To Arusha and Beyond!

We flew to Nairobi on Monday, after spending a Beautiful Sunday at a flee market in Joburg, Eugene or Portland Saturday Market style with artisans and performers. We discovered that the people most friendly and willing to help out are those that also want to help themselves out. Our first lesson was after retrieving our baggage at the airport in Nairobi when a very friendly cab agent volunteered to reserve our hotel and book our shuttle tickets to Arusha. It was so easy... too easy. The cab and hotel we believe we got for a fair market value, we did however pay an unintentional convenience tax of about $30 US for the shuttle, almost double what we would have paid.

Tuesday morning we left for Arusha, Tanzania. A bumpy ride took us across the border where we paid an especially hefty $200 to get visas to the land of Kilimanjaro. Everybody else was either getting in for free, or paying half or less. We consoled ourselves by viewing this as 'Bush Tax.' More bumps and dust through Masai land finally brought to another set of very friendly people. A group networked by cell phones politely stalked us, tracking our every move and offering to hook us up at every corner. After we talked about a particular tour company at our coffee shop table, Najam left to buy something at a store near by. Apparently a guy was waiting for him inside who introduced himself as being from that very tour company. His buddy had phoned him from the table next to us. It seems many people in the tourism industry here make money by inserting themselves as middle men. The situation was annoying but a little comical.

One aspect of Arusha that we did not know about before coming here is that it is the home of the UN's International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. It is an international court set up to deal with the war crimes of the infamous Rwandan genocides. Visitors are allowed to observe certain sessions from a glass viewing gallery, with ear phones for translation in multiple languages. We attended an open session for the trial of Augustin Ndindiliyimana, one of the individuals charged with masterminding the genocide. When we walked in we didn't have any context, and the proceedings were a little difficult to follow. Clearly whatever was taking place was slow and arduous. It was quite creepy to be separated by little more than a thin sheet of glass from someone who may have been responsible for the murder of close to a million human beings. The smiles and the joviality of the accused were disturbing to say the least.

On to what we came for ... we are now booked for a 6 day trip up the mountain, via the Machame route, for tomorrow, December 6th. Wish us luck!