In Moshi it was hard to find a campsite as Key´s Hotels campsite was closed because of low season and Honey Badger does not supply campsites any moe. But the school beside this Lodge offers a safe place in the schoolyard. Beside this the headmaster tried to sell handcrafts. The weather was still cloudy, no chance to see a tiny piece of the Kilimanjaro. The trekking up to the top would have cost more than 2000 $ for the two of us so it was easy to decide to skip it. (We haven’t really trained our bodies either). Furthermore a couple from South Africa told us that they are here for the fifth time and only could see the Kili once and that the best chances are in August, so we have to come back in the future. We went on towards Arusha, stayed a night at Lake Duluti that reminded us of our lakes in Sweden. But when we wanted to do a short walk around the lake next morning, we were told that we have to pay 12 $ each for walking on that little path as it belongs to a nature reserve. No thanks, we will walk in Sweden instead.
In Arusha we asked at a Land Rover garage whether Alexander could use the backyard to maintain our Landy. No chance, the Asian guy didn’t even look at him, just communicated via his secretary. In opposite to Fortes, which had a customer workshop in earlier days besides renting out travel vehicles immediately jumped into our car to show us the way to “their” garage. We wouldn’t have found Kahindi Auto Repair in the Sakina Area, where we had to pass some really poor people which are sitting on the ground with their hammers, producing gravel out of piles of stones, day by day. We stayed three nights at the Masai Camp so Alexander had enough time to fix the steering. Finally he put in a steering damper. This cured the wobble for now and hopefully until home. They even tried to fix the broken bonnet lock, but the African solution was not really satisfying. The manager’s brother, who was working at the sewing machine, made us new canvas covers for our small folding chairs.
In Arusha we found a nice place to eat – Ciao Gelati – Swiss owned, good coffee, delicious dishes as spinach risotto, avocado soup or chicken wrap. We met again Veron & Tom from the Netherlands who managed to drive the whole African west coast down to South Africa. It’s always fascinating that against all odds nothing is impossible in Africa. If you are interested how they managed it, have a look at their blog: www.ourlongwaydown.com. Just before we left Arusha we had the chance to see the top of Mount Meru, Tanzanias second highest mountain with 4566 m height.
After we had stocked up with food and diesel we went to Karatu to fix our permit to enter the Ngorongoro Crater. We passed Maasai with their cattle and goatherds within an amazing landscape, the Maasai-Plains, saw many Land Rovers along the street and tour operators passing by. On a Saturday the banks even had open until 12, so we settled some money into the bank account of Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority, collected a permission card at their office and passed through the gate late in the afternoon as the permit was valid for 24 hours.
Series 2 Africa 