Into Tanzania (and some beer reviews...)

Going back to where my last extract trailed off, I was in Nairobi, ready for the trip down into Tanzania. Staying at a campsite a little out of town, in what has become a familiar pattern (bit of a change from my usual environment of city-centre hostels). Nice little bar there, though, which was used to good effect in getting to know a few more of my companions a bit better, and sampling the local brews.

Ah yes, the beers. Long-time aficionados of my travel diaries will possibly have been surprised at the lack of beer reviews so far, but worry no more: most Kenyan beer is pretty average cooking lager. Tusker is the ubiquitous main brand, in its yellow bottles, but is absolutely nothing special. They make a slightly more tasty one, called Tusker Pure Malt, as well. In addition to this, Kenya Breweries also produces Pilsner (drinkable), Pilsner Ice (pretty minging) and another, truly nasty, concoction which my brain has actually now blanked from my memory. So stick to Pilsner or Tusker most places in Kenya, unless you can get Tusker Pure Malt.

Anyways, getting back to the travelogue, Nairobi to Arusha was basically a long day on the road. Unfortunately, due to the near-total absence of signposting on Kenyan roads, and the fact that our driver hadn't done the route before (and was following a shortcut suggested by someone at the campsite), we took the wrong road at one point. We also had the joys of my first ever African land-border crossing, involving waiting around while someone decides whether to let me in the country now I've paid him 50 bucks. Beyond this, it was our first experience of the particular type of "feeding time at the zoo" that occurs whenever an overland truck full of kizungu (that's the plural of mzungu, which is Swahili for "white person" - apparently derives from a word for wandering around aimlessly, and comes from the same root as their word for drunkenness!) pulls up anywhere. Street traders, conmen and every other Tom, Dick and Harry turn up and cluster around the truck like a school of piranhas, waving things up at the windows, and yelling out prices. Sometimes this can be handy (you get much better deals here than in the Nairobi markets or the tourist-focused souvenir shops near the National Parks, for example) but other times it's really annoying. And it gets even worse when you get off the truck, and get nearly mobbed by people trying to sell batik prints, Maasai spears, necklaces, bracelets, drinks, advice, etc etc etc.

Anyways, we made it over the border with no real issues, and carried on down across the plains to Arusha (note that this was actually the second time I'd been on Tanzanian soil, as we went down to the border in the Maasai Mara reserve, where it abuts the Serengeti, and walked over the line there with nary a border patrol-man in sight...). There we had an even more extreme case of feeding frenzy, and a bit of a wild-goose chase trying to find an ATM that was both working and accepted Visa-type cards. In the end, who should ride to the rescue but Barclays? In the last month or so, I've seen their ATMs in Spain, Portugal, Kenya and Tanzania, none of which I would particularly have expected before organising these various trips. We also made a visit to a big Tanzanian supermarket, which was depressingly similar to a big European supermarket (and at the same time, made a nice change from bargaining for everything and worrying about getting totally scalped...). Then it was on to our campsite, actually 20kms outside Arusha (we're applying the Ryanair principle of where you're allowed to claim something is) at a place called Meserani, and co-located with a Snake Park.

Yes, a Snake Park. Well, actually a Reptile Park (they've got some crocs and an iguana as well) but it's branded as Meserani Snake Park. It's one of what I am coming to realise are a very common string of campsites catering principally to the burgeoning Overland trade in Africa - when we arrived there, there was another (northbound) Acacia bus there, along with a couple of other companies' trucks whose inhabitants were in residence and four more which were parked up there while their members were out in Serengeti/Ngorongoro. For that is the raison d'etre of Arusha - it's the main base for the "northern circuit" of national parks in Tanzania, of which the two most famous are Serengeti National Park and Ngorongoro Conservation Area, and that's where we were headed the next day.

First though, we were introduced to the joys of the Meserani Snake Park bar, which, with four trucks in residence, was humming. The whole ceiling is covered in flags, rugby shirts and T-shirts donated by guests over the years, many of them signed, some of them in visible stages of disrepair, but it certainly has that "travellers' bar" vibe. This is not a place to go if you want a "genuine African experience". This is a place to go to meet other backpackers and get drunk. Which is what many of us did, culminating in a few arguments between we White-Nilers (our truck is called White Nile - all Acacia's are named after African rivers) and the crew of the Limpopo, who were on the final night of their northbound trip up to Nairobi, having already done their Serengeti thang. All fairly good-spirited, though one particularly loud-mouthed young lady (wearing a veil, rather confusingly - apparently a custom off the Limpopo) tried to pick a fight with me at one point in the evening. In the end, we final stragglers (including my tent-mate Jon and me) made it home around 4am. With a 6am start to come. Oh dear.

And that's where I'll sign off this instalment, to aid reading. More to come soon, featuring Serengeti and Ngorongoro.

Pat