Moshi, Where's Kili ?

Our only goal today is to book a safari for tomorrow and see Mount Kilimanjaro. Unfortunately, our lingering around town, stopping for a nice coffee, checking out the parks, was not enough to clear the clouds. Everyone we spoke with told us 5pm is the best time to see it. So we continued lingering. We started scoping out safaris by going into the many, many tourist agencies. Obviously here, many of them are offering Kilimanjaro hikes, which no thank you! We visited a total of 3 different offices to try and book a 2 day safari to Ngorongoro NP and Tarangire NP. They started at 450$ USD each. Jack and I couldn't fathom spending that amount of money for essentially just a driver, food and a tent to sleep in. The next company quoted 600$ to which we laughed and left thanking them for their time. The third and last place was with a hostel, can't remember which, but the lady was super nice, she was hilarious, and had an English that seemed like it north American English, which made me wonder if she lived elsewhere before settling in Moshi. She told us the very bottom price for this safari was 180$/day. So 360$ for what we wanted. We agreed to the price and she started calling the sister companies to see if they had a group leaving in the morning, as this was the price to join a group, not a solo safari. The company she called laughed and asked if it was the 2 girls going around shopping at different companies, to which she said yes, so they refused the 180$ offer. They wouldn't budge from the 400$. To her suggestion, we decided to go to Arusha tonight and hope to find an agency with a group leaving the next morning.

Once closer to 5pm, we made our way to the top floor of a hotel down the street from ours for a better of Kili. Unfortunately, she stayed behind the clouds all day, and now I get to say I've been to Moshi Tanzania and I've never seen Kilimanjaro... The waiter of the rooftop bar asked us how our day was, to which we replied "it was ok, but we couldn't find a group for a safari tomorrow, so now we'll go to Arusha to find one". He replied "I know someone in Arusha, I can call them". Within 10 minutes we had our safari booked for 160$/day, so 320$USD total, and he reserved a room for us in the hotel he works in for 25,000TZS for the night - that's as cheap as it gets for Arusha! We were pumped! All we had to do was bus to Arusha, walk 10 minutes to the hotel, and everything was settled. That rooftop beer turned out to be super productive!Read more