Moshi

We made our way back from our safari and stayed another night in the town of Arusha. We stayed at the same place again. Le Jacaranda hotel. We will miss this place, it’s so relaxing. We will miss Moses, so friendly and helpful. It was sad to say goodbye. Maybe we will see him again someday.

You Are Taking Your Chances Every Time You Get On The Road Here

We did not write about this at the time in fear of terrifying our families back home. We had just started our one year of world travel. We can add it to our site now that we are safe and sound back home.  We had a bus come racing behind us and do the typical thing of passing. Everyone seems to have to pass everyone else here continuously. It is always a race to get to your destination. The chances we have seen vehicles take while trying to over take each other is shocking.

Shortly after this bus passed us we came across the most horrifying seen. The bus had hit a person on a motorcycle just after passing us. The man on the motorcycle laid deceased on the road and so did many other people from the bus, including a young boy.  The bus laid on it’s side.

We were the first vehicle to come onto the scene. We stopped immediately to see what we could do.  People started to cover the bodies with clothing or whatever they had available. Our bus took on many of the injured passengers. Many had head wounds and bleeding areas of cuts. We had been chatting with an Australian couple sitting behind us. The four of us were the only foreigners on the bus. Myself and the Australian girl could not help but start to shake and sob uncontrollably, it was just all too traumatic.

The strange thing was, it wasn’t like the other people on the bus were not concerned or compassionate, but they really did not seem that upset by the whole ordeal. Perhaps this just happens way too often and they become numb to it. After getting everyone we could onto our bus the driver actually asked if everyone minded if we took the injured to the hospital. We all yelled out of course not, let’s get going.

The worst part of this ordeal was yet to be seen. We couldn’t believe the hospital we were leaving these people at. It was nothing more than a shack of a building. God only knows what kind of conditions and lack of equipment they have inside. We felt sick as we drove off knowing they might not be able to provide adequate care to some of the injured.

Upon arriving at our hotel we were still quite shaken up. I couldn’t stop the tears from rolling down my cheeks as we were checking in. The lady was staring at me wondering what was wrong with me. I finally told her in a cracked voice because I could hardly speak. She hardly reacted, even when we had stated there were deceased people laying along side the road. Another gentleman behind her said it happens all the time. The drivers will not slow down.

The Town Of Moshi

Moshi is a fairly laid back town. It is much smaller than Arusha. Apparently the area has the largest amount of educational institutes in Tanzania. It is also a major coffee plantation area. We splurged and stayed two nights in a hotel that had air conditioning. We were very thankful.

Several times, including this hotel, we have had pillows that have weighed 10 lbs and were like sleeping on a bag of rice! Someone could get seriously hurt in a pillow fight with these things!

The claim to fame for Moshi is that it sits on the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro. This is the town where you come to do your ascend up the mountain. We thought about doing a partial climb, but it is very expensive, and we did not feel prepared. We would like to do it some day, so it is a good excuse to come back.

It is over 19,000 feet at the top. It is one of the largest free standing mountains, and the highest elevation in all of Africa. Also one of the only mountains of its size requiring no special equipment to climb. The elevation is the killer, many people don’t make it to the top, they get altitude sickness and have to descend. Apparently going up even to the 1st or 2nd camp area offers some spectacular views.

The views of Mt Kili were incredible. The peak has permanent glaciers, I would imagine it looks even more spectacular during their long rainy season. Then the peak would totally be covered in snow.

We met up again with the  Australian couple that were on the bus when we witnessed the accident.  We arranged to go with them on a local walk into a forest area in Moshi.

We hired a local guide named Roy. He was about eighteen and quite a character. The walk was about three hours in length. We saw vervet monkeys and black and white colobus monkeys. The latter ones look like skunks flying through the trees. We got to meet Roy’s grandmother. She was at the edge of a large rice field and had been hard at work. The rice fields were amazing, we had never seen anything like it before.

We ventured further though the forest and eventually had to cut right through some rice fields. We had to balance along a dirt berm about ten inches wide. In one area a spectacular view of both the peaks of Kilimanjaro was revealed. There were many woman and men hard at work throughout the fields. Roy explained in detail how the rice was planted and harvested. It was very interesting.

As we came to the end of the walk and closer to town we once again walked through shanty villages. Small children followed us with great curiosity. After the walk we all went for a drink at a roof top bar. Later that evening we met up again for a traditional Indian dinner. It was very good. Moshi has a very rough feel to it. We were told to be very cautious here. By the time we finished our dinner it was dark. Even though it would have only been a few minutes walk back to our hotel, we were told we needed to take a taxi.