to arrange the safari and take the maximum allowed out of the ATM machine here – everyone wants cash and with us being on the road – not like we carry around that kind of money so we just stayed a few days and took money out every day! Anyway, the next entry will be about our safari!
Tags: RTW Trip, Tanzania
JohnCin
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