An adventure to Arusha National Park

Today was time for another adventure. We got up, ate breakfast, got dressed and packed our things for the day, each of us equipped with our cameras. It was time to try our luck with Arusha National Park.

We loaded onto a dala dala, the local "bus system" here and rode for awhile before paying our fee of 500 Tsh. The driver had us get off at what we thought was our stop but then motioned us to the next dala dala that would take us the rest of the way. Classic. This is usually how our adventures begin. Being shuffled around from one place to the next, not exactly knowing what's going on but we seem to be heading in the right direction and have managed to land on our feet each time.

This time was no different. We got off at our stop and then starte walking but realized after a short ways that we had no idea where we were going. Fortunately a taxi driver caught up to us that spoke English pretty well and helped us find a dala dala to Ngongongare Gate, one of the main entrances to the park. Again, we were hesitant but thankful for the direction.

It took awhile for us to get going as they typically wait to pack the dala dala as full as possible and then we were off. We made a couple stops and then POP!! We're not exactly sure what happened but we think a tire popped. The money collector and the driver got out and started jacking up the car to put on what we assume was a spare tire. We knew it was only a matter of time before we managed to hope on a dala dala before it broke down. No big deal though, we were back on the road heading towards our destination.

On our way to the gate a monkey/baboon ran right in front of our dala dala!! So cool!! Then as we pulled in and paid our fare, there were giraffes right there at the gate!! It was amazing! We were within feet of these huge animals!

We wandered around looking at the giraffes for a little bit, talked to a few people to see if there was space for us to bum a ride with anyone and finally decided to just go in and pay the entrance fee and hopefully be able to hire a guide for a walking safari. When we mentioned that this was what we wanted to do, the guy looked at us like we were insane. He couldn't figure out how we had gotten there or how we expected to take a walking safari from that gate. Apparently we needed to go to the Momella Gate. Would have been nice to know but oh well. We walked out and tried to figure out how we were going to get there and just as we were about to start our way back to Usa River where we could catch a taxi to the right gate, a guy came up and explained that he had overheard that we needed transportation and he happened to have 3 extra seats to go through the park with him and his mom. What?! I'm sorry but there's gotta be a catch...

We proceeded to go through the park and ended up being their photographers since their camera battery had died. We got to see giraffes, warthogs, buffalo, gazelles, more monkeys/baboons and tons and tons of flamingoes. The flamingoes smell really bad by the way.

We went through the park and had a great time. Earlier when we had been trying to figure out what we were doing, our new friends mentioned that they were going to the snake park in Arusha. Since they were headed back our direction anyways, they insisted on taking us back and dropped us off at the same dala dala stop we had left that morning. We offered to at least be able to pay them for gas but they simply refused and insisted that we come to Moshi sometime and they would show us around.

I'm pretty sure we could not have planned this day if we tried.