I promise I won't complain about MegaBus anymore!

After facing the daunting task of cleaning off the mud after the waterfall hike, I faced the equally imposing challenge of packing to leave. It didn't really kick in that I was leaving until I actually put my backpack in the van the next morning. Probably because I had been living out if it for the past few weeks so it didn't actually feel like packing.

Next came the even worse part of saying goodbye. Yes some people were traveling with me and yes some people had already left, but I can honestly say that I was as close with the people I met there as any of my friends who I've known for years at home. Unfortunately, that just makes goodbyes even harder. I had leaned from camp that going through tough and challenging times makes you closer, and it turns out, the tougher, more unique and weirder the experiences are the closer you get. So to everyone there, I didn't say I hope to see you again, because I know we'll make the effort to definitely see each other again.

Ok, sappy part over. I promise. Wednesday morning rolls around and we begrudgingly pull ourselves out of bed at the crack of dawn to catch our 7 a.m. bus to Dar Es Salaam. Four of us had chosen to take the bus to Dar and then a ferry to Zanzibar since it was significantly cheaper than flying. We were leaving a day before the people flying were scheduled to come since the bus ride is a wonderfully long one clocking in at 9 hours. Rather inconveniently, the last ferry of the day leaves at 5 p.m. So since we didn't want to risk missing it if our bus was late for some reason, we decided to book a hotel for the night, and take the ferry bright an early (again) at 7 the next morning.

Turns out it was a good idea since the bus ride actually was 11 1/2 hours. To add to the fun, the AC was broken in the bus. At first, it didn't matter much to us since Arusha is at a high elevation and is generally cooler than other areas of Tanzania. It was also early morning and we were still huddled in our sweatshirts so we brushed off the bus attendant when she seemed concerned about it. We should have been concerned as well since about halfway there it started getting really hot. What made it worse was that the windows opened awkwardly so you either got no breeze or your cheeks were billowing out from the force.  The bus was actually fairly nice and what surprised me was that they had a bus attendant just like airplanes do. We even got complimentary soda, water, and mints. How exciting.

Upon arriving in Dar, where it was still sweltering at 7 p.m., we got a cab and gave him the name of the hotel. As we start to get closer and eventually pull up, we start to get kind of nervous. It doesn't really seem like the best area to be in. After we go in and find out it's the wrong hotel, we are relieved as we head off to the correct hotel. Too bad the actual hotel isn't in a much better area. It's definitely better since there's no creepy market right outside in the middle of the street like the other place, but we made sure (as always) to not be along outside.

Dar Es Salaam is a much larger city than Arusha so it was kind of intimidating but after nearly 4 weeks of getting used to the busy life, it wasn't that bad. If TVE were based there and my first impression was of Dar and not Arusha, I think I would be much more intimidated. The one thing I was completely jealous of was that their dala dalas were minibuses so you could actually stand up straight inside instead of breaking your back and breathing (literally) on top of some other poor passengers like this:

A typical ride in a dala dala in Arusha. Our butts are also currently
 in peoples' faces.You just can't see since it's so cramped.

When we get to our hotel (the correct one) we lug our luggage (haha see what I did there?) up to our rooms. They're clean and fairly decent with mosquito nets which, now that we're in an area where malaria actually is present, is a good sign. The only disconcerting things were that they printed the name of the hotel on all of the linens (probably to prevent reselling) but it looks like the print they use in prisons. There also was a mysterious moldy stick in a cup of water in the bathroom and Jo and I decided neither of us wanted to touch it so we kind of just left it:

p.s. sorry the picture is sideways....

Now, we don't actually know the cause but for some reason all of our feet swelled up during the bus journey. Not like "oh maybe my feet are a little puffy" more like "OH MY GOD my toes are sausages, my ankles are friggin' tree trunks, and I actually can't take my flip flops off!" Maybe it had something to do with the altitude change or just the fact that we were on a bus for 11+ hours with only 1 or 2 breaks. Once at the hotel, I proceeded to lie like this:

sorry this one is sideways too. womp womp.

for the next hour or so until my feet returned to a somewhat more normal size (that didn't actually happen until the next morning).

