Arusha

Arriving in Dar es Salaam at 2 a.m. local time I was processed through immigration and customs with scarcely a pause, and strolled across to the grubbier domestic terminal for my trip to Arusha at 10. Once again I found a comfortable bench just behind the security scanners where I could grab a few winks without excessive worry about my bags.
This little turbo prop took me to Arusha, the nearest big town to Mt Kilimanjaro. I was told that I would be collected from the terminal and sure enough there was a guy there with my name on a piece of cardboard. But it is Africa so I was expected to pay for the tuk-tuk we took to town, which involved going to 3 or 4 ATMs before finding one that worked and only charged me an extra 8000 T shillings to deliver some shillings - the same as the price of the tuk tuk. Its hard though to worry about these surprises when you realise that 8000 Ts is about 3.15 Euros!
We arrived just in time for lunch and a warm welcome from everyone. In the afternoon I got a Tanzanian SIM and have re-directed WhatsApp to it so comms should work.Read more