One other thing we had noticed about Dar was that there were significantly more Muslims than in Arusha. We decided to wait a bit to get dinner not only so we could shower, but also because no place was likely to be open since it was still light out when we first arrived. We didn't need to wait long but once it was dark it was like the city became more alive if it was possible. We went to a place around the corner and I'd never seen a place so packed in Tanzania yet. The food was very good and the people watching was even better.

The next morning we woke up at the crack of dawn (again) so that we could get to the port in time to get our tickets printed and get good seats. We had planned on getting outside seats near the edge since the recent ferry disaster was still uncomfortably fresh in our minds (for those who didn't hear there a ferry sank off the coast on its way to Zanzibar). The boat ended up being really nice and we realized that it was a different company's boat that had been in the accident so we plopped ourselves in the nice first class area hoping no staff kicked us out since technically we didn't have tickets for it. Thankfully, there were loads of extra seats since it was so early and no one bugged it. We thought it was hilarious that they handed out "sick bags" to everybody:

My face is a little less convincing than Aimee's is....

After a very comfortable 2 hour ride we stepped off into Stonetown, the capital of Zanzibar. FUN FACT: Zanzibar is actually a separate country from mainland Tanzania (which is actually called Tanganyika) with it's own president and everything. That's important because that means we needed to go through customs. Luckily for us, the work permit that we had to get in order to volunteer legally gave us resident status and we breezed right through without filling out any paperwork. Now we in Zanzibar and our adventures could begin!

You expect me to climb THAT?

As I mentioned in my last post, we had planned to go on a waterfall hike on Sunday morning. Unfortunately, our laziness messed it up. We had asked the guides to meet at 9 a.m. instead of their usual 8 a.m. since we were lazy butts and wanted to sleep in a little. Unfortunately, we weren't the only ones going in the hike, but we were the only ones to request a time change. So the guides show up at 8 and meet with a group of people and leave since they assume they have everyone. 9 o'clock rolls around and meander our way to the meeting point and watch as the minutes roll by. By 9:30 we call someone who can get in contact with the guides and we eventually find out that we had been left behind. Still wanted to go on the hike before we leave Wednesday for Zanzibar, we choose to go Tuesday.

So, Tuesday comes and again, we are lazy so we’ve asked the guides to come at 9 instead of 8. Luckily, this time around we’re the only ones going so we meet up with the guides and we’re off. In order to get to the waterfall, or even in the area where we begin hiking, we need to take a dala dala and then we had a choice. We could either walk the whole way, which they estimated would take about 30 minutes (lies….) or we could take boda bodas. 

This is a boda boda:

They're basically motorcycles that act as taxis. The benefits are they’re cheaper than taxis, usually, faster, can go places that cars might not fit, and to be honest they're way more fun. That being said, everything that’s fun is almost certainly dangerous and this takes the cake with the most dangerous thing I did all trip. Most of the motorbikes don’t have back for the passenger to lean on so you either hold onto the driver, or if you're lucky your bike might have a strap on the seat that you hold onto. Some locals just balance and hope the driver doesn’t gun the engine to start. For me, someone who’s been on a motorcycle more than once in my lifetime, I didn’t see it as much of a challenge. Some girls who had never been on one before though, that was a different story.

“OH MY GOSH! How do I stay on?!?”

-“Well you can hold onto the driver”

“but what if he falls off too?”

-“he’s driving how would he fall off?”

“yeah but what if? you never know!”

Needless, to say they all got over it pretty fast and ended up having a blast.

Believe it or not, I've seen more
people on boda bodas than this.

Finally enjoying the ride!

The one thing that did worry me was the lack of a helmet. The drivers might have one (mine did) but usually not. It’s a good thing you had room in your luggage next to your blow dryer and crème brulee torch to squeeze in your morotcycle helmet. What’s that? You didn’t have room? Oh well, in that case-  no helmet for you!

Now, I will be the first to admit that I don’t usually wear a helmet when I go for a bike ride at home. But, I bike on pedestrian trails mostly where there’s nothing really bigger than me to run into except the occasional tree if I’m feeling clumsy that day. If I rode my bike in a city at all or often on busy streets with cars, I would definitely wear a helmet. This is probably much to the surprise of my dad who’s favorite past time is nagging me about wearing a helmet.

It also wouldn’t have worried me as much if the drivers actually followed the traffic laws, but really, I had been there for almost 4 weeks so I knew that was wishful thinking and threw it out the window real quick. Everything you hear about motorcycles swerving in and out of cars, cutting cars off, going waaaaay faster than they should (especially over speed bumps), it’s like these guys try to break every single law and if they don’t it's not a successful ride. But like I said, it was cheap, the most fun I’d had getting around, and equally the most dangerous way.

Unfortunately, they didn't actually let me drive it. dang.

So the ride took about 20 minutes by boda boda and let me just say that if we had walked it, we would have not even wanted to go on the hike at all. It was all uphill and I’d say a good 3-4 miles. It would’ve taken us at least and hour and a half to haul our fat butts up that and then have to go on the hike. Another bonus was that the views of Arusha were spectacular on the ride, but only when we weren’t blinded by the dust. It was INCREDIBLE the amount of dust and dirt that we were covered in by the time we got off. I couldn’t get my shirt properly clean until I washed it at home and there was an outline of where my sunglasses were.

It may not be obvious, but our noses and foreheads are not
commonly that particular shade of brown.

So we finally start our hike after paying our drivers the correct amount (Damaris accidentally gave her driver a 500 note instead of 5000. He looked so sad and confused). The area looks very similar to Hoover or places I would hike in the States. At one point, one of our guides plucked something from a plant and popped it in his mouth. I swooped in on him like a hawk- “what was that?” “was it a fruit? A leaf?” “is it sweet?” “are there more? Can you show me?” “are there a lot?” “do they grow everywhere or just here?” “is this the usual season for them?” “What was it even?” “ummm it was a wild strawberry” was the simple answer I got. Fine by me. I managed to snag one at some point and it was pretty tasty. Poor guy. I think I scared him a bit. I was just interested but I very clearly inherited the  eating-strange-plants-at-random-times gene. Thanks dad.

Pretty but this was the super-de-duper easy part.

The hike itself was quite the challenging adventure. The route we took was to follow the little creek that comes from the waterfall and follow it upsteam. However, to get down to the stream the path literally drops straight down as some points. It was basically what I’m used to hiking at camp except a lot steeper and muddier. Kind of like a muddy waterslide only, you don’t have your bathing suit so you don’t want to actually slide down. I was quite surprise and proud of our group since we didn’t have a single person fall. We had the occasional slip and slide down a few feet but nothing bad.

hooray for super steep and muddy paths! NOT.

Once down near the stream we walk along it continually crossing back and forth which was fine for the guide who were wearing flip flops. On the other hand, it was a tad tricky for all of us wearing sneakers that we didn’t want to get wet. There were some terribly graceful moments on our part when trying to balance and walk on the slippery stones. I wish I had more pictures, it would be such good blackmail.

This is what the majority of our walk looked like. Claustrophobes beware.

There were some parts of the stream that were blocked off by gigantically large boulders. Some were ok to climb over, others had fallen branches and logs as a kind of ramp going up them but one stands out in my mind as being particularly awkward and difficult. It was fairly smooth (aka little to no places to hold onto) and I’d guess six and a half feet high. One of the guides had been ahead of us and he’s already up there and I’m looking around for what he used before I realized he had just scaled it. Once I got over how impressive it was, I realized he expected me to do the same. “You serious expect me to climb up THAT?” Thankfully, they didn’t, and thankfully they were both (very) strong and hoisted/gave us a boost up and over.

Aimee's turn to climb Mt. Nearly Impossible!

After that it was smooth sailing to the waterfall which just kinda pops out at you from around a corner. It was GORGEOUS. My pictures truly don’t do it justice at all. We decided to climb up behind it which proved to be harder done than said. First off, we had to climb barefoot since parts were basically a mud pit. I actually sank into mud up past my ankle at one point so very good call on that part. The only other problem was that it was mostly rock under the mud so you sank right through and had to try and grip the slippery muddy rock and hope you don’t slip and slide into the person behind you. It was a fun experience and we all got to laugh at each other afterwards about how dirty we were getting on this trip. I decided to wear flip flops on the way back which made walking up the stream a breeze but the climb back up was a bit more challenging with my feet slipping out of my shoes every few steps.

 

For all camp people, I was indeed singing "See the Pretty Waterfall" the entire time. =)

Seeing as we were already muddy it was unsurprising we purposefully made ourselves even muddier.

HA! Proof that I do (occasionally) smile for nice pictures mom!

We again took boda bodas back to the main road, which, again, was fun and dangerous. My driver was the first to get settled with me on board and he took off like a cork out of a bottle. It took a good 4 or 5 minutes for the next person to catch up with us. Not that I minded too much (who doesn’t like going fast?), but it’s still the whole no helmet thing. And although it wasn't exactly like this:

 This certainly is an accurate description of how I felt when my butt went flying off of the seat as we went over speed bumps. It happened a few too many times for my liking upon reflection....

Overall, AWESOME day trip to finish our stay in Arusha with! 

That puddle with algae better not be the hot springs...

When I got back from the safari I had a new placement for volunteering. I had sent in a request before we left since all I was really doing at the first school was typing up tests and other secretary work. The new school I was placed at was EXTREMELY different from the one I had just come from. There were only 4 classrooms: class one and middle class both which had about 18-22 students each, preparatory class which had a whopping total of 3 kids in it, and baby class, by contrast, had over 75 small toddlers screaming the alphabet at once. They were undoubtedly adorable, but the school clearly needed my help more than the first one. I was actually interacting with kids in the classroom, helping to teach, and spending time with them during break. Unfortunately, I only spent about a week there since I switched over 2 weeks into volunteering and we had made plans to leave a few days early to get to Zanzibar. I know that I did help at the first school, but I had such a better experience at the second school and I wish I had been placed there to begin with.

Sassy AND cute!

                           

Outside for break with Carol, the other AWESOME volunteer at the school.

The classroom I was placed in.

The teacher in this classroom was kind of awkward but he was a nice guy and fun to be around. At one point I was talking to him while the kids were doing a writing exercise and he said, "You're good with kids. Do you have any of your own?" I, of course, laughed at that and assured him that I had no kids. I also tried to convey that I was commonly thought to be too young to have children in the society I lived in, but I think it was hard to grasp through the language barrier. His english was good, one of the best I had encountered actually, but there was definitely still something lost in translation. His next question was "Are you married then?" and again, I laughed and told him I thought myself too young to marry. He then was curious at how young I must be and asked my age. When I told him I was 19 he seemed surprised and was amazed at how I was traveling by myself this young. Now, I do realize I'm a young traveler, but seriously, this guy didn't seem that much older than me and he was acting as though I was a tweeny bopper running around the world alone.

I then decided to ask how old he was. "Oh I'm only 21.".........now it was my turn to be shocked that this guy was only 2 years older than me. He could literally be my older brother and here he was acting as though he was so much older than me. Granted, he did seem older than that being a teacher and all and living on his own. Turns out he takes college classes at night too. I guess it was a bigger shock for me considering I come from a society with such a radically different schooling system. I was used to the teachers, even kindergarten and pre-school, having college degrees. To see schools where the basic qualifications to be a teacher is to read, write, and have some math skills was undoubtedly a surprise. It definitely opened my eyes to how privileged I was to have the schooling I did.  Regardless, the teachers and headmaster there do put the most effort into teaching despite what their training might be and they were great to be around.

That Saturday after my new placement we all decided to take a day trip to Moshi. Moshi is the city/town place that many people stay at when hiking up or around Mt Kilimanjaro. It's a fairly bustling place, a bit busier than Arusha, but very similar to what we were used to. They do have a lot of shops and a bunch of them sold items like bags and elephant pants cheaper than in Arusha so of course we were stocking up.

After lunch and shopping (and getting sunburnt for me) we headed off to the hot springs that are nearby. Now, "nearby" and "hot" are both very general terms. The springs are a 20 minute bus ride from Moshi...and then an hour long taxi drive. So, yes, they are closer to Moshi than Arusha, but nearby isn't exactly the term I'd be using. The drive was interesting to say the least. Our drive had a single CD playing the entire time which had about 7 songs. I wouldn't have complained as much had they not been love ballads. ALL of them. Plus, half of which were in Swahili. We also had the added fun of having 6 people crammed in the taxi in addition to the driver. Comfy cozy!

When we finally arrive it was actually quite the surprise since we had been driving through more of a desert the whole time instead of some place that looked like it had a hot spring. At one point there was  a hose leading to a shallow pool of water that was a not-so-lovely shade of green, which, thankfully, was not the hot spring. But lo and behold, we keep driving, turn the corner, and there it was.

Clinging to the branch to prevent being
swept away by the current. And yes, there
WAS actually a current.

Getting in and out of the spring itself was a bit tricky since all around it was muddy and slippery. There were a bunch of tree roots that were somewhat helpful for lowering yourself in and clambering out (both in a not-so-graceful manner). There was also a cool rope swing that you could swing into the water with. Although I don’t quite have the upper body strength to do cool tricks (yet. just wait until after rugby season), it was the preferred way to get in the water. A few local boys were doing tricks with it. They also climbed impressively, and dangerously, up the trees and dropped into the water which I decided I wouldn't risk. I probably couldn't even hoist my butt up there so it wasn't even a problem!

As I mentioned earlier, "hot" is not what I'd call the temperature of the water. It was more of a not-completely-freezing type of temperature. It was still cool and refreshing (especially to us who had been crammed in a dusty taxi for the past hour), but I did adjust to it faster than say the ocean or a swimming pool. I overheard some other people talking about it though, and they were saying it was loads warmer than the cold springs they had swum in previously. I guess it's all just relative. I'm not so sure I would be as willing to swim in a cold spring if it was much cooler than the not-hot-but-barely-lukewarm-spring.

I don't think a single one of us is looking at the camera....

There was also no place to change here except for a tarp hastily thrown over a branch. We had conveniently had decided before we left to wear our swimsuits under out clothes so it wasn't that bad. Afterwards was a bit tricker getting back into clothes. I wasn't riding home in a wet swimsuit since I did not particularly feel like getting diaper rash. That meant I had to tap into my skills of changing in and out of a bathing suit with only a towel. Thank god I perfected it years ago at camp. =)

Anyways, it's a cool place and I'm glad we made the "nearby" stop to it on our way back. I returned to my school one last day on Monday. We had tried to schedule a waterfall hike on Sunday, but it eventually didn't work out and we rescheduled it for Tuesday. Since we had already made plans to leave for Zanzibar on Wednesday, that meant it was my last day at the school. Although I've done a fairly hefty amount of volunteer work here in the States with Girl Scouts and school and whatnot, The time I spent in both of the schools was definitely the most eye opening experience of my life. If I had chosen to simply travel and not volunteer I definitely would not have had the same experiences. Tourist Tanzania and real Tanzania are two very different things. I can safely assume that it's fairly similar across Africa and many parts of the world, but I can DEFINITELY say that I prefer the real world experiences. Not only has it made me more open minded and aware of my privileged position in the world, but it also makes for WAY better stories. =